Public Order Bill

Lord Dear Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 28th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

The noble Lord is of course entitled to his opinion, and so am I. I said it was unfortunate that the noble Lord disagreed with the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. That is my opinion.

Elsewhere in the report, the noble Baroness says:

“Stop and search and vehicle stops are justified


—she meant by the police—

“through their compliance with the law, ignoring how such incidents are perceived, the impact on individuals, and the wider corrosive impact of trust in the police.”

The Minister mentioned body-worn video and so does the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. She says that the police want to use body-worn video to justify continuing to do what they have done in the past rather than what she says is needed, which is a fundamental reset. Body-worn video is not the answer. That should not be used by the police to justify continued disproportionality in their use of the power.

The noble Baroness further states:

“Black Londoners are under-protected—disproportionately the victims of homicides and domestic abuse; and over-policed—facing disproportionate use of stop and search and use of force by the Met. A huge and radical step is required to regain police legitimacy and trust among London’s Black communities.”


“Overpoliced and underprotected” is what a black policeman said to the Macpherson inquiry 25 years ago. It was not the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, but another black churchman giving evidence to that inquiry; here we are with another inquiry saying exactly the same thing 25 years later.

The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, cites a Home Affairs Select Committee report from 2021, which reported that, in the previous year, the equivalent of one in four black males aged 15 to 24 in London were stopped and searched in a three-month period. The noble Baroness says:

“The facts relating to stop and search are … around 70 to 80% lead to no further action … the more stop and searches are done, the greater the proportion of no further actions.”


The noble Baroness cites a 2019 research study that questioned the efficacy of stop and search as a tactic of policing. She quotes from that report, as do I. It says:

“Overall, our analysis of ten years’ worth of London-wide data suggests that, although stop and search had a weak association with some forms of crime, this effect was at the outer margins of statistical and social significance.”


The Minister repeatedly says that the power that we are debating today—the power to stop and search without suspicion—is based on the existing power under Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. The 2019 research goes on to say:

“When we looked separately at S. 60 searches, it did not appear that a sudden surge in use had any effect on the underlying trend in … violent crime.”


The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, concludes:

“Stop and search is currently deployed by the Met at the cost of legitimacy, trust and, therefore consent. … It has damaged trust. If the Met is unable to explain and justify its disproportionate use and the impacts of these, then it needs a fundamental reset.”


The majority of stop and search nationally—between 50% and 60%—is carried out in London. The majority—over 60%—of protests happen in London. The majority of times these powers are used will be in London. Stop and search in London needs a fundamental reset, and yet this Government have ignored this House and are giving the police even more opportunity to undermine their legitimacy, trust and, therefore, consent, by giving the police more powers to stop and search.

Without consent, the whole system of policing in this country is undermined, and that is what this Government risk with this legislation. We support the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and will vote for it, but we believe these new stop and search powers should not be part of the Bill. That is what we have always said and what we maintain.

The noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, cited various examples of what I think he called “disproportionate protests”. All the examples he gave are of criminal offences for which people can be arrested. The police do not need stop and search powers in addition to those powers of arrest.

The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, cited the 2017 riots and his view, his opinion, was that they were aggravated by the police use of stop and search. Lord Scarman said exactly the same thing about the 1981 Brixton riots. Will we never learn? I urge this House to vote for Motion A1.

[Lord Dear (CB)]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak in this debate today, but I find myself totally in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and with the last remark about Lord Scarman. I worked very closely with him in 1981 and after that and agreed wholeheartedly with his findings then. They are still good today.

The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, spoke very eloquently and I found myself nodding all the way through her speech. I agree entirely with what she said and will not weary this House by repeating those very wise words, save to say that I think that this is the wrong time for this projected policy. What we need now is temperate and measured policing and this is not going to help that. I support the noble Lord, Lord Coaker.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for another fruitful debate. As I said at the beginning, this Bill has undoubtedly been given the scrutiny the British public want and expect.

Before I go on to more substantive remarks, I should say that I fully support the Casey report. The Government and the Met Police have taken this report very seriously. Guidance on the use of stop and search is statutory and is set out in PACE. It is the law. That is the place for it, as the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, pointed out, if nothing else to ensure consistency. There are safeguards and considerable scrutiny of stop and search and I will come back to that.

The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and others will no doubt accuse me of semantics but as my noble friend Lord Sandhurst reminded us, these powers relate to serious disruption—ambulances should not be stopped from getting to hospital, as the leader of the Opposition has pointed out in the past.

