Public Order

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Lords Chamber

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

I thank both noble Lords for the points that they have raised. I join them in wishing the officers who have been injured a full recovery. I understand that the figure to date is 62 and that 137 arrests have been made. I also join the noble Lords in condemning the violence. I can understand and totally concur that black lives matter but violence undermined what those people were trying to very peacefully protest about, as the noble Lords said. With regard to the destruction of the statue of Edward Colston, both noble Lords have condemned the violence, and neither are sorry to see the back of a slave trader. I can understand those points but there is a broader point about doing things in a democratic and peaceful way. Actually, that statue could have been removed years ago, had it been done in a democratic way.

It is sad that the story is no longer about Black Lives Matter but has been overtaken by violence. Behind this, of course, is the brutal killing of George Floyd; so awful was that video that I could barely watch it. Let us remember him rather than some of the violence, but we cannot escape from the need now to tackle it.

We also need to look at the public health dangers that were caused by people being far too close to one another. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, talked about the disparities involved, with black men being more susceptible to coronavirus. No one is quite sure why that is, but it certainly seems to be the case. It is all the more worrying that so many people were gathered so closely together on Sunday.

The noble Lord asked me about the Wendy Williams report response and when Parliament will hear it. Wendy Williams was very clear, as I recall from when I read out the Statement about her report, that she wanted the Home Secretary not just to have a knee-jerk reaction to it but to take some time to reflect on it, and that is what she will do. The response will be with Parliament within the allotted time limit.

The noble Lord talked about racism continuing to impact lives and about the Home Secretary understanding the burning injustices that it inflicts upon society. She talked yesterday about a whole-government response to inequality and injustice. This does not just come down to one department; actually we are all responsible for it, and so indeed is society.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, talked about the overwhelming majority of people protesting peacefully, and of course he was right. He talked about how difficult it is for the police when a peaceful protest suddenly turns violent. Of course it is; they suddenly have to adjust to a different set of circumstances, often with absolutely no notice. He talked about body-worn video helping the police, and that is true: rather than making arrests at the time, they can go back to study the video. That helps from the point of view both of the police and indeed of anyone who is being accused.

The noble Lord talked about the health advice to those front-line police. The public health advice to front-line police is absolutely the same as that for any member of the public. We know that the police are well equipped with PPE, and they should deploy it as appropriate.

The noble Lord talked about acknowledging concerns about racism in this country. I acknowledge it—I came here in the 1970s as an immigrant—and I know the Home Secretary acknowledges it as well. We have made improvements in BAME recruitment to the police, but we certainly have not got there, and Sunday was almost an explosion of that frustration.

On the noble Lord’s point about black people being 10 times more likely to be stopped and searched, the most recent publication of stop and search figures for the year ending March 2019 showed that there were a total of 383,629 searches, resulting in 58,876 arrests under Section 1 of PACE and Section 60 of CJPOA. That is down from a peak of approximately 1.2 million stop and searches in 2011. Of course, the thing about stop and search is that it is designed to help those vulnerable people who might be at risk of attack themselves. However, for both Section 1 and Section 60 there is a larger proportion of those stopped and searched who self-identify as black or BAME.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Alderdice) (LD)]

We now come to the 20 minutes allocated for Back-Bench questions. I ask that questions and answers be brief, so that I can call the maximum number of speakers.

Immigration Control (Gross Human Rights Abuses) Bill [HL]

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 15th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice (LD)]

My Lords, I support this Bill in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, and commend her for introducing it with all the persuasiveness and passion that has made her one of this country’s great advocates. Of course, she is an advocate for great causes, and this is one. It is perhaps particularly ironic that this Bill comes immediately after the last Second Reading, when we talked about unfortunate children at the mercy of events. It was about trying to open the door to enable them to come into this country, to be looked after and cared for. Here we are looking at the horrible fact that there are those who can relatively easily get into this country and bring their ill-gotten gains and indeed families with them, with remarkably little let or hindrance, when they have engaged in some of the most appalling and inhuman practices in their own parts of the world. I am as enthusiastic about dealing with the malefactors as I am in speaking for those who need our care and support.

This Bill is described as a Magnitsky Bill, but of course it is not because that is not the only case. I see the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, in his place and remember that in July 2013 he brought forward the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. There are many other such cases—and I note that the noble Lord is on the speaking list and look forward, as ever, to what he has to say about these things. This is not an isolated case—it is an ongoing, whole attitude and approach of Mr Putin’s regime. One might well say that there is a long history in that country going back to the days of the Soviet Union, where he was also a significant figure. But one of the big differences is that in those days the officials, whatever they did within the Soviet Union, tended to stay there. Now they steal from their own country and their own people and bring their ill-gotten gains and families to this country, inflating house prices in some places and certainly giving themselves a good life and all sorts of possibilities. We are permitting that to happen when we know it is wrong, but we do not have to; there are things we can do about it.

Often when things are happening that we are unhappy about—sadly, there are many of them in the world at this time—we are unable to do anything to make a difference. But it is clear that in this case, we can make a difference. When the Magnitsky Act was passed, the response from Mr Putin and his colleagues was strident: it clearly had had an impact. When he spoke in December 2012 at a press conference, it was clear from what he said and the way he said it that this was really striking home. Indeed, the Russians produced their own anti-Magnitsky Act. It was a strangely ironic thing, because they blocked the adoption of Russian children by people from the United States. There is something seedy, unpleasant and vile about that kind of response, and it tells us something about the spirit from which it comes.

It is clear to me that this is something we can and should do, and I am glad we have the opportunity presented to us to do just that.

Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill [HL]

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 15th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on bringing forward this short Bill. There are three reasons why I stand to support her and the Bill. The first is that, when I was growing up, I had a sense of pride in our country because I was aware that people had come as refugees, particularly during and after the Second World War. They had been welcomed into our country and, as other noble Lords have said, they contributed to it greatly. That was all positive. There was a sense that this was a welcoming country—one that people from other parts of the world could look to as a place of safety that would nourish and care for them—and that we as a people were doing something good and right by providing that kind of national home.

We have in recent years, for understandable pressures, changed the attitude. We are pulling up the drawbridge and instead of being an open place that has a reputation for being welcoming we are seen as a place that is hard to get to and, when you do arrive, you are no longer welcome. I do not advocate the kind of open door policy that Chancellor Merkel embarked upon—warmly but ill advisedly—because it has had adverse effects in all kinds of ways. However, I fear that our country is being infected by turning away from the other and into itself and losing its reputation and something of its soul. That is the first reason why I support the Bill. It is a sign, a symbol, an indication that there is a spirit in this country which is open and welcoming for those who need a place to come for safety.

The second reason is the practical experience I have had over a number of years of the splitting up of marriages because one partner was able to live here and the other could not. People have said, “Well, if they really want to live together the partner who has the right to live here should go elsewhere”. That is easily said. A recent example is that of a bright, capable young woman who has been given a contract by Penguin for a book that she has written. She is a British citizen, her parents are British citizens and she lives in this part of the world. Some years ago she married a young man but he cannot come here for a number of reasons to do with our regulations and rules. So she has gone to live with him, but every time she has gone she has fallen seriously ill and ended up in hospital. They have tried again and again but have been unable to get access for him. So she went back out again. I received an email from her a few days ago to say that she was back in hospital. She had not been in touch with me because she nearly died last week with typhoid and malaria. The truth of the human stories, of the splitting up of marriages and relationships, is serious and we need to regard it with due care.

The third reason, the one which moves me most, is the situation of the children. As the director of the Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict I run a group to provide supervision, advice and guidance for younger people—although increasingly everyone seems younger to me—who are working for NGOs, the Foreign Office and organisations where they are experiencing situations of conflict. They are wondering how to manage and cope emotionally themselves and how to understand the dynamics of what is happening.

A member of that group for a time was a young Syrian lawyer who had spent much of her life working in the Middle East for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. When the situation arose in Lesbos and Greece the UNHCR called upon her, saying, “We need you. Can you come? We need everyone who can”. She went out to Lesbos and every couple of days I would get photographs and emails of what was happening there. After that the situation got worse. As the news got less for us, the news got worse for them. She was asked to go to Athens to work with Greek children. Why? Because there were so many refugee children in Greece that the services could not cope with not only the incomers but with Greek children. Everything was beginning to break down in another EU country. We have a responsibility to those children as EU citizens as well as to those who come in.

Then she began to tell me about the hundreds, indeed thousands, of children who are on the road and being used and abused—inevitably so. It is almost impossible for them to find a way of surviving without ending up in the hands of either organised or disorganised crime. So when I hear people saying that we do not want to go down this road because it will only encourage people to come, I understand their concern. However, the fact is that they are already coming—they already have come—and if we do not provide the opportunity for them to live in a family circumstance, we ensure that they go into a life of crime. We are making it impossible for them to grow up in normal families of their own. As a psychiatrist I am not naive about families—they are not always perfect—but they are a lot better than the reality of the experience of these young people who are already in our country and our continent.

We should not allow ourselves to be pushed away from attending to that by the notion that in passing legislation we are opening the doors—we are not. We are setting down rules to ensure that those children who are already here are not condemned to a life of crime because it is the only way that they can survive. That is the responsibility that this Bill is trying to address, and that is why I give it my full support.

Islam: Tenets

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice (LD)]

My Lords, first, I declare my interests as in the register, in particular my directorship of the Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict at Oxford University. Having spent a great deal of time thinking about these things and then listened to the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, I do not know whether the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, will have the same nostalgic feeling that I have had, because so many of the things that I heard him say were exactly those that I grew up hearing from Dr Ian Paisley about Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland. “They’re going to breed us out”, was one of the favourite ones. “They kill people because of apostasy. Look at the Spanish Inquisition, and poor Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer burnt at the stake in Oxford for their Protestant religion”—indeed, he called his church in Belfast Martyrs Memorial because of all the Protestants who had been murdered by the Catholic Church. He was not so strong on mentioning the Catholics who had been murdered by the Protestants, but there you are: we see it from our own perspective. There were many other similarities as well.

Then came the demand: if Catholics are actually opposed to the IRA, why does the leadership of the Catholic Church not come out and say so in unequivocal terms? It is very much what the noble Lord has said about the leadership of the Muslim community. And so, one month after Lord Mountbatten, then a Member of your Lordships’ House, was murdered by the IRA, Pope Jean Paul II became the first reigning Pope to come to Ireland. As the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, referred to, he said:

“I appeal to you, in language of passionate pleading. On my knees I beg you to turn away from the paths of violence and to return to the ways of peace … To Catholics, to Protestants, my message is peace and love. May no Irish Protestant think that the Pope is an enemy, a danger or a threat”.


He appealed to young people to turn away, and so on. Within days, the IRA gave him his reply: it dismissed it. In that reply, it pointed out that the problem was a political problem and not a religious problem: it was not killing Protestants because they were Protestants, and the loyalists were not killing Catholics because they believed in transubstantiation; it was a political problem.

