Police: Senior Posts

Lord Condon Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the direct entry scheme would not apply to chief constables or the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police; the senior officer roles I talked about do not include them under current legislation. I hope that that helps to answer the noble Lord’s question. I will address one aspect of the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Blair, that we talked about in our meeting, which was the pipeline of suitable people coming through. Recruitment is now under way for the 2017 cohort of the direct entrant inspectors and superintendents, with demand considerably increased compared to 2016. This direct entry scheme will see the recruitment of 19 superintendents across the nine forces as well as 56 inspectors, bringing people with fresh ideas and experience, but that does not deny the need for those skills which will have to be brought to the force, or the need for these people to complete the PNAC and the SCC.

[Lord Condon (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister acknowledge that, regardless of the merits or otherwise of selecting candidates from outside the service, there is a real and current crisis of selection within the service? In recent years the talent pool of able men and women prepared to put themselves forward to be chief constables has got ever smaller and shortlists are often just one candidate. Does she acknowledge that more needs to be done now to improve the talent pool so that the most able men and women within the service can be encouraged to become the future leaders?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

That was another thing that the noble Lord and I talked about and I totally agree with: if we do not have the pipeline or the talent pool coming through, there is a big danger for the police service that we will not have talent at the top. I totally agree with him that we need those trained, skilled people coming through and we have to encourage people to apply out of force, which was also something that the noble Lord raised with me.

Brexit: UK-EU Security (EUC Report)

Lord Condon Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Condon (CB)]

My Lords, I have the honour of serving on the EU Sub-Committee on Home Affairs, so ably chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar. She has set out eloquently the main points in our report. In view of the time and what other speakers have said, I am not going to go over the same ground, rather I will try to emphasise from a former police background what I think are some of the important things we should be considering.

There are many exciting aspects to leaving the European Union. It will create exciting opportunities for the country, but this area is not one of them. Leaving the EU will open no new doors for police co-operation and it will create no new opportunities. It does not create space for us to become a better and bigger global partner in this area. That is not, I hope, a lack of imagination, resolve or determination on my part. As the report shows, it is the result of a forensic examination of the current position and the prospects as we leave the European Union. The Government will have to work extremely hard in their negotiations if there is not going to be a diminution in the safety and security of our citizens.

I spent quite a lot of the second half of my police career encouraging and setting up many of the embryonic stages of police co-operation in Europe, in particular in two posts. The first was as the chief constable of Kent Police, when I worked extensively on the planning for the Channel Tunnel right through from its inception to its completion, as well as the important establishment of two land frontiers with France at either end of the tunnel, concentrating on the juxtaposition of controls and working with European police forces in a very detailed way. Then, as commissioner for seven years in London, I encouraged and helped to set up Europol in the mid-1990s. I saw it through the early years of its birth, development and establishment.

When I retired in 2000 police co-operation around Europe was important, but it certainly was not a day-to-day activity and it did not challenge or get in the way of day-to-day policing. What we learned from our expert witnesses was how much has changed in the intervening time—developments in technology, the internet and mobile telephony; the threat from asymmetric terrorism and how terrorism has changed; and the movement of people throughout and into Europe, with 3 million EU citizens living in the United Kingdom. Police co-operation throughout Europe has moved from the nice and important to the essential day-to-day. That co-operation is woven into the fabric of day-to-day policing up and down our country.

I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, said about other threats, but European co-operation, through full membership of Europol with unhindered access to the various databases, Schengen II, criminal records, Prüm, passenger name records and so on, and access to and use of European arrest warrants, Eurojust and all the other police and justice infrastructure means that everyday policing up and down the country relies on these very important relationships, institutions and databases, whether it is a terrorism detective in Scotland Yard or the National Crime Agency working on a sophisticated inquiry to thwart a terrorism threat, or a young patrol officer in Leeds, Bristol or Manchester stopping a vehicle and within seconds being able to check on vehicles, people and property in a way that only a few years ago would have been unthinkable. As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, things are done in seconds now that previously took days, weeks, months, or never got done. We should not underestimate how European co-operation on policing is, to use a horrible phrase, mission critical to everyday policing in this country.

I know that the Prime Minister is fully aware of that importance. As Home Secretary and Prime Minister, whenever she has spoken about Brexit she has emphasised the importance of strong and close co-operation. In the debate in the other place on 18 January about the implications for police and security, the Police Minister who opened the debate, the Brexit Minister who closed it and every single speaker was unanimous about the importance of this subject and maintaining the closest possible links.

Paragraph 11.7 of the Brexit White Paper sets out unequivocally that we need strong and close future co-operation—so far so good in recognising the importance of the subject. Where I digress slightly from the view of the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, and from the Government is that I believe there is an overreliance in government circles on two facts that are constantly prayed in aid as reasons why we should be optimistic for the outcome of any negotiations. The first is mutual dependency. We all want to combat terrorism and serious crime. We all want to stop paedophiles and cybercrime. Surely that mutual interest will drive us to find a solution to these challenges. The second thing, which the Government constantly state, is that the United Kingdom has been at the heart of these co-operative arrangements and designed many of them, leads them and is a major user of them. The almost unspoken assertion is that the European Union cannot do without us. I fear there is an element of complacency that mutual dependency and the fact we are currently at the heart of these measures will see us through. The noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, is right that police throughout Europe have a can-do mentality and will want to find a way through this, but there are major impediments to progress that other noble Lords have already mentioned.

