Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tonge]

My Lords, I, too, add my protest to what is going on here this evening. We have just spent several hours on what many people in this House considered to be a completely useless and totally unnecessary Bill. We are now faced with a Bill in which, from my point of view, the most important issue that we are yet to discuss—universal jurisdiction—is right at the end. That will probably come at something like 2 am or 3 am. That is an insult to all the people who have died by the actions of international war criminals and I am absolutely furious that the House has organised the business in this way.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

Well, my Lords, I am certainly not furious and I always listen to my noble friend the Minister with great care but I say to her that there must be a preparedness on the Government's part to stop at a reasonable hour. This House has a justified reputation for considering legislation with great care and revising it on the basis of knowledge and a solid evidence base. I fear that once we pass a very late hour today, that power of this House will be lost.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, it may be helpful if I remind the House that we are moving into Report and that nothing may be resolved at this moment. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, pointed out that the Opposition have always said that they would complete Report today. That is part of a firm agreement. It was also for the convenience of the Opposition Front Bench that the exchange on Lords consideration of amendments on the EU Bill was moved to today.

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[Lord Harris of Haringey]

The Government are trying to square the circle of putting a very high priority on national security—the national security strategy, the creation of the National Security Council—and their policies on police and crime commissioners. Clearly, the potential danger with police and crime commissioners elected with a local mandate to articulate the concerns of local people is that some national priorities will not be given the same priority at local level. Now, I am sure that no sensible police and crime commissioner would say, “I am not interested in anything being done on counterterrorism”, just as no sensible police and crime commissioner would say that they did not want to see anything done on serious crime. However, when there are 41 directly elected individuals, some of whom will fight very fiercely contested local elections, or be facing fiercely contested re-election, the question of whether the same priority is given to national security matters as is given to other matters becomes a real issue.

Because of our particularly slow progress as a House on other matters before we arrived at the Bill tonight—we are making rapid progress compared to the progress earlier—I had the opportunity of listening to a presentation downstairs from Professor Dave Sloggett, a nationally known expert on counterterrorism issues. In a rather chilling 15-minute tour d’horizon, he simply spelt out the sorts of threats that we face, which are contained in the CONTEST strategy, and the context in which that is taking place at the moment. Yes, Osama bin Laden has been killed, but that does not mean that al-Qaeda goes away. We are actually seeing a fragmentation and each of the different affiliates going their own way, each presenting slightly different threats.

We have Gaddafi in Libya, who has made an explicit threat of suicide bombers in European cities; and there is the changing situation in Northern Ireland, where we have just seen two nights of sustained rioting and serious disorder. Again, the fact that that has not impinged significantly on the rest of the country makes it all the more likely that there will be an aspiration for it do so. We have the challenges of the Olympics. In moving her amendment, my noble friend Lady Henig referred to issues around cybercrime, and it is interesting that the CONTEST strategy for the first time refers to the cyberterrorist threat. These are issues in which local police forces have got to play their part; they have got to raise their game. They are not necessarily issues which will immediately emerge as the priority for the elected police and crime commissioner in every part of the country, yet every part of the country is potentially affected.

Let us consider the way in which Roshonara Choudhry self-radicalised herself, dropped out of her university course and, having listened to speeches and read material on the internet, decided that an appropriate thing for her to do to take forward the cause would be to assassinate a British Member of Parliament. She then researched Members of Parliament on TheyWorkForYou.com and purchased two kitchen knives. Fortunately for Stephen Timms, a Member of Parliament in the other place, she decided on the day that it was easier to conceal in her clothing the shorter of the knives. That is an example of the kind of threat we face.

Not so long ago an individual in the south-west of the country seriously injured himself in an attempt to blow up a restaurant in which families with young children were having meals. Again, he was an individual who, as far as we know, was not significantly connected to any of the networks.

It will be the responsibility of local policing, local special branches and local intelligence to pick up on these issues. If you get to a stage where this is seen as not the responsibility of a local police force, your ability to combat these threats will be severely weakened. That is why the strategic policing requirement is so important.

It is also important in the context of serious and organised crime because we all know that if you do not maintain consistent and strong pressure on the issues around serious and organised crime, gradually the quality of community life in all kinds of areas will begin to deteriorate—and yet this will not be an immediate priority for many police and crime commissioners.