Sometimes, people will say, “Ah, but it is a completely different thing if you’re dealing with Islamist terrorists”. I think people sometimes need to explore the issues that they are talking about rather than simply presume. I went and spent some time talking to Abu Qatada, the European leader of al-Qaeda. I started talking to him in prison, necessarily through an interpreter, about the fact that, for me, religious faith was very important. He said, “Look, that’s fine. We can talk about religious faith if you like, but this is not a religious problem. This is a political problem. It is a political problem of what is happening in my part of the world and has been happening for a very long time”. The more I have looked at it, the more I have become convinced that he was correct—in fact, he was actually prepared to do what the IRA had been doing: to come out and say that violence would not get the political outcome they wanted. He asked me to take a personal message to the office of the Prime Minister here in the United Kingdom—the Prime Minister at the time was Gordon Brown. I took the message, but there was no interest on the part of the British Government in exploring whether Abu Qatada was prepared to come out and say, “This business of the use of violence is wrong, counterproductive and a mistake”. They were prepared to do it eventually, after a lot of pressure, with the IRA, with people like John Hume, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, but they were not prepared to do it with Abu Qatada.

The noble Lord, Lord Desai, as he very often is, is absolutely correct to make the connection with the end of the caliphate, because, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, a very short time after that some young men in Egypt said, “We’re going to come together”. Was it for the purpose of martyrdom? No. It was for the purpose of reinstituting the caliphate.

In all our religious and political backgrounds, there is great variegation. Just a couple of weeks ago, I had another long conversation, as I have had before, with Rached Ghannouchi, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and Ennahdha in Tunisia. This man is a democrat. He has demonstrated clearly that he is committed to democracy. In fact, I sometimes think he has more understanding of the basics of democracy than I find with politicians in this country because, as he says, it is not just about votes and elections; it is also about having a culture of liberal democracy that makes sure those elections are used to good purpose. He is absolutely right, of course. That is not the same as the Muslim Brotherhood everywhere but, if we paint everyone with the same brush, we will find that we make the situation worse rather than better.

That is my appeal: that we do not get mixed up about the fact that people will see religious faith from many different perspectives. As the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, said, people will interpret the scriptures written in the past in a very different way now, if they have made progress, and in the same way if they see things in a fundamentalist way. We have to address the fact that there are political problems and that we in this country have our responsibility to resolve some of those wider problems. Sadly, the events of the last 48 hours and the pronouncements from Washington have made our job much more difficult in addressing the political problems, when they should have been making them easier.

UK Border Agency

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, like other noble Lords I thank my noble friend Lord Avebury for securing this debate. Other noble Lords have paid various tributes to him; I simply draw the attention of your Lordships to the fact that Liberal International, the worldwide body of some 100 political parties, awarded him their highest prize, the Prize for Freedom. We all know why; it is because of his extraordinary lifetime of sterling service. When he raises this debate it is very much in the cause of freedom—our own and that of those who would come to visit us.

I shall touch on three areas in this brief speech. First, it seems to me that there is considerable conflict within government over the question of people coming to our country. Everyone from the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister down through ministerial departments, parliamentarians, NGOs, businesses and universities spends a great deal of time travelling the world telling people what a wonderful place this country is, how they ought to come and how beneficial it will be for all of us if they do—for conferences, to study, to do business or whatever. However, I frequently wonder whether we are being completely counterproductive, because when these people try to come to the country, they do not find the welcome that we describe; they find endless barriers, which they would never have found if they had not listened to us in the first place.

It becomes incredibly frustrating organising, for example, international political conferences. I find that even people at the level of Ministers and senior parliamentarians frequently cannot come to conferences in this country any more, because they cannot get visas and appropriate permissions; they have to travel to other countries in order to get them. Our universities have already been mentioned and it is also the case for business. Even businesspeople who live in this country but have passports from other countries frequently find it almost impossible to get in and out of the country without being obstructed in the endless queues so vividly described by the noble Lord, Lord Birt.

I ask myself why there is this inconsistency and incoherence within government about whether we want people to visit or whether we want to keep them out. We need to be clear about it. This country has never been able to survive and thrive by building a big wall around itself. It has always been an open country; that is why people want to come. In the past, other countries have built walls to keep their people in. We ought to be taking walls down to encourage the free movement of people and the rich diversity of the country.

If the first question is one of conflict within government about whether they want people to come, the second, frankly, is over the competence not only of the UK Border Agency but of the sponsoring department, the Home Office. I was astonished to find, when I asked the Bill team for the Crime and Courts Bill, which is to establish a border policing command, whether there had been any discussion between the Minister and the Minister of Justice in the Republic of Ireland—the only place with which we have a land border, where there is no requirement for any border checks and nor should there be—that there had been at that stage no consultation despite the fact that the Bill was coming to Parliament and we have institutions that bring these Ministers together on a regular basis, not just within Europe but directly. It seems to me that that is just one element of a raft of incompetences that have been revealed in the debate in your Lordships’ House today. It is not just that these things are difficult. It is that many of them simply are not being attended to. If we are going to have an e-passport system, the one country we simply have to get it sorted out with is the Republic of Ireland. If we do not, people will be able to come through into Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, yet there seems to be no coherent arrangement with the Republic.

Many noble Lords have described other areas about which there is a lack of confidence, but the most serious issue seems to be the problem of the culture within the whole department—within the Home Office and within the UKBA. I remember, many years ago, organising for a senior member of what is now the Police Service of Northern Ireland—it was then still the RUC, but many changes had taken place—to come to an international conference to talk about policing. He started his address by saying, “It is terribly important to understand what the purpose of your job is. I am a police officer. Our job is to maintain the human rights of all our citizens”. The jaws of a number of politicians who were at the conference dropped. They had expected the police officer to be talking about maintaining the rule of law, catching criminals and ensuring that people were brought to court to receive their due rewards. He said, “No, it is about maintaining the human rights of everyone”. If we create a culture like that, we end up with a lot less criminal behaviour to deal with.