The first is the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. Police officers in any part of Europe can ruin people’s lives by their actions. In the most extreme circumstances they can and do take people’s lives. It is vital that their actions—acting alone, in collaboration or on a major operation—are subject to scrutiny and the highest challenge through political structures, accountable structures and most certainly through legal structures and the courts. Europol, the various databases, the infrastructure for the European arrest warrants and Eurojust are all quite properly subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and, increasingly, to the European Parliament, the Commission and its institutions. We are pulling out of those. We want to be a member of the policing club with all the benefits, but at the moment we are saying that we are not going to adhere to or accept the jurisdiction that there currently is over those important mechanisms. The second important area, which could be a major impediment, is data protection standards, which other noble Lords have already spoken of. At the moment we are signed up to and quite properly part of the implementation of those data protection standards, but we will be leaving the club and our involvement with them.

How should we move forward? Clearly we must find a satisfactory way through this if we are to protect our citizens and our good friends in Europe. Section 12 of the Brexit White Paper talks about avoiding disruptive cliff edges and the consideration of phasing in the new arrangements. If ever there was a subject matter that should rely on those sentiments it is police co-operation and our membership of the infrastructure that delivers it. It is in the interest of the United Kingdom, the European Union and all their citizens that we maintain the status quo for as long as possible. There is no rush and no rhyme or reason why we should seek to unscramble or destabilise these arrangements—quite the reverse. It should be a government position and, I hope, an EU position that we should maintain the current infrastructure and the status quo for as long as possible. If that means being creative around accepting the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice over some of these issues for a period of time, let us find a way to ensure that that takes place. Anything less than the status quo will be a diminution of the safety and security of our citizens. As we move forward, we must stay in the club on these issues and maintain the status quo for as long as possible. We know, however, that there has to be change, and in negotiating and preparing for that change, the United Kingdom negotiators should willingly offer progress on three important issues.

First, we must pay a reasonable contribution to Europol and for the databases and the European arrest warrant and infrastructures—all of that. Why would we not want to pay our way? We must make it clear up front that we will pay reasonable and sensible contributions for all of those institutions and databases.

Secondly, we should willingly show that we are going to match or exceed data protection standards. We can easily make the financial contribution. I say that even though it is not my money, but we can make that work. Data standards are something that we can make work relatively easily, and in recent weeks and months we have worked with the EU and signed up to four important developments on data protection: first, a general regulation on data protection for EU citizens; secondly, a general directive on law enforcement in the European Union; thirdly, a privacy shield signed between the European Union and the United States to enable data sharing primarily commercially between us; and fourthly, an umbrella agreement signed between the EU and the United States for law enforcement purposes. It is that fourth issue—the umbrella agreement that the EU has signed with the US—that is a model that will perhaps show us the way forward. We will certainly have to show that, in terms of data protection standards, we are matching or exceeding the EU standards that we are currently signed up to.

Thirdly, the most intractable problem is finding an acceptable way through once we have shown that we are no longer subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. Other noble Lords have already pointed out that the White Paper and the Government have accepted that dispute resolution mechanisms will have to be developed. That is one area where I currently cannot see a way forward. However, I am sure that there will be a way forward; and that when we come out of the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, we will have to show that we accept there has to be an adequate replacement.

As others have said, voters in the referendum last year did not really have a chance to consider these issues, but I am sure that if they had, they would not have wanted to make it easier for terrorists, paedophiles or serious criminals. It is in the interests of both the UK and the EU to maintain the status quo for as long as possible. However, as we move forward from that, the new arrangements will mean that we have to pay our way, maintain data protection and find dispute resolution mechanisms. I am honoured to serve on the sub-committee. I hope that we have made a contribution that the Government will find helpful and that, as we move forward, we will continue to seek ways to help the Government find a way through this vital topic for our country.

Policing and Crime Bill

Lord Condon Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard - part one): House of Lords
Wednesday 26th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Condon (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise for not being here at the start of this grouping; I intended to speak but I was slightly delayed. I want to add my support to the Government, to the Opposition and to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for moving these amendments. It is vital for public confidence that there should be no sense that police officers, once retired, can somehow escape the consequences of actions that, in other circumstances, would have been dealt with by discipline. Certainly, as a former commissioner, I accept that until I draw my last breath I should be accountable for everything that I did during my time as a police officer. I say that with a clear conscience but, if there were any aspect that could have led to a criminal case or disciplinary case, I would of course want that to be tested and examined with the full rigour of the law or disciplinary process, and I would want the same to apply to other people who had retired.

My only reservation—it is not even really a reservation—is that, for more junior officers in particular, a line can never be drawn under their service and what they did as police officers, and they should be held accountable. I think that they and their relatives would take comfort—when looking at an incident that was, perhaps, 20 or 30 years old, where the law, public morality around an issue, or cultural issues may have changed—that there is some test that prevents vexatious or frivolous complaints from that earlier time being put into a process. I take enormous comfort that in, for example, Amendment 142 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Paddick, there is a pretty high bar that the Secretary of State has to determine that investigating and, if appropriate, hearing a case is both necessary and proportionate. Those words will be of enormous comfort to the vast majority of retired police officers—men and women who have sometimes put their lives at risk serving the public. They would want to feel that their honourable service has been recognised. I wholeheartedly support the Bill, what is behind these amendments and the spirit of the amendments moved by the Opposition.

