Policing and Crime Bill

Lord Blair of Boughton Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 7th December 2016 Lords Chamber

I would not have brought this amendment back at this stage if the Government had given a reasonable explanation for not agreeing with my Committee stage amendment.

[Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)]

My Lords, it is an unusual pleasure for me to agree completely with the noble Lord, Lord Paddick.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has again argued for the maritime enforcement powers in the Bill to be restricted to the enforcement of serious offences. As I indicated in Committee, we do not believe it is necessary to limit these powers in this way. The Government believe that we should trust the operational judgment of the police to determine when it is appropriate and proportionate to exercise their powers at sea. For example, we do not believe that the police would commit resources to interdict a vessel in international waters where there had been a theft of an item of, say, confectionery from a gift shop—which, incidentally, would be an indictable offence.

However, a police officer on, let us say, a UK-registered ferry should be able to act when the vessel is in international waters where a person commits a common assault on another person, or where a person exhibits threatening or abusive behaviour. In both cases, we are talking about summary-only offences and in both cases the noble Lord’s amendment would prevent the police acting, even though the law of the land applied and the actions of those individuals might none the less be triable in the courts of England and Wales. We do not impose restrictions on the categories of offences the police can investigate where they take place on other modes of transportation, so, again, I am unclear why we should treat maritime vessels any differently.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I think that I will have to get back to the noble Lord on that point.

[Lord Blair of Boughton]

This is about the difference between a bus, a train and a ship. The ability to stop a ship and push it into harbour is a completely different level of activity from saying, “We’re going to stop the train at Reading because somebody has been assaulted”. I have listened to the argument made by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and I completely agree with him. It cannot be right that a single police officer can decide to turn around a cargo ship or a cruise ship in the Irish Sea for a summary offence. I accept that, as the Minister said, there are complications around theft, with the theft of some sweets from a shop being an indictable offence in some circumstances, but we have to make a definition somewhere. This is about being utterly reasonable, and I do not think that the Government are being reasonable here.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

The police are professionals and they must have operational discretion as to when to exercise their powers. I know that a ship at sea is not a bus, which can just move into the side of the road, but a serious offence could have been committed. The police should be able to know when they need to exercise their powers. In answer to the noble Lord’s question, there are currently no powers to take effective enforcement action in such circumstances, other than in relation to modern slavery and drug offences.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I regret to say that I cannot support this proposed new clause, although I have a great deal of sympathy with the thinking behind it. I am quite sure that we should move to a situation where, in appropriate cases, there could be parity of funding. Where I differ from the noble Lord is in the suggestion in the proposed new clause that it should be the police commissioner who makes the recommendation. In my view, it should be the coroner. The truth is that we are dealing with a judicial process, and clearly some people will want to be represented, but whether or not what they have to contribute is relevant is something that only the person in charge of the judicial process can really determine, and that is the coroner. He alone can have a clear view of the issues and the relevance of the participation of the relevant parties. Also, we are really in the process of people making applications for funding that may themselves be resisted. There has to be a process whereby those submissions can be determined. It seems to me that that has to be the coroner.

I point out just two other considerations. I can conceive of circumstances in inquests where the police commissioner has a conflict of interest—either that he or she may be the subject of criticism in the course of the inquest, or that he or she might seek to take regulatory action against chief officers as a result of the inquest. That is a potential conflict of interest that we need to reflect upon.

Lastly, we need to entrust this process to an independent figure. The elected police commissioner is not an independent judicial figure; indeed, as he or she comes to the end of their elected term they may have every sort of personal reason to bump large wads of cash to people coming along to apply for it. It is not a happy situation. If the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, were to come forward with a proposal to the effect that the coroner should be in a position to make these recommendations, I would be happy to support it subject to any contrary argument. But as to the proposal that the police commissioner should trigger the recommendation, I absolutely cannot support it.

[Lord Blair of Boughton]

I support the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, on that point. However, given that this is Report, I ask the Minister to bring back a government amendment that says that it is the coroner. We should not lose this opportunity. I support the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in saying that we ought to have a process in which there is an equality of arms between the two sides. As I understand it, however—I stand to be corrected—the House can do that only if the Government bring forward an amendment on Third Reading which says what the noble Lord’s amendment does, but that it is not the police and crime commissioner; it is the coroner. I completely agree.

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, I can be very brief and agree entirely with the last two speakers. The sentiment behind the amendment is admirable, but the way it plays out needs regulation. I too strongly support the Government taking this away and bringing it back with the coroner in pride of place.

Spencer Perceval

Lord Blair of Boughton Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Blair of Boughton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to mark the 200th anniversary of the assassination of Spencer Perceval, Prime Minister and parliamentary supporter of the abolition of slavery, on 11 May 2012.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the National Archives holds a number of records relating to the assassination of Spencer Perceval. To mark the 200th anniversary, a selection of these will be digitised and made available online through the National Archives website. The full range of records held by the National Archives about Spencer Perceval can be viewed in the reading room at Kew. The noble Lord might also like to know that a number of events are planned by the House authorities to mark the anniversary. These were set out recently in response to a Written Question by the Chairman of Committees.

[Lord Blair of Boughton]

I am most grateful to the Minister for that Answer. I confess to being somewhat surprised that there is no memorial to such a grave and unique event within the precincts of Parliament. Perhaps, before I get to my supplementary question, I may beg the indulgence of the House for a momentary reflection on this man and his relevance to our times. Above all, he was the House of Commons end of Wilberforce’s great campaign for legislation to abolish slavery. Will the Government use the anniversary of Perceval’s death to consider whether enough is being done in this country to combat the pernicious and degrading trafficking of women and girls for sexual purposes by organised crime, of which we have seen appalling examples in recent years in Lancashire and Yorkshire and, only a few weeks ago, allegedly in Oxford?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there is a rather large monument in Westminster Abbey to Spencer Perceval. On the question of whether there should be one here, since I also have connections to Westminster Abbey, I am not enormously in favour of adding more political statues within the Abbey and I am not sure how many more memorials we necessarily want around here—that is a personal view, not the Government’s view. On the trafficking of women, the Government issued their human trafficking strategy last year as a White Paper. We are carrying further the excellent work already undertaken by our predecessors on this very serious problem. It is not just a matter of the trafficking of women; a quarter of those who were trafficked in the last two years were children. The trafficking of children to this country is also a very serious problem.