When I look through the business plan of the UKBA on its website, I find that it is all about “securing borders”, “reducing immigration” and tightening down on things. There is no kind of sense that it is, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said, the first welcoming face for the rest of the world. I think that the noble Lord described it as the front line, but it should not be a front line as though it were the Maginot line. It should be a welcoming agency that encourages people to come in and, of course, looks to those who might create trouble.

My experience is that it is ordinary, legitimate travellers that the UKBA strikes fear into—not organised crime, which knows how chaotic it is. Ordinary, decent people end up in difficulties. I know this from my own family. One of my daughters-in-law is Brazilian and another is German, and I know how difficult they have found it, moving backwards and forwards to and from this country, even after they were married. There has quite rightly been much talk, some of it extremely moving, about the incredibly vulnerable people who are frequently left in great difficulties and distress; that, of course, is true. What is even more troubling in some ways is that sometimes capable, qualified, professional young women—lawyers and so on—are left in tears. That shows us just how abusive the whole culture has been. I do not say this out of speculation. I spoke recently to one of the most senior people involved with the UK Border Agency and asked: “What is the problem?” He shook his head and said: “It’s the culture of the agency. The whole approach within it is abusive and it’s all about keeping people out”. In that case it needs to change.

The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, made an interesting suggestion. He talked about the fact that we are cutting many of our services’ staff and that in many ways this is about defence of the realm. I know from my own experience that many officers in the forces are accustomed not just to using hard force but to winning hearts and minds. They are frequently much more capable of making a judgment about whether the person coming up to them is likely to plant a bomb or whether they are a legitimate traveller than are some of the people employed by the UK Border Agency.

We have a serious problem. People become like those with whom they live and work. The UK Border Agency has not just employed G4S; it has become like G4S and it has the same challenge. If G4S has been damaged—perhaps even irreparably—by its incompetence over the Olympics, it may well be that the UK Border Agency will become another G4S over the next few weeks unless there is some radical change, which frankly I do not expect without a massive change in the culture of the organisation.

Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Alderdice]

20: Clause 2, page 3, line 3, at end insert—
“(1A) If the order proposed by the Secretary of State would confer an NCA counter-terrorism function which applies to Northern Ireland, the Secretary of State must, before laying the order, consult and have due regard to the views of the First and Deputy First Ministers of Northern Ireland and the Minister for Justice of Northern Ireland.
(1B) Subsection (1A) does not limit Schedule 16.”

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, at Second Reading I raised a number of questions: for example, how it was possible in the context of Northern Ireland to deal with serious organised crime without having some counterterrorist function, given the involvement of so many paramilitary organisations in serious organised crime, and given the failure of SOCA to demonstrate a real advance with the Assets Recovery Agency and other predecessor functions; whether the NCA would be a real advance in dealing with serious and organised crime in Northern Ireland; and whether, given the Border Policing Command function, there had been direct consultations with the Department of Justice and Equality in the Republic of Ireland, with which we have our only land frontier within the United Kingdom. I was not hugely reassured by the responses that I had from my noble friends at that time, but the purpose of this probing amendment is to press on a different issue.

Its purpose is to clarify whether Her Majesty’s Government are content that they have the support of the Northern Ireland Executive for a legislative consent Motion, which will be necessary if the component of the Bill that refers to Northern Ireland is passed. My understanding is that at this stage the Executive have not even considered the question. There have been substantial discussions with the Minister for Justice. As I said at Second Reading, the Secretary of State, the right honourable Owen Paterson MP, has worked extremely hard with the Home Office and with Justice Minister David Ford to seek improvements to the Bill, and I think we have already seen evidence in government amendments that improvements have been made. However, the question is not simply whether Minister Ford is entirely satisfied but whether the First Minister and Deputy First Minister and their parties are satisfied, because, frankly, without their support a legislative consent Motion will not be forthcoming. The reason for my probing amendment is to press on this issue.

Frankly, I doubt whether Committee stage will be completed before the autumn, given the current timetable for the Executive, other things that happen at this time of year in Northern Ireland, the process of the Bill, and recesses and so on. However, we are proceeding with this Bill and its applications to Northern Ireland but we have not yet received clarification that there will be an upcoming legislative consent Motion. Given the sensitivities of the intelligence agencies and their involvement in Northern Ireland in dealing with serious organised crime and, even more particularly, with terrorist organisations in the past, I suspect that reassurances will be sought, perhaps in addition to those that have already been sought by Minister David Ford. Although my amendment is a modest one that refers simply to the consent of the Minister for Justice, the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, I should not be surprised if some reassurance of that kind were required before the Assembly passed a legislative consent Motion. I suspect that my noble friend the Minister will, with the advice of draftsmen, point out that I have indulged in a belt and braces exercise by asking for consultation and having due regard, because consultation is often considered in legislation as meaning “having due regard”. However, I think that more reassurance may be needed in Northern Ireland that the consultation means having due regard to the views of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland and the Minister for Justice.

As I said, this is a probing amendment because I want to hear from my noble friend whether the consultations have extended beyond the Minister for Justice and how far he has been assured that the Assembly will come forward with the necessary legislative consent Motion. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, there are possibly two issues here. The first is the wider one on the order-making power in Clause 2, to which we will come later when we deal with whether the clause should stand part of the Bill. I trust that that will happen after we have broken for dinner, which may be convenient because I suspect that, in the light of the Constitution Committee’s report published today, it is a debate on which a number of noble Lords will want to speak and one on which we may want to take a reasonable amount of time.