The Government have, properly, written into the Bill a strategic policing requirement. However, they have not specified how it will be enforced and how they will make sure that it is met in every force area. My noble friend Lady Henig has tabled an amendment which would require Her Majesty’s Inspectorate to produce a report on an annual basis and lay it before Parliament to assess how the strategic policing requirement is working. My amendment has a different focus; it seeks to consider what happens in each individual force area. It does not specify that the report should be laid before Parliament because sometimes the content of that report in relation to the strength, willingness and effectiveness of local forces in combating terrorism and serious and organised crime would best not be publicly shared.

I know that the Home Office does not want to be top-down on all kinds of issues, but on these issues it needs to be top-down, which is why it has postulated a strategic policing requirement. This will give the Home Secretary a snapshot for each police force area and a national overview, if you take the position that has been put forward by my noble friend Lady Henig, of what is going on and where there may be weaknesses. Whether that will result in a formal intervention by the Home Secretary or a less formal intervention with the chief officer of police and the elected politician who leads those areas applying pressure, I do not think really matters. What is important is that the Home Secretary has that information and has it as a tool. Further, it is important that the locally elected individual—the police and crime commissioner or the MOPC in London—is aware of where they stand in terms of meeting the strategic policing requirement. They may well have a rose-tinted view of what the level of problem is or what needs to be done. This gives them that information and the opportunity to decide. I find it extraordinary that there is nothing in this Bill about monitoring how the strategic policing requirement is to be met, how it is to be achieved and what is to be done about it.

These amendments are put forward in a genuine attempt not just to assist the Government to achieve their objectives, which as you know are constantly at the forefront of our thoughts on this side of the House, but because it is critically and crucially important for the national security of this country and indeed for our ability to deal with serious and organised crime.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

My Lords, I hope I will be forgiven for making a short intervention in support of the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, and indeed in support of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, as to its principle. This Bill is to a great extent about the accountability of the police. The whole purpose of the Government’s policy, which I applaud, is to make the police more accountable to the public. The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, is attempting to do precisely that—to give visible evidence of that accountability to enable the public to judge from a document how accountable the police are in terms of the strategic policing requirement.

The noble Baroness referred to the work of the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, which I used to be. The independent reviewer is required to produce at least two reports every year which enable Members of both Houses, who use the reports extensively, and others to judge the performance of the authorities in relation to counterterrorism law. We have an independent reviewer of the relatively new Northern Ireland provisions for what is now public order law in Northern Ireland. This role has been carried out since it was introduced by Mr Robert Whalley. He has been very successful in ensuring that those important parts of the law he reviews in Northern Ireland, which can prove, as we have seen in the past couple of days, very controversial in the context of everyday life, are accounted for in the legislative assembly of Northern Ireland and in this Parliament.

Following the legislation in relation to the UN money-laundering provisions for named terrorist suspects, we introduced recently an independent review which is going to be carried out, as I understand it, by David Anderson QC, who succeeded me as independent reviewer of terrorism legislation. There again, we will have a report which will deal with issues relating to a part of the strategic policing requirement. Those who carry out such roles from time to time have been asked ad hoc to carry out reports which call to account those who have been involved in aspects of counterterrorism and related policing.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary has a distinguished and respected record of impartiality. It has been able to secure changes in policing practice around the country by the kindly method of report, constructive criticism and engaging, sometimes, the support of those in both Houses of Parliament. It seems to me that there is nothing to be lost and potentially much to be gained from the transparency of a report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, particularly given the importance of the strategic policing requirement, which has been amply described during this short debate, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Harris.

I take issue with the noble Lord on only one detail. He suggested that it might be difficult to write a report that would be published that engaged with matters of national security that are best left unsaid. I can tell the noble Lord that there are ways of doing this; it can be done. With the co-operation, which is always available, of the security services in particular, there are ways of writing reports that do not damage national security but deal fully with all the principles that need to be discussed.

I therefore believe that this is a constructive proposal and I hope to hear that the Minister will also allow this matter further consideration with a view to something being brought forward at Third Reading.