[Lord Blair of Boughton]

My Lords, I also apologise for not joining this particular part of the debate earlier. I absolutely agree with and amplify what my noble friend Lord Condon has said. Part of the difficulty for some of the most senior officers in the system, which my noble friend and I and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, obviously are—we therefore have to declare interests to your Lordships—is that you end up during your period of service, particularly the period of top command, with cases that are headlines for years and which are investigated and investigated. It would mislead the House to say that my noble friend Lord Condon and I have not spoken about it—we have, although not in the Chamber. I urge those putting forward Amendment 142, the Government and the Opposition, to keep the words “necessary and proportionate” in mind, otherwise there is no end to some of these cases. This is a matter that our legislature needs to think about as it brings forward this kind of amendment. I agree absolutely with my noble friend, and I am sure that I speak for other noble Lords who have been senior police officers, that this is the right way forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Condon]

My Lords, I support this amendment. For those who have monitored the police complaints process and helped advise complainants, the word “independent” has always had enormous significance. It is not a word of little value—it has huge significance for conveying the nature of the organisation that is carrying out complaints and overseeing complaints. I make no apology for reminding the House that I went on the record as commissioner to argue for a totally independent police complaints system. I put enormous value on the word “independent”, then and now, and I encourage the Government to think again on this issue.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I have some sympathy with the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for precisely the reasons that he and the noble Lord, Lord Condon, outlined. On the other hand, we also have very important organisations that do not have the word “independent” in their title; for instance, Ofcom and Ofgem. So it is not unusual for organisations not to have the word “independent” in their title—but I hope that the Minister will consider the matter carefully.

[Lord Condon]

Would the noble Earl accept that, in the history of police complaints, more so than for “Of-anything”, the word “independent” has always had huge significance, and that there are many organisations, campaigners and individual long-time complainants for whom, in this context, “independent” is worth far more than in the context of a complaint against a gas company?

[Earl Attlee]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. I hope that the Minister will also remind us why we are changing the name at all. Legislation could be used to change the function, composition or governance of the body, but I would like to be reminded why we are changing the name at all. The general public are used to the term “IPCC” and they know what it does —and now we are changing it.

--- Later in debate ---

That is the reason for my noble friend’s probing amendment—to get to the core of this and to try to understand why it is thought that the specific power to use weapons is an important element of this. Personally, I would be very keen to increase the use of volunteers, although there is of course the route of becoming a special constable. The description given by the noble Baroness, Lady Redfern, sounded almost coincident with the requirements for a special constable: a certain degree of training, which she specified; and the commitment to do, I think she said, half a day a month or whatever—that is perhaps slightly less than the special constables do in most of the schemes I have seen but it is very similar. We need to think about whether we should be talking about special constables, who have a particular legal status and go through a particular process and so on but are still volunteers and still give their time freely in support of the police, or creating another category of people who volunteer and are then given really quite intrusive powers—the power to use violence against other members of the community. That is why we need to debate this and consider it very carefully.

[Lord Condon]

My Lords, I support the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Harris. I do not turn my mind totally against this provision but, from my experience, the way you equip people heavily influences how they think about what they are doing: their role and how they react. Like other noble Lords, my inclination at this stage, subject to reassurance from the Government, is that the cut-off point for incapacitant sprays should probably stay at special constable, where there is a level of training, supervision, scrutiny and public acceptance of their role that there is not for volunteers. Incapacitant sprays can and have killed. To equip a volunteer who may have good but relatively basic training with a spray that can kill a fellow member of the public is an enormous step and we need reassurance from the Government that it is absolutely necessary.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a very useful discussion. I find myself slightly closer to the Government’s position than that of the noble Lord who spoke from the other side, but I have considerable sympathy with his argument.

There is a terribly difficult problem, which I hope my noble friend will address, of confusion about who these people are, who is in which category, and the like. I happen to have a close relative who sought to be a special constable and discovered that the difficulties of becoming a special constable are really quite considerable. I hope that my noble friend can help me by explaining that this is not a way of getting out of the difficulties of the one by producing something different, which would mean that we are not facing up to some really fundamental issues about how people become special constables and whether we are making it easy for people who would like to make this contribution.

What the debate has really raised are perfectly genuine concerns that this may not quite have been thought through in the way we would like it to be. As it is such a delicate issue, I hope it could be taken rather more widely than in the actual amendment, by thinking a bit about the way in which the public will understand the distinction between these categories. This bit of additional power given to people who decide to volunteer shines a light on the problem and on the confusion which I am not sure has actually been overcome in the debates that we have had so far.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Condon]

Before the Minister finally sits down, I ask her to acknowledge and perhaps clarify this point. We are considering this very important crossover point from special constables being given these powers to volunteers having them in the context of what the Bill is also doing. It is enhancing the role of police and crime commissioners by giving them the ability to consider taking on the responsibility for fire and rescue services, and giving them the power to appoint the fire chief as the overall chief officer for policing and for fire. The Bill will create a model whereby, for example, a relatively young 32 year-old police and crime commissioner in an area can choose to appoint the fire chief as the overall chief officer of policing and fire in that area—admittedly, with the approval of the Secretary of State—and in that context a young, relatively inexperienced PCC with a chief officer who may not have a police background could take decisions on what volunteers could and could not do. The notion of them being given potentially lethal force is quite a big issue. I look forward to the Minister, as I am sure she will, giving us some reassurance about the notion of volunteers being able to have pepper sprays that in theory can kill people.

[Lord Paddick]

I do not want to prolong the agony, but another aspect of this is that members of the public should be reasonably sure about what level of force they are going to encounter from whom. As I say, special constables now are virtually indistinguishable from regular police officers; if a special constable decides to use a defensive spray, that will not come as a shock to the member of the public. In terms of the way that the member of the public interacts with a police officer or special constable, they may or may not use force against that individual on the basis of what they anticipate the reaction of that person to be, or the ability of the person to respond to it. When it comes to a volunteer police community support officer, who does all the wonderful things that the Minister said earlier, I think it is going to be a bit of a shock, and an unreasonable one, to expect such a volunteer to respond with an incapacitant spray.