The duty of the Home Secretary to consult Northern Ireland Ministers before laying before Parliament a draft order on counterterrorism functions is important. I hope that I can give some reassurance about the consultation that we are undertaking, who we have discussed these matters with and where we are at the moment. I am sure that my noble friend knows as much as I do about where this is with the Executive at the moment.

I recognise that the amendment seeks clarity on the relationship between the NCA and arrangements in Northern Ireland if a decision is made in the future—I stress if such a decision is made in the future—that the agency should have that counterterrorism function. That has been at the forefront of our consideration of these arrangements, not just for the order-making power but in relation to the agency as a whole, balancing the need for an effective United Kingdom response while respecting the important accountability arrangements for policing in Northern Ireland.

We recognise the particular sensitivities of the arrangements in Northern Ireland which is why in this clause we have already provided specific arrangements that recognise the responsibilities of the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, who has operational responsibility for the police response to terrorism in Northern Ireland. It is absolutely vital that we are clear about the relationship between the NCA and the Police Service of Northern Ireland in the event that the agency were to take on the counterterrorism function. That is why Clause 2(2) provides such clarity by stipulating that the agency may carry out counterterrorism activities in Northern Ireland only,

“with the agreement of the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland”.

Furthermore, any draft order will be subject to the super affirmative process, which includes a requirement for the Home Secretary to consult those persons whom she considers will be affected by the draft order. Again, we will discuss that in somewhat greater detail when we get to Clause 2 stand part, which it would be appropriate to leave until after dinner, if everyone is happy with that suggestion.

Seeking clarity on the consultation requirement in relation to Northern Ireland is understandable and the broad nature of the consultation requirement in Schedule 16 could, of course, include the devolved Administrations—that applies to Scotland as much as it does to Northern Ireland—as well as operational partners, government departments and others. I do not think that we have a gap there.

As the House will be aware, under the terms of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, national security is an excepted matter and the National Crime Agency will be a reserved matter. A duty to consult on excepted and reserved matters therefore sits uncomfortably with the devolution settlement as it relates to counterterrorism matters. I recognise that counterterrorism policing in Northern Ireland cannot be divorced from the generality of policing which is, of course, a transferred matter. Indeed, the National Crime Agency itself will undertake a mix of reserved and devolved activity in relation to its serious and organised crime remit. That is why the provisions in Part 1 of the Bill will require the Northern Ireland Assembly to adopt a legislative consent Motion. That is also why there are provisions throughout the Bill which provide for the necessary checks and balances to reflect devolution at certain points. Obviously, there needs to be consultation with the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland.

I understand that the Justice Minister and the Justice Committee of the Assembly—I am sure that my noble friend knows as much as I do—have agreed in principle to take forward a legislative consent Motion, and officials in the Department for Justice in Northern Ireland are seeking to secure the agreement of the Executive Committee before proceeding to the next stage. Any legislative consent Motion needs to be adopted by the Assembly before the Bill reaches its last amending stage. Although things have not been proceeding quite as quickly as we might wish them to have done, since we know that the Bill is designed not to proceed as quickly as sometimes Ministers wish Bills to proceed and we will not complete the Committee stage until October, there is a considerable chance that we will get to that stage before the Bill gets on to the statute book.

I hope that my noble friend Lord Alderdice will accept that we are making progress. We will continue to do more and continue to discuss this with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and others. We will carefully reflect on my noble friend’s points between now and Report, which will not happen until some time in late October or thereabouts.

I will quickly say a few words about Amendment 21. It seeks to limit the extent to which an order under Clause 2 may be amended or otherwise modified by the Crime and Courts Act and other enactments. I can give an assurance that Clause 2 is already limited purely to counterterrorism functions. While that is not restated expressly in subsection (4), the effect of that subsection when read with the clause as a whole is to limit the power to make amendments to primary legislation to those that are consequential on conferring counterterrorism functions on the National Crime Agency. Again, I suspect that that is a matter that we will discuss in greater detail when we come to the Clause 2 stand part debate. It was considered by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. The committee made no recommendation in respect of that power in its report. In fact it went so far as to state that the idea of adding to a statutory body’s functions by subordinate legislation subject to parliamentary procedure is well established. I hope that my noble friend will feel that her Amendment 21 is therefore not necessary.

Going back to the original amendment of my noble friend Lord Alderdice, I hope that what I have said gives him the appropriate reassurance. We fully understand the sensitivities in this area and I hope that he will therefore feel able to withdraw his amendment on this occasion.

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. He said—I think I have the words correctly—that given that some of these powers were excepted matters, it sat uncomfortably to require the Home Secretary to consult a devolved institution. I understand that from a London perspective, but with regard to these very matters, the Good Friday agreement and the Anglo-Irish agreement require a sovereign Government to consult another sovereign Government about precisely these matters. That is something that sat uncomfortably with many people. I rather think on many issues that some people in Whitehall have not quite worked their way through to understanding what this really means. To me, the way things were presented not by my noble friend tonight but in the initial proposal for the Bill suggest a failure to understand the sensitivities and requirements under international treaty now to engage.

However, this is a probing amendment. I will read my noble friend's words carefully, but I think that he has spoken with considerable openness, candour and straightforwardness about the difficulties of finding our way through this issue. I am happy to withdraw the amendment at this point. I may find it necessary to come back to this question, not to create difficulties but for wholly the other reason of trying to assist the Government by pointing out issues that will be a problem down the road if they are not fully addressed. I have tried to give some kind of indication as to where they need to be addressed. I hope that I will not need to come back to this at a later stage and that the Government are successful in the difficult discussions to which my noble friend referred. At this point, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 20 withdrawn.

Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Monday 28th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, I will speak about the NCA and in particular those aspects of it that relate to policing arrangements in Northern Ireland and to relations with the Republic of Ireland. Having glanced down the list of speakers, I do not think that these areas will be covered by other noble Lords. I am particularly interested in this matter as a Northern Ireland Member of your Lordships’ House, and also as the Liberal Democrat co-chair on Northern Ireland policy.

I will start with some general issues. When SOCA was established and was due to absorb the role of the Assets Recovery Agency, there was considerable concern in Northern Ireland about the loss of the public effect that the ARA had had in not only taking assets away from criminals but making it very clear to the public that this was happening, and sending a public shiver down the backs of paramilitaries. Apart from the legal effect, it had a serious public effect on people in Northern Ireland from all sides of the community. The Independent Monitoring Commission, of which I was a member, expressed anxiety that after moving to SOCA that might not be so evident. There were also concerns about whether SOCA would retain a footprint and a strategy informed by the needs of Northern Ireland.

It is my perception that the concerns were well grounded and that in public terms, whatever SOCA has done by way of assets recovery, it has not had the same impact within the community. As we move to the National Crime Agency, my concern is that it may be difficult for a body that sets its priorities here in the south-east of England to have a public impact on some of these important issues in Northern Ireland. I wonder whether the priorities will remain the same. It was very clear to my colleagues and me that smuggling across the border and fuel laundering, for example, were massive in Northern Ireland but small beer for HMRC, so they were not prioritised. The number of officers put to task was minimal. As we move to a new agency, my concern is that the problems connected with the establishment of SOCA may be repeated.

When Revenue and Customs were brought together, the new HMRC incorporated a lot of Customs powers that had not been available to the Inland Revenue. There was not a great deal of debate about that and I am not sure that all those powers should have been transferred to the new HMRC. I seek the following reassurance from my noble friend the Minister. When the new agency absorbs the responsibilities of other bodies such as the National Policing Improvement Agency, which does not have all the powers that SOCA had, will there be any differentiation or will we see simply a centralising and increasing of power by a centralised and centralising agency?

On the new structures that will be established, I wonder how well they have been explored. There is—at least until Mr Salmond has his way—only one land border for this country, which is with the Republic of Ireland. I see that one of the four commands set down is border policing. This is something of which we in Northern Ireland have been very conscious. The noble Lord, Lord Reid, who is in his place, was very aware of that in his time. I am eager to know whether the Home Secretary has had discussions with the Minister of Justice in the Republic of Ireland, because I cannot see how it will be possible to continue with the excellent relationship that we have with An Garda Siochana and the Ministry of Justice if we have not had direct discussions with our colleagues in the Republic of Ireland in advance of bringing forward a measure to Parliament. Has this been discussed at the British- Irish Council, for example? It is the kind of thing that that body was put in place to discuss.

On the smuggling of drugs, people and fuel, the land border is so permeable that it would be impossible to deal with organised crime without addressing this—and without addressing it in co-operation with our colleagues on the other side of the border. Here I come to another problem. The Bill proposes that it will be possible for the agency to take over counterterrorism functions; there is an order-making power. I find it difficult to see how an agency of this kind could deal with organised crime in a place such as Northern Ireland if it did not incorporate counterterrorism functions. While it is not the case that all organised crime is from paramilitaries—the truth is absolutely the contrary—nevertheless there is sufficient paramilitary involvement to require an understanding of counterterrorism functions; I cannot see how it will be dealt with without the inclusion of those functions. In my work over a long period of time I have been very struck by the fact that An Garda Siochana incorporates the functions of intelligence, organised crime and community policing in one organisation. I am aware that it is good to bring these things together but I am not absolutely convinced that the Bill does that.

Where I have the greatest difficulty is on the question of Northern Ireland itself and its policing arrangements. Policing was the most exquisitely sensitive issue in all the negotiations, far more so than many of the political institutions and structures that many people thought were the key issue. And yet it seems to me that we may have a real dilemma in getting this Bill through because this will require a legislative consent Motion in the Northern Ireland Assembly, maybe even in more than one department. I think for the Department of Social Development there are some issues where an LCM may be required but certainly in terms of the Department of Justice it will be required. I know that my right honourable friend and Secretary of State in another place, Owen Patterson, and the Home Secretary have engaged with David Ford, the Minister of Justice in the Northern Ireland Assembly, and that has been a fruitful engagement.

I know there were proposals that the director-general of the NCA would have the powers of a constable in Northern Ireland. That would effectively produce—certainly in the perception of people in Northern Ireland—a second police force in Northern Ireland with completely different governance arrangements. I fancy it might be difficult to get a cross-community agreement for an LCM in the Northern Ireland Assembly on that and so the Home Secretary has very sensibly pulled that back. The director-general in the original Bill could ask the Department of Justice to direct the chief constable. Fortunately, there has been an understanding that the Policing Board needs to be involved in this kind of thing and the chief constable needs to have these matters discussed rather than have directions made and so there has been a removal of some of the provisions and an instruction that any changes would require the consent or approval of PSNI and of the chief constable, which is very reasonable. But I fear that if any consultation between the director of the NCA is only with the chief constable and not with the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister and the Minister of Justice, you put the police chief constable in a very political position where he or she might be asked to make what would inevitably in Northern Ireland be seen as a highly political decision to allow the director of the NCA to extend the powers. It seems to me we have done such a lot to try to take the issue of the politicising of the police out of the situation that it would be very ill advised to move in that direction. Therefore, although there has been some improvement in the Bill, I suspect that it will be necessary to ensure that not just the chief constable but also the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister and the Minister of Justice are consulted.

