Policing and Crime Bill

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble and learned friend the Minister for his explanation of the Bill. There appear to be many desirable components in it, some of which may help to address my concerns. The first one is that I am extremely unhappy with how the police exercise their powers, especially in some of the very high profile cases that have arisen in recent years. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, went into greater detail on those. I understand the need for the operational independence of the police, and in particular that there should be no political interference, but it is not clear how the police are held to account for operations, especially in cases of misjudgment rather than criminality or serious misconduct. Further, I am not clear on what useful role the courts or the judiciary have in issuing warrants. In some of the high profile cases that were referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, a warrant would have been issued. I would like to explore in Committee exactly what the role of the judiciary is.

Closely linked to the issue of the conduct of the police in investigations is leadership in the police. My noble friend Lord Wasserman touched on integrity in the police, which is a closely related issue. So far as I am aware, the police do not objectively measure leadership. They might measure integrity, management and the ability to command a situation, but they do not objectively measure leadership, by which I mean the art of getting people to do things they do not really want to do: unlike in the Armed Forces, where no matter how clever or charismatic you are—although I accept that charisma is slightly linked to leadership—if you do not have innate leadership qualities, you are not going to get a commission.

I intend to raise these two matters in Committee in great detail. However, I may be pleasantly surprised by some of the provisions in the Bill when we look at it closely. There is certainly plenty of scope for amendments to address my issues.

What I want to spend most of my time addressing is Clause 114 dealing with deactivated firearms. I declare an interest as I inherited my grandfather’s Webley .455 First World War revolver. I took the decision to have it deactivated in order to be absolutely certain that it could not cause a tragedy and so that it could not fall into the wrong hands and create a problem. Originally I had a firearms certificate which said that the weapon was not to be fired, but there was always the possibility of a child acquiring just one round and that one round causing a complete disaster. However, it did cost me money to have the pistol deactivated and I must have significantly lowered its value, because collectors with the right type of firearms certificate will pay a lot more money for a serviceable firearm than a deactivated one, but it was worth it for the reassurance.

The Prime Minister has always said that Brexit means Brexit, but she said it after this Bill had been drafted. I have not got fully to the root of this issue, but it appears that Clause 114 seeks to include any EU regulation or directive in the UK regime for firearm deactivation. Clause 114 is to be found on page 131. It introduces the concept of a defectively deactivated firearm. My grandfather’s Webley 455 would fall into that category. Thus I can keep it, I do not need a firearms certificate or any record of its deactivation, although the proof house would have a record of its deactivation inspection. However, I cannot sell or transfer it.

In Committee I will suggest redrafting Clause 114(4) so that either a UK-spec or an EU-spec deactivation is okay, but I suspect that the Minister will violently resist that suggestion because he cannot possibly accept such an amendment, the reason being that an EU-spec deactivation is far below the standard of a UK-spec deactivation. I would suggest that the standard to be achieved needs to make it more difficult to reactivate a deactivated firearm than to make a new one. That is what the UK spec achieves. Of course, I am making the assumption that an engineering workshop is available with the necessary machines.

I am a little unclear why the EU deactivation spec is so poor. I understand that it involves changing the material in the steel plug in the barrel. In other words, it is necessary to temporarily reactivate the UK deactivated firearm and then put in the plug to EU specifications. However, we should remember that the EU specification for deactivation is not good enough for UK standards. That perhaps accounts for the rather odd drafting of Clause 114.

Does this matter? The UK has many collectors of deactivated firearms. They cause no problem, and that is why the Bill does not restrict ownership of deactivated firearms. If they are used to cause distress to other citizens, there are very serious offences already in the Firearms Act. There will be plenty of collectors who have collections worth tens of thousands of pounds. Such collections could be made worthless. My grandfather’s Webley 455 is considerably reduced in value. It may be worthless, because it would not be worth the cost of having it deactivated to EU specifications. It would not particularly be a problem for me if my grandfather’s Webley had no value. But for collectors, and there are lots of them, this is a very big problem.

If Brexit does mean Brexit, surely we can just delete Clause 114. Failing that, I hope I can have a meeting with the relevant Home Office experts and the appropriate Lords Minister—I understand that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, will be taking the Bill through. Obviously, any such meeting would need to be before we reach Committee stage. In conclusion, I look forward to the subsequent stages of the Bill and to supporting the Minister, while not neglecting my concerns, particularly about police leadership and Clause 114.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I cannot account for the voters of Humberside, my Lords, but there we are.

We are developing proposals to implement the governance of single-employer models. If there is no agreement, a PCC can submit a business case to the Home Secretary. I may have misunderstood the noble Lord, Lord Bach, but there is no question of a PCC being forced to proceed with a merger. I make that absolutely clear: it is only where the PCC and local authorities cannot reach consensus that the PCC will present his case to the Home Secretary and she or he will then be required to seek an independent assessment to inform their view whether the governance change would be in the interests of economy, efficiency and effectiveness. It requires independent consideration.