Policing and Crime Bill

Lord Condon Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard - part two): House of Lords
Wednesday 26th October 2016 Lords Chamber

I want to go back to the moment when the noble Lord, Lord Condon, announced his intention to retire. There was exactly the same debate about whether the commissioner should actually be not a police officer but somebody with different managerial experience. The then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said, “I am sorry, that is off the agenda. When the bombs go off, I don’t want somebody who is an expert in retail—I want somebody who knows what happens when bombs go off”. They went off in my time. That is the commissioner —but that is not the point. Just remember Nice. The things that happened in Nice could be happening somewhere in Brighton tonight. You would want the senior officer down there to have some experience of policing; you would not want him or her to have just walked in from a completely different environment.

[Lord Condon (CB)]

My Lords, in view of the time, I am not going to repeat the points made so far. Suffice it to say that I agree totally with what the noble Lords, Lord Dear and Lord Blair, said on these issues. I might put the emphasis slightly differently—in some parts more strongly and less strongly in others—but in the round I agree with all they said.

I go straight to the amendments. On the first amendment, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, I agree that overseas experience is desirable—it is nice, it is to be welcomed. As commissioner, I spent one Christmas visiting my officers in Sarajevo and elsewhere in that region, and I was very proud of the work that they were doing. I had a wonderful detective sergeant who was in command of more than 400 international police officers, many of them of chief officer rank. In the merits of a local situation, she was selected as a British detective sergeant to command those 400 overseas officers, and she did it magnificently. So I do not underestimate the merits, experience and legacy of working overseas—but it is too narrow an issue to be prescriptive as of today in relation to chief officer posts. It is a laudable aspiration, but let us not make it a prescriptive requirement of being a chief officer.

On the second amendment, on the parochial point about not being promoted from within the one force, I raised that point at Second Reading, as a very serious unintended consequence of police and crime commissioners. One of its great strengths and merits is its very parochialism and local focus—but that is an enormous downside with regard to the selection of chief officers. A couple of months ago, I tabled a Written Question that was answered by the Home Office Minister. I asked how many chief constable promotions over the last year came from an outside force and how many were internal promotions. As the noble Lord, Lord Dear, said, those internal promotions only a few years ago would not have been technically possible; they would not have been allowed by the Home Office or the inspectorate. The answer was that the overwhelming majority of all the appointments of chief constable over the last few years have been internal. Very few have been external appointments—and so good, aspiring, young police officers will not seek to apply any more for those posts.

The movement between forces has now virtually stopped. There is an acceptance that police and crime commissioners will appoint only their sitting deputies and will not consider other candidates. The Government, the inspectorate and the Home Office must find some remedial mechanism which interdicts that process, encourages movement and ensures that the best people are promoted. I do not really mind what the mechanism is, but we need to face up to the challenge and the mischief that is currently happening—we are shrinking the gene pool of talent at the very top levels of policing.

On the final amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, I support broadly what he is aspiring to do, which is to have clearer ideas and objective measurement of leadership. That must only be a good thing.

The motivation for all the amendments in this group—three from the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Dear, and one from the noble Lord, Lord Blair, and me—is to ensure the best possible senior police leadership with appropriate skills and experience. We are where we are—we will not be able to unpick what has happened quickly. My support for the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Blair, is about facing up to where we are. There is a growing acceptance that outstanding candidates no longer need to start their police careers as constables or to progress through all the police ranks before serving in the most senior ranks.

The noble Lord, Lord Blair, and I, in our amendment, provide for the possibility of an outstanding external candidate with no police experience being considered for the roles of commissioner, chief constable, or Director of the National Crime Agency, if the Secretary of State is so minded, but after he or she has taken advice from Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary about the candidates who are available and willing to be considered, as well as any external candidates. But being commissioner or chief constable is about more than being an able leader or an able administrator. It is also about very specific command and control within policing. It is about life and death authority over the use of complex legal powers and authorities, which become more and more important as terrorism becomes more of a threat in Europe. It is about setting professional standards of integrity and performance, based on very detailed understanding of police culture, capabilities and weaknesses. While an able General, Admiral or former Permanent Under-Secretary, for example, can bring enormous leadership and administrative skills, they will be at a disadvantage initially in not understanding or knowing some of the cultural, professional and technical issues that face policing.

I acknowledge that we are where we are. The gene pool of police leadership should and must be improved. Ideally, it would be through taking some of the best from history, recognising where we are now, and moving forward in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Dear, indicated. But, in improving it, we should not do so in a way that trivialises relevant police experience or demoralises able men and women who have already embarked on police careers. Some have very recently come in as direct entrants at superintendent level and have aspirations and expectations to rise to the most senior posts in the service. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that while room and encouragement should be given for exceptional candidates without a policing background to be brought into top police posts, more effort should now be put into developing, as soon as possible, able men and women who see policing as a career that occupies much of their professional life, building on the current schemes for direct entry at various levels up to and including that of superintendent.

I am approaching almost my 50th anniversary of being around policing. I am very proud to have been a police officer. Like the noble Lords, Lord Dear and Lord Blair, I am a product of the system that was described. Some people crassly call for leadership to be helicoptered in from almost anywhere. This is not about education. I am an Oxford graduate, as is the noble Lord, Lord Blair, and the noble Lord, Lord Dear, is a Cambridge graduate. The current commissioner is an Oxford graduate. As I say, this is not about education. If it is about performance, past police leaders have outperformed on courses such as those of the Royal College of Defence Studies and the Cabinet Office Top Management Programme, on which I was sent by Prime Minister Thatcher. So there is a legacy of police leaders competing with, and outperforming, their peers and contemporaries in the military, in public service and the private sector.