As I say, there are inclusions of a requirement to consult the Policing Board and that is excellent but I am wondering how the Bill has got to this point with what I perceive to be real vulnerabilities on the Northern Ireland front. Can my noble friend let us know whether the Executive have yet discussed the question of a legislative consent Motion not being able to be brought forward successfully and given any indication? My understanding is that the Justice Committee has not been able to discuss it because the Bill has only become public very recently. I fear that it might be very difficult to get a legislative consent Motion through, in which case it could well be that Northern Ireland would have to be excluded from the Bill, and that is not without political implications either for those on the Unionist side of the House in Northern Ireland. So I look forward to what my noble friend has to say in giving guidance on this. There have already been very helpful discussions with the Minister of Justice and substantial movements on the part of the Home Secretary but I rather suspect there may have to be more discussions, not just with the Minister of Justice in Northern Ireland, and perhaps more constructive engagement from the Home Secretary and more movement on this issue.

Minority Ethnic and Religious Communities: Cultural and Economic Contribution

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, it is always an inspiration to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria. He has done a great service to the House in achieving this debate. As he spoke of the good thoughts, good words and good deeds, what struck me was how clearly he was describing the importance of fundamental principle and of faith in the production of a successful community, as the Zoroastrian community and the Parsee community are and have been for such a long time.

The noble Lord, Lord Bew, like me, comes from Ireland. While listening to him, I was also struck by how some Members of your Lordships’ House might find it strange that he spoke of the Irish as an ethnic minority. I am afraid that the truth is that, in the last century, there were still posters on doors of boarding houses saying, “No Irish or blacks”. If we go back to 1828 when Daniel O’Connell was elected to the other place, he was unable to take his seat because he was a Catholic. That was changed because His Grace the Duke of Wellington, the Prime Minister, realised that it was no longer acceptable. Because the change was made for the other place, His Grace the Duke of Norfolk was able to come into this place even sooner, and that meant that Presbyterians could come into these Houses. By 1858, the Jews Relief Act meant that Jews could come into the House. The point is that once we start opening our minds to the opportunity for a multiracial, multifaith community, there should be no end to the route down which we go. As my noble friend Lord Dholakia said, it should eventually become so natural that the Irish are not considered an ethnic minority, and Catholics are not regarded as a faith minority, because we are all part of the same community.

But we need to think our way through this, because it is not quite so simple. Other countries have developed a different cultural approach by setting some of the diversity out of the public sphere. For instance, our friends in France have a culture of laïcité, which effectively says that religion should be kept out of the public space as much as possible. That is not our culture. Our culture is to value religious faith and to keep it available in the public space. From my experience in my part of the United Kingdom, I am absolutely convinced that valuing and keeping open the space for ethnic-minority groups, religious faith and other elements of our community life is important. The noble Lord, Lord Wei, mentioned Hong Kong Chinese, and of course the Northern Ireland Assembly is where the first ethnic-Chinese parliamentarian in the whole of Europe—Anna Lo—was elected, in 2007, and re-elected with an even greater majority in 2011. These are valuable developments but we should never accept the right to dismiss the human rights of others, or become tolerant of the intolerance of some cultures, or we will lose what is most valuable in our variegated society.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, in the debate on the gracious Speech at the beginning of a Session of Parliament, one might take a number of approaches to the legislation that is proposed and the other matters that the Government have drawn to our attention through the gracious Speech. I will refer to something specific towards the end of my remarks. However, the start of a Session is also an opportunity to think about some of the broader issues that face us and are important. Remarks have been made about the economic crisis and austerity but there is another, wider issue that I wish to address—that of culture. It is not easy to think about, or perhaps even to speak about, but it is important. In the midst of all the other political and economic crises, we might ignore it at our peril because it becomes more dangerous in times of austerity and political crisis.

A little earlier today I was at the annual general meeting of the All-Party Group on the British Council. Our colleagues from the British Council reported on a number of the things that they were doing. There is the tremendous festival of Shakespearean plays, as one would expect at such a time, and art and culture generally—music, dance, theatre and so on. They went on to speak about how the British Council was doing excellent work on human rights in policing and issues of justice. One of our colleagues from the other place intervened to ask what on earth the British Council was doing involving itself in those things; surely it was about promoting British culture.

I beg to differ wholly from my friend in the other place. It seems to me that when we bring forward, for example, the British policing model, which the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie, mentioned earlier, we talk about something that is essentially part of our culture in this country. We bring not only to our own country but to many other places something of real depth and value, which has come not from someone’s head but from the growth of our society—sometimes painfully and with difficulty, but certainly over a long period. There are positive characteristics to the way that we run things in this country. There are others where we make mistakes. However, in general, in policing, health and social care and education—something to which I will return a little later—we have developed a culture, or a way of doing things. When questions are asked about it for whatever reason, good or ill, it shakes us. Why? Because culture is to a community, group or nation very much what the personality is to us as individuals. Our personalities grow from our genetics and physical selves, but also from all the experiences that we have had—from what we have learnt from others, our families, our backgrounds and our communities. That is what makes us up.