The question of volunteers was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and several other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. Just to be clear, these reforms will place the matter of decision-making about volunteers firmly in the hands of officers who will be able to determine on the basis of their professional expertise and local knowledge what powers are needed in their area and can properly be given to volunteers in their area. They will then designate staff for that purpose. Of course the staff will be trained; there is no question of untrained volunteers being brought in in that context.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, also raised the question of mental health provision, as did several other noble Lords, including the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark, the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Harris. To put this into context, of course a police cell is not considered a suitable place of safety. That is the impetus behind the Bill. It is only in exceptional cases with respect to adults that it would ever be contemplated. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, talked about guarantees. You cannot have guarantees at this stage. You can have provision. The Government have announced additional funding for the NHS of up to £15 million to invest in additional health-based places of safety; that provision will be available. In addition, the Bill increases the flexibility for local areas and clinical commissioning groups to explore innovative options to create additional places of safety to try to ensure that police cells are resorted to in only the most exceptional cases.

The noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Prescott, raised the question of what is sometimes termed Leveson 2. As we have already made clear, there are still ongoing criminal cases relating to part 1 of the Leveson inquiry and we have always been clear that these cases, including any appeals, must conclude before we consider part 2 of that inquiry process.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, asked about requiring passports or other identification and suggested that this was an instance of confusion between immigration enforcement and policing. With great respect, that is not the case. These powers will only ever be employed where the police have already made an arrest on the basis that an individual is suspected of committing a criminal offence, so there is no confusion there at all. This power is given to the police post-arrest in circumstances where a crime or offence is suspected. It is appropriate and proportionate that the appropriate request may be made. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, cited not only the question posed by the committee but the answer given; I do not seek to repeat that; she referred to it at length.

The noble Lord, Lord Blair, asked about firearms under Clause 37, and I undertake to write to him on that point, but he also raised a point about a lacuna with regard to specified ranks in the service. We do not accept that there is a lacuna. There may well be circumstances where the senior officer ranks could properly be filled by someone who transferred from another organisation, such as the Security Service, with the requisite experience in terrorism, for example. It would be a matter of deciding whether they had the requisite qualities and qualifications for the job. That will always be the final determining factor. It is not considered that this is simply a lacuna in the Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Bach—in fact, I have perhaps addressed this—raised the question of whether PCCs would be forced into employing the governance and employment model. As I mentioned, that is not the case.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, asked what would occur where the boundaries of a police authority and the fire authorities did not coincide. Should that be the case, it would be for the local areas to consider how the boundaries could be changed if a PCC wished to pursue taking over responsibility for the fire and rescue service. There is provision for that. It would not be part of the business case that the PCC presented that he should amalgamate fire and rescue areas for that purpose. If it was not appropriate and if there were real issues there, clearly that would be raised in the context of the business case and it might well not be made out in those circumstances.

The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, asked about doping. The Government are committed to tackling doping in sport and will continue to work with the UK Anti-Doping in sport stakeholders to ensure that athletes can compete in a clean sport environment. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is currently reviewing existing anti-doping legislation and assessing whether stronger criminal sanctions are required.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, raised issues with regard to mental health. I hope I have touched on those with regard to places of safety. She also noted that we had reduced the time for detention from 72 to 24 hours. It is considered appropriate that that period should be determined from the time at which it is possible to place someone in a place of safety, not from the point at which they are detained. That remains the Government’s position in that context. She also asked about Clause 144 with regard to the streaming of child pornography and whether its provisions would apply to all situations, including real-time streaming. The answer is that it will apply to that situation as well.

The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, asked about his father’s Webley .455 gun.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I had to declare an interest—if I did not, I would be in serious difficulty—but I was actually speaking on behalf of all people who own a deactivated firearm; they are extremely concerned about it.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I appreciate that, and I do not seek to belittle the noble Earl’s point. Clause 114 deals with defectively deactivated firearms—that is, firearms that have not been deactivated up to the standard of EU regulations—and deals with the prohibition on the sale of such firearms. No doubt, the question of involving EU regulations in that context is a matter that will have to be addressed in due course as we negotiate the various provisions with regard to Brexit.

The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, raised questions about powdered alcohol. First, he posed the question as to why it is treated differently to psychoactive substances. Essentially, it is because there is a distinct licensing regime with respect to alcohol. The potential difficulty is over whether alcohol licensing pursuant to the 2003 Act extends to powdered alcohol, because it refers in this context to liquor. So there is a doubt as to whether you are required to be licensed to sell powdered alcohol. It is to dispel that doubt and ensure that there is a licensing regime in place that those provisions are there. I hope that assists to some extent in explaining that matter.

The noble Lord, Lord Condon, referred among other things to the question of leadership skills. Indeed, it was a point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, as well. There was a question of whether enough was being done to ensure that we had these leadership skills in place, particularly for the senior ranks of the police force. In the Leadership Review published in June 2015, the College of Policing pointed to the need to create more flexibility in police careers, and we are supporting the college in examining options to encourage greater movement in this context. We would agree with the noble Lord that it is vital that all opportunities in policing should be open to the widest pool of capable candidates, and that PCCs in particular should be encouraged to look beyond their own police authority in that context. No doubt, that point will be brought home in due course.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred to the question of confusion between the role of police and immigration officials. Again, I hope that I addressed that in my earlier comments.

The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, in taking us through each area of the Bill, raised a number of issues that have been touched on already by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. He finished by referring to the question of full-cost recovery and firearms, and I am not clear as to what the position is on that but I shall write to him on it if he is pleased to receive a letter. When I say that I shall write, I mean that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, will be pleased to write to him on that matter in due course—thereby committing my noble friend to that which she had not intended when she first entered the Chamber this evening.

I appreciate that a number of additional points were raised—