However, this issue is not about that. In some cases, I fear that it becomes almost a pernicious class argument. As the noble Lord, Lord Dear, hinted, I worry that we are going back to the good old, bad old days—the pre-war thinking that not enough commissioners or chief constables have spent enough time in some of the best public schools. It is so sad when the argument boils down to that. This is really about trying to get the best leadership in policing, I hope that the Government, the Home Office and the Chief Inspector of Constabulary will put their heads together to help us find a way through this, because the direction in which we are going will not enhance police leadership; it will weaken it.

[Lord Rogan (UUP)]

My Lords, the PSNI has a requirement that before potential chief constables are appointed, they have to serve—I think for one or two years—in a force other than one in Northern Ireland. Perhaps that requirement could be introduced in the rest of the UK.

Policing and Crime Bill

Lord Condon Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Condon (CB)]

My Lords, in their election manifesto, the Government promised to finish the job of police reform and I support that ambition. I support much that is in the Bill. In particular, I support introducing a duty to collaborate on all three emergency services to improve efficiency. That will give impetus to innovative collaboration which, if I am honest, is already taking place up and down the country—but this will help. I also strongly support strengthening public confidence in the police by enhancing the role of the Independent Police Complaints Commission. Honest police officers have nothing to fear from such a strengthened Office for Police Conduct. I also welcome the introduction of an amendment for exceptional circumstances to allow retired police officers to be disciplined in certain circumstances.

Like others, I particularly welcome the provisions to ensure that those experiencing a mental health crisis receive the help they need and that police cells are used as places of safety only in exceptional circumstances. However, like other noble Lords, I fear that unless more resources are put into this area the reality will be that police cells may still be used for the mentally ill. Other clauses in the Bill cause me some concern. Also, some big issues are not addressed in the Bill. Their absence will jeopardise the Government’s ambition to deliver police reform. Yet before identifying these concerns, it might be helpful to your Lordships to briefly recount the changing nature of police and crime commissioners, and how this might impact on their ability to deliver the reforms proposed in the Bill.

In 2012, the then Government suggested police and crime commissioners would be very different from the old police authorities they were replacing. They would not be anonymous figures anchored in local party-political bodies. It was hoped and, indeed, expected that they would attract high-calibre independent candidates from backgrounds such as business, the military and the professions. Despite voter apathy and a turnout of only 15%, 16 independent candidates were elected. Compare and contrast that with the 2016 elections where, despite the elections coinciding with local elections, there was a turnout of only 26% and voters appeared to vote predominantly on party-political lines, replicating the party-political results in the local elections. So we now have 20 Conservative, 15 Labour and two Plaid Cymru police and crime commissioners. Independents were almost wiped out with the exception of three in Avon and Somerset, Dorset and Gloucestershire. So in just one electoral cycle the new police and crime commissioners are again firmly anchored in local party politics, with all the strengths and some of the challenges that brings.

Against this new landscape of PCCs, I raise concerns about what is in the Bill and what is missing. First, I have reservations about the clauses that enable PCCs to take on the functions and duties of fire and rescue authorities, where a local case is made. Other noble Lords have raised those concerns, including the noble Lords, Lord Rosser, Lord Bach, Lord Paddick and Lord Harris. I predict that the new police and crime commissioners, who, as I say, are now once again embedded in local party politics, will probably be unlikely to embrace these enabling clauses with any enthusiasm. The drive for efficiency is well established in local politics already and many fire and rescue authorities are collaborating with agencies other than the police, as well as with the police. For example, some are working with social services to enhance the safety of the elderly, with alarms and monitoring way beyond just fire safety. The spectre of a relatively unwelcome takeover of a fire and rescue authority by a PCC, however unlikely, will damage morale and create uncertainty, and could well jeopardise and set back many of the innovative, collaborative endeavours between fire and rescue and other local services not involved in policing. The Bill creates an expectation of mergers between police and fire services which are probably not welcome locally or, indeed, necessary, as the benefits can be gained by the duty to collaborate without a more formal process involving police and crime commissioners.

When the legislation creating the police and crime commissioners passed through your Lordships’ House, I raised concerns that in a world faced with global terrorism and the migration of a lot of financial and serious crime to the internet, we would need to be vigilant that a disconnected patchwork of 40 local police and crime commissioners might not be best placed to respond to some of these national and international challenges. My concerns about this disjointed local approach remain and have been strongly reinforced by Brexit, and my early thoughts on what that means for day-to-day policing up and down the country. I believe that if the Government are to deliver their manifesto promise to finish the job of police reform, the big issues for the police service are about not just parochial issues of better co-ordination within each force area; rather they are about better co-operation in policing regionally, nationally and internationally. Some of these big issues include, for example, the response to terrorism, which we spoke about earlier this afternoon. We need the Government to come to a conclusion—soon, I hope—about the lead role in combating terrorism. Will it continue to be the responsibility of the Metropolitan Police or will this role be transferred to the National Crime Agency? Is the Minister in a position to give us any guidance on when this important decision will be taken?

The migration of financial crime and fraud from the physical world to the digital world needs a joined-up response beyond local police and crime commissioners. Serious planning should be taking place now for more structured co-operation between the National Crime Agency, the Serious Fraud Office and the City of London financial crime unit.

Another big issue that needs to be dealt with nationally is the development of police leaders. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, mentioned what was happening in police leadership. Since police and crime commissioners have been given the task of selecting their chief constables, an unintended, but perhaps predictable, consequence has been a quite dramatic reduction in police candidates applying to be chief constables, primarily because experience shows that police and crime commissioners invariably select their local in-force candidate, regardless of the merits of candidates from outside the force. This may well lead to a stagnation of senior police experience. Prior to police and crime commissioners, a strong cadre of able men and women were mentored and encouraged to move between forces at senior level to encourage the spread of experience and best practice. Perhaps the Minister could tell your Lordships whether the police inspectorate and the College of Policing are aware of this challenge and how they are responding to the need to develop police leadership in the national—not just local—interest.