Culture is the equivalent for us as a group and a community. This is an important and difficult question because it leads us to the dilemmas that are being experienced over multiculturalism. Maybe part of the difficulty arises because we have not thought clearly about what we mean. It is one thing to say that we want a society that is multiracial and recognises people of all backgrounds, countries, colours and so on, but that is not about culture. Do we mean a multifaith society, in which we value people of faith and those of none? Sometimes I think we value those of none rather more than we value those of faith, which is a mistake and a foolishness. I hope we begin to learn our way out of that. However, that is not culture of itself, although it contributes to it. Do we mean an inclusive society, in which men and women, young and old, sick, disabled and healthy are all valued members of the community? That is very important; it is an inclusive society but it is not multiculturalism.

One of the dilemmas that I have observed as this society has tried to deal with all these things and called it multiculturalism is that it has pulled away from valuing important elements of culture. I saw this at home in our peace process when it came to how we would engage in parliament-building. In Stormont, we certainly had examples of a unionist culture. The approach of the Northern Ireland Office was to strip all aspects of culture out and to make it like a clinic. That was a mistake. It was unnecessary and was not wholesome. It was much more important to ensure that we brought in elements of different backgrounds, language, experience and history, and that everyone could feel a degree of diversity and warmth about it.

We need to think a lot more about this question, because I detect that an absence of clarity has meant an absence of a feeling from all sorts of groups in our community that they share a sufficiently common culture to feel part of a nation and a people who can work together—whatever our faith or racial backgrounds, gender or health or physical appearance. We need to work at this.

I am worried about some of the political developments I see with some of those who are winning elections, and with some of those who are not even bothering to vote in elections because there is not a sense of shared culture. Our culture is not like the culture of other countries. I do not despise the culture of other countries, but let us be clear that there are those cultures where it is completely appropriate for women to be set to the side; where female genital mutilation is a part of the culture; where the educational culture is not one of thoughtfully reflecting and disputing to find the truth but rather of the rote learning of something that has been handed down regardless of whether it is relevant or appropriate; or where physical violence is regarded as an appropriate way to deal with political difference.

I do not accept that all cultures are equal, valid and good. I do not believe that ours is perfect, but I do not believe that we should devalue it. I therefore finish with a final plea. One of the reasons why people want to come to this country for education in our great universities is not just that they value what it will do for their jobs and their future but that they value the culture. Many of us spend our time trying to attract people to this country. We would benefit from their coming—culturally, economically and otherwise—but we find that it is increasingly impossible for them to get visas into the country as bona fide students so that they can study and enrich both our country and their own, in order to benefit us all. I plead with my noble friend the Minister to do everything he can to ensure that proper students have separate visas and a separate system to ensure that we can benefit our culture, their societies and all our people.

Digital Technology

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, we are in debt to the noble Baroness, Lady Greenfield, for taking the opportunity to introduce this debate in your Lordships’ House. As the noble Lord, Lord Black, has indicated, there are very many positive things about cyberspace and the internet.

I, too, want to address some of the concerns to which the noble Baroness, Lady Greenfield, referred, coming from my background as a psychiatrist, and particularly perhaps as president of ARTIS (Europe) Ltd, a research and risk analysis company which takes an interest in terrorism and politically motivated violence. That is where I came from and how I got interested in this area. It became clear to me that a number of organisations, domestic and international, were using cyberspace as a new modality through which they could conduct their nefarious activities. Of course, we have had land, sea, air and, more recently, space as media or spaces in which to conduct conflict, whether it be terrorism or interstate conflict. However, it is quite extraordinary that for the very first time humanity has created a new space in which activities can take place. This is quite unprecedented.

Of course, we created space in our minds to do things but cyberspace is quite different. This is a space in which it is possible not just to conduct traditional kinds of crime and terrorism—for example, it is well known that a number of organisations use cyberspace to communicate with each other, to pass encrypted messages, to bring groups of people together, and to recruit and train young people in various kinds of terrorist activity—but where the possibility clearly now exists for state and non-state actors to engage in attacks on the very infrastructure of each other’s nations. This is happening at an extraordinary rate. Indeed, in a recent Written Answer, HL12997, the noble Lord, Lord Henley, informed us that the Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance reckons that it is costing the United Kingdom alone in the region of £27 billion per annum.

Today, however, we are looking not at the economic but at the mental aspects of this issue. We all know that when we get behind the wheel of a car many of us behave in a different kind of way. Certainly, when we write e-mails we may react rather more emotionally than when we write a thoughtful letter. I see that the noble Lord is particularly careful, knowing that these things can appear in all sorts of places. However, if noble Lords cast their minds back to watching the so-called smart weapons in the shock and awe attacks on Baghdad, they will recall that it was an effort to remember that they were watching not a video game but the destruction of people’s lives. It is very easy to see how one can begin to think of guiltless crimes and victimless crimes. Indeed, if you speak with many of the young people—largely young men—who are involved in these kinds of activities, you will know that they feel that no one really suffers. Credit card crime? Do not worry; it is covered by the banks. However, we know very well that the banks are covered by the insurance companies and the insurance companies charge the banks, that the banks charge ordinary customers, and that, in the end, it is ordinary people who pay for the crimes of these young people. As the noble Baroness said, it is also clear that this affects how people function, and not just their mental functioning but their moral functioning.

It seems to me that in the short time we have at our disposal this evening all we can do is to flag up that this is a wonderful facility, as the noble Lord has done, but also a clear and present danger, as the noble Baroness has described. I trust that your Lordships, whether in the Chamber, in all-party groups or in other ways, will be able to explore this matter more fully. In the mean time, I ask the Minister whether he can indicate how much Her Majesty’s Government are spending on research into the psychology of this area, as distinct from the hardware and software. Psychology is, in the end, the most crucial aspect.