The final challenge which concerns me is the implications of Brexit for police and crime commissioners and their police forces. We should be under no illusions: the implications of Brexit will affect not just the National Crime Agency. Every day in every police force area checks are made involving European databases on people, vehicles, DNA samples and suspects. All these thousands—indeed, tens of thousands—of routine checks are now thrown into question. Our involvement with Europol, European arrest warrants and access to all the European databases will need to be renegotiated as part of the Brexit negotiations.

The Bill has many welcome and important provisions, which I hope your Lordships will support as it passes through this House. However, the clauses to enable police and crime commissioners to take on the duties of fire and rescue authorities are an unnecessary and unwelcome distraction and are unlikely to be embraced with any real enthusiasm by police and crime commissioners, who are now once again firmly embedded in local party politics. The Bill is silent on some of the really important issues that will enable police reform to take place, particularly in the light of the enormous range of challenges facing the police as a result of Brexit. I hope these important issues will be addressed as soon as possible but, in the meantime, I support most of the important provisions in the Bill.

Investigatory Powers Bill

Lord Condon Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Condon (CB)]

My Lords, I support the Bill, yet in doing so, I understand all the fears and concerns about privacy that have followed it from inception and through its passage in the other place and which are now central to our discussions in your Lordships’ House. As we have heard, your Lordships now have the responsibility to set the balance between the need for privacy and the right of our fellow citizens to live in safety and security.

For seven years, from 1993 to 2000, I was Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis and, as such, during those years I was at the centre of the policing operations to combat terrorism and organised and serious crime. I think the main service I can provide to your Lordships’ House today is to emphasise, as other have, but from my personal experience and knowledge, how advances in technology have totally transformed how terrorists, serious and organised criminals and paedophiles prepare for their crimes, conspire together and carry out them out. That is why the provisions in the Bill are essential if we are to protect our citizens. In preparing for the Bill, I spent time discussing it with the current director-general of the National Crime Agency and her predecessor, and I spent time with their operational colleagues at all levels in the National Crime Agency.

In 1996, only 20 years ago, and during my watch as commissioner, only 45 million people worldwide had access to the internet, and only 15 million of them were outside the United States of America. Google did not open its first office until 1998. iPhones were launched only nine years ago. Compare and contrast these facts with your own experience. According to Ofcom, 66% of adults in the United Kingdom now have smartphones, 81% of adults send emails and 62% of smartphone users have social media applications. The way that terrorists and criminals plan and conspire to carry out their crimes has been transformed in the relatively short period since I left the service. They have migrated from using mobile phones and meeting each other physically to a web-based and largely non-verbal environment.

The methods deployed by law enforcement agencies to disrupt and detect criminality in all its forms and to protect society must keep pace with these changes. The tradecraft and methods of preventing and detecting crime from my time in policing seem increasingly obsolete and ineffective when faced with the challenges of the digital age and communications data. Law enforcement agencies need to keep pace with the realities of these changes. Analogue-age powers are no match for digital-age terrorists and criminals. Telephone calls are no longer central to how people communicate, and they are certainly not how terrorists and other criminals communicate. As other noble Lords have said, criminals and terrorists now use social media, WhatsApp, internet chatrooms and every opportunity that a rapidly evolving internet world gives them.

Legislation must respond to these changes and, with vital checks and balances, create a framework which allows law enforcement to combat terrorism and serious crime. In most respects, this Bill seeks to consolidate and recalibrate existing powers, but I acknowledge that the extension of powers into the world of internet connection records is controversial and challenging. I believe the extension of powers into internet connection records is essential and is a proportionate response to the real world in which criminality and terrorism are planned and now take place. Communication data are a vital evidential ingredient of virtually every major case dealt with by law enforcement agencies. For example, the House heard earlier about the recent gun smuggling case which was this country’s biggest known gun smuggling operation. It was analysis of communications data that provided vital evidence and allowed the attribution of telephones, various other devices and SIM cards, and the identification of key locations linked to the gun smuggling. It should be remembered that similar automatic weapons, from similar European sources, were used in the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels. Analysis of recent National Crime Agency cases suggests that in at least 14% of its cases relating to child abuse imagery, it would require the retention of internet communication records to have any prospect whatever of identifying a suspected paedophile. The provisions in the Bill relating to ICRs are not really about extending the boundaries of acceptable law enforcement but are more about retaining law enforcement capacity in the dramatically changing digital world.

I hope we will find ways to assuage the very understandable and reasonable fears that some Members of your Lordships’ House have about some or all of the Bill. In particular, I understand the concerns about the proposals for internet connection records, including how they are defined and what they can include. If additional privacy offences are required, let us add them to the Bill; if additional safeguards are required, let us define and incorporate them. But I hope your Lordships will be prepared, after what I know will be robust discussion, to pass the main provisions of the Bill.

Police: Armed Officers

Lord Condon Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Condon (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a former police marksman. Does the Minister agree that we have an enviable record in this country compared with other developed countries of the restraint shown by our firearms officers in the face of split-second, life and death decisions on behalf of the wider community? If we are to encourage good and able men and women to come forward to be trained as firearms officers, we need a more measured debate about the pressures they face and the services they give to our community.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I concur with the observations of the noble Lord. The policy in this country has long been that the police should not generally be armed, so those authorised to carry firearms are entitled to consideration for the difficult tasks that they have to perform. Recently the Shaw report has been under consideration. It deals with the question of how we should respond in cases involving the use of firearms and similar weaponry. That report continues to be under consideration at present.

Police: Funding Formula

Lord Condon Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, we published the Counter-Extremism Strategy yesterday and we will come forward with the counterextremism Bill. Part of the work that has been going on is to encourage people to come forward and report hate crimes when we see them in our community. They had been decreasing for a long period and then we saw a sharp increase. That is something to which we need to respond, and we will, in the legislation and in the strategy we have announced.

[Lord Condon (CB)]

My Lords, the police service cannot be exempt from the cuts which are affecting all of the public service—we fully understand that. However, does the Minister accept that cuts of the magnitude which are now anticipated and being planned for will transform the police service into a smaller, more restricted and, we hope, more efficient service, but one that will find it incredibly difficult to deliver reassuring general patrol on foot or by vehicle or any real semblance of neighbourhood policing? Surely, against that background, these profound changes to the bedrock of British policing should be taking place only by design and after widespread debate, including parliamentary debate, not by stealth as a consequence of budgetary change.

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, I agree, and acknowledge the particular expertise which the noble Lord brings to this matter. We are now seeing an increase in the number of police on the front line; 92% are serving on the front line. We are cutting back the bureaucracy and red tape that often used to bind the hands of police, with the result that they used to spend more time with paperwork than out on patrol. Today, Sir Tom Winsor of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary points out that there are significant savings still to be made by sharing back-office facilities and by better working between police and fire brigades and ambulance authorities, as is happening in many parts of the country. He reported that there are about 2,300 different IT systems in operation between 43 forces. Someone who wants to do a background check on one individual often has to consult eight different databases to do so. There is room for efficiency while protecting the front line.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Lord Condon Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, it is indeed time for a fundamental review of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. It is now almost half a century old and was the product of the prohibitionist orthodoxy that developed during the 1960s. It was the way in which our country implemented the requirements of the UN convention of 1961; subsequently, we doggedly signed up to the 1971 and 1988 conventions. It is through this legislation that the full panoply of prohibition was established, with the criminalisation of supply and possession. It is more than time to look again at the principles underlying this legislation, because there is an abundance of evidence that the legislation has failed in its purpose of protecting society from harm. I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, that our objective has to be to minimise the damage that drug usage causes in our society.

Since this legislation was introduced, we have seen, generation by generation, very significant increases in the use of drugs. There have been fluctuations in the use of cannabis, but if noble Lords study the latest annual report from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, they will see that it sounds alarm bells over the rising problem of cannabis, in particular the increasing potency and purity of herbal cannabis and cannabis resin. The cannabis that is available in the market for consumers in this country is now far higher in THC, the most dangerous component of cannabis, than the cannabis that people were accustomed to using in the 1960s. A far larger proportion of our population now uses cannabis than in those days. Britons are among the largest consumers of controlled drugs in Europe. Therefore, there is evidence that the system is not working.

Prohibition is based on a false analysis of supply and demand. Where supply is interdicted, demand does not consequentially fall. Prices rise and the profits of criminals rise, but demand is displaced to different drugs. One reason we have the problem of new psychoactive substances, which the Bill seeks to address, is the prohibition of other substances, which has displaced demand, and people are looking for new opportunities to find the experience that they seek.

MDMA, better known as ecstasy, is another controlled drug, but the control has simply failed. Statistics indicate that some 300,000 young people each week are using ecstasy. As I mentioned at Second Reading, in universities its use is widespread, as is the use of smart drugs that are supposed to facilitate mental concentration and help people do better in severely competitive situations.

It is more than time for an analysis of the kind that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has recommended—an objective expert review of the way that this legislation has worked. It has been a gift to criminals. On the black market, price increases of 100 times between production and retail are not uncommon. In 2013, it was estimated that taxpayers across the world were spending something in the order of $188 billion on the enforcement of prohibition regimes, with the effect of creating an illegal drugs market of some 240 million users, with a turnover of $320 billion. This is a massive illicit business created by the prohibitionist orthodoxy.

At the same time, the Home Office estimated that the social and economic costs of organised drug crime in England and Wales were £10.7 billion a year. The collateral damage of the war on drugs has been immense, with diversion of public spending from health, education, development and other good causes—or, if you prefer, from the lowering of taxes and the reduction of deficits—and from tackling social exclusion and violent crime on estates in this country. That extends to the countries of production and transit: there have been 100,000 deaths in the drug wars in Mexico for which our people, as consumers, have to take serious responsibility. There is corruption of public life in many countries, and the proceeds of the illegal drug trade are used to finance terrorism. There are abuses of human rights, the use of the death sentence in a number of countries across the world, and environmental damage; for example, in Latin America, where the coca bean is produced.

Money laundering is a very significant problem, which is greatly exacerbated by prohibition. Banks in this country—unburdened by any particular sense of civic responsibility or by effective regulation—fund money laundering of drugs money, which is a profitable activity, as do money transfer services. It is not just the financiers, though. Other white collar professionals—accountants and lawyers—do not ask the questions they are required by the law to ask and are happy to facilitate the transfer of the proceeds of the illicit trade into the licit economy. It is ubiquitous across the country. At the other end of the scale, nail bars, taxi firms, car washes and, I am told, even childcare organisations are local small businesses that are used to facilitate the laundering of the proceeds of the drugs trade.

The Chancellor now wishes to make the City of London an offshore centre for trading in the Chinese currency regardless of the fact that the great majority of new psychoactive substances emanate from China. Prohibition is an engine of crime, of international organised crime, of gang-related street crime and of acquisitive crime. It accounts for between one-fifth and one-third of acquisitive crime. More enforcement leads to more violence and more profit. Prohibition drives innovation.

The Misuse of Drugs Act was never effective, but to attempt to overlay a regime that was not effective in the circumstances for which it was designed on today’s world of digital communications is, I believe, doomed to failure. The internet has made it far easier for people to obtain the information they need to know how to synthesise such drugs, to market them and to make them available. Smartphones enable people to tell each other about the arrival of new consignments of drugs—I am told even that invitations to parties contain links to suppliers. To extend the prohibition regime as the Government propose in the Bill seems a project doomed to failure.

Over the years, the Government have lacked conviction in the enforcement of prohibition. The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, to his immense credit, when faced with the challenge of HIV and AIDS in the 1980s, wisely and humanely decided that to provide clean needles and needle exchanges was the right thing to do and that harm prevention should trump law enforcement. There has been vacillation by successive Home Secretaries about the classification of cannabis. In 2010, when cannabis had once again been moved to a different classification, the Lancet stated:

“Politics has been allowed to contaminate scientific processes and the advice that underpins policy”.

The noble Lord, Lord Bates, may correct me but I understand that in the preparation of this legislation the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, created under the 1971 legislation to be the Government’s statutory adviser in this field, was sidelined. As the noble Lord said in moving this amendment, this seems to be an end to evidence-based policy and the attempt at a rational assessment of harm. Ministers have done this through this legislation and the broader policy. They have further discredited the Misuse of Drugs Act, on which they rely and which they insist is so necessary.

In an interview in the Independent in 2005, David Cameron said:

“Politicians attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator by posturing with tough policies and calling for crackdown after crackdown. Drugs policy has been failing for decades”.

I greatly fear that this Bill will be another failure, and I commend to the Minister and the Home Secretary the course of action proposed in this amendment.

[Lord Condon (CB)]

My Lords, I cannot support these amendments, not because I challenge the sincerity of those who wish to encourage wider debate about drugs and the value of criminalising or decriminalising them, but because I think this is the wrong Bill at the wrong time to try to bolt on this wider debate. There is a real mischief that needs to be dealt with now: the mischief of so-called legal highs, which, tragically too often, are lethal highs. Many families are grieving in this country because youngsters, in particular, have taken these substances and died as a result. The mischief that needs remedying as soon as possible is the spread of so-called head shops and other such shops in many of our major cities around the country. We are just getting into the serious music festival season. Many of those festivals will have the equivalent of head shops on open display. There is real confusion among many vulnerable, naive youngsters, who assume that, because there are head shops or stands at music festivals selling these substances, they must be medically safe.

I spoke yesterday to the chief constable of Hertfordshire, Andy Bliss, who leads for the police service on these issues, and the police are adamant that there is a real need for this legislation as soon as possible. So let there be a wider debate around the big issues of evidence, prohibition and legalising or not legalising drugs, but we need to deal now, laser-like, with this real and present mischief. Any attempt to make this Bill into a wider debate will dilute, probably defer and possibly damage our intent to deal with this real and present mischief. Although there is a need for this wider debate, I hope that it will not destroy the laser-like focus of this Bill, which deals with a real and imminent problem.

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

The specific terms of the amendment are:

“The Secretary of State shall commission an independent evidence-based review of the effectiveness of the Misuse of Drugs Act … and the implementation of the Act”,

and,

“The Secretary of State shall lay a copy of a report of the review before both Houses of Parliament within one year”.

Is the noble Lord saying that he approves of the amendment but does not think that it should be linked to the passage of this Act? If so, I would be grateful if he clarified that he is in favour now of an independent review of the way in which the Misuse of Drugs Act is actually operating.

[Lord Condon]

Certainly, I am not against such a review. It is for those who wish to make the case for it to put it forward and to find a mechanism for it to take place. I would very happily give evidence to such a review or assist in any way I could. The point I am making today is that, at the very least, there would be a 12-month delay, probably longer, and there is a pressing need to get legislation now to do something about the production, supply and distribution of these so-called legal highs, which, as I said, are lethal highs on some occasions and are killing young people.

Police: Reduction in Numbers

Lord Condon Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I certainly agree about the importance of having safer communities. That is why it is not a stock answer to point out that fewer crimes are happening than at any time since that survey came into being in 1981. It is not something to be complacent about. It is due to the tremendous efforts which the police are making. Nor are we simply saying that reductions in budgets are not a serious matter. We are saying that there needs to be those reductions. As the Police Federation recognised, there needed to be reductions to make sure that we balance the economy. We have reduced bureaucracy by 4.5 million hours, which is the equivalent of 2,100 police officers. Also, we have said that we do not want police officers in back offices but on the front line. We have increased the proportion of police officers who are now serving on the front line. The combination of those two things is why crime is falling.

[Lord Condon (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that, even if economic necessity justifies the 17,000 reduction in the number of police officers and the 23,000 reduction in civilian support staff, nevertheless, the next Government should have as an aspiration the renewal of neighbourhood policing and reassuring uniform police patrol? Despite the best efforts of the Government, crime commissioners and chief constables, neighbour policing and reassuring uniform patrol are threatened and are in danger of being relegated to our history books—and they are the foundation of the relationship with the public.

[Lord Bates]

I totally agree with that, which is one of the reasons why, between March 2010 and March 2014, the number of neighbourhood police officers increased by 5,918. Total neighbourhood policing is up by 1,919, which reflects the change in the number of PCSOs. It is a vital part and there is no doubt that policing can take place effectively only when it is with community consent, working together with the police and law enforcement agencies to ensure that we reduce crime.