On the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, about the effectiveness of stop and search, I was reminded of a pack that I still have in my folder. I was giving some statistics yesterday, and every knife seized through stop and search, I think, is a potential life saved. In 2021-22, stop and search removed around 14,900 weapons and firearms from our streets and resulted in almost 67,000 arrests. I appreciate that we are on a slightly different subject, but none the less this is an important and powerful illustration that, used appropriately, stop and search can work.

Recent protests have been clear in their aim of causing as much disruption as possible through the use of guerrilla tactics. These measures give the police the proactive powers necessary to respond to those dangerous and disruptive tactics quickly. We will work closely with our partners in the police to ensure that they have the support and resources in place to use these powers.

I have heard what the House has said about the potential disproportionality involved in this and we acknowledge that nobody should be stopped and searched because of their race. Extensive safeguards such as the statutory codes of practice to which I have referred and the use of body-worn video exist to ensure that this does not happen. The Home Office publishes extensive data on police use of stop and search in the interest of transparency and we will expand the publication to the use of the new powers provided for in this Bill, as I have already outlined.

I referred to GOWISELY earlier, which is a mnemonic. This follows, and frankly supports, many of the recommendations from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. I will go through them. The G stands for grounds for the search. These are the minimum bits of information which should be given to the person detained for the purpose of the search. O stands for the object of the search. W is for the warrant card to be shown to the person searched. I is for the identity of the officer—that is usually the officer’s name unless the officer thinks that giving their name would put them in danger, in which case an identification number can be given. S is the station to which the officer is attached. E is the entitlement to a copy of the search form. L is the legal search power being exercised. Y means that you, the officer, must tell the person stopped that they are being detained for the purpose of the search.

The noble Lord, Lord Morgan, referred to the situation in Paris. As I understand it, much of that is a consequence of the activities of the gendarmerie, which is not a police force with any equivalent in this country.

Police: Vetting, Misconduct and Misogyny

Lord Dear Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

That is the way the system is currently set up. As I say, the Home Office is not trying to absolve itself in this regard, but the fact remains that the vetting processes, which vary to some extent across forces, are the responsibility of chief constables.

[Lord Dear (CB)]

My Lords, I remind Members of the House of my previous service in senior positions in a number of police forces in this country. The report in the newspapers this morning will fill all of us with concern—indeed, dismay. The findings of the inspectorate report are horrific. There will be many factors behind this, but I ask a question on one factor only: the need for staff training to develop leadership. The Home Office disbanded the Staff College—and this is nothing to do with the College of Policing—some 12 years ago. It was not re-established, and it badly needs to be so. Do His Majesty’s Government have any plans to re-establish the Staff College?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Not as far as I am aware, but I defer to the noble Lord’s specialist knowledge on this subject and I will take the question back to the Home Office.

Criminal Finances Bill

Lord Dear Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 9th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dear (CB)]

My Lords, coming in to bat as late as I am in a debate like this, almost everything I wanted to say has already been said. I shall try to be brief but my brevity does not signify any lack of sincerity or support for the Bill. I welcome it warmly, as I have made known before.

In the 1990s I was HM Inspector of Constabulary, carrying at that time a special responsibility to satisfy the Home Secretary of the day about police activity against organised crime and money laundering—was it adequate? At that time I found that the response to arrests was reasonably good but the response to the recovery of cash was downright poor. All too often those at the top of the criminal tree were getting off scot free. They were not being arrested or inconvenienced, and certainly none of their assets was being recovered. In other words, if you got to that position, life was something like a bed of roses. The amounts then, much exaggerated now, were eye-watering—absolutely staggering amounts of cash, of property, of assets and of works of art. To have seen the product of some of those investigations and listened to some of the intercepts from deep-cover operations showed to me—and I thought I knew everything about it—just how deeply rooted this was. The 2013 Act has gone a long way towards improving that 1990s position, but there is no doubt—and it has been implicit in everything that we have said so far—that the very top end of crime, which we are concerned with in this debate today, is all about status, power, hedonism, violence and cash. If you take the cash away, most of the rest falls away, almost into insignificance. It is quite clear that this Bill has almost universal approval; there is nothing very contentious in it except perhaps to criminals, and we are not too concerned about them in the sense that we have been debating today.

One of the things that will clearly develop from this is the much closer working relationship between HMRC and other agencies, and properly handled that is to be welcomed. I will not go into some of the particular things that interest me in the Bill: unexplained wealth orders, which have been mentioned already, the much-strengthened investigatory powers against fraud and money laundering, and the improved facilities for helping SARs—suspicious activity reports. After I came to your Lordships’ House 11 years ago, I very shortly joined the Home Affairs Select Committee. We carried out an in-depth, searching inquiry into money laundering and its effects. One of the things we looked at was the way in which SARs were being handled, and even then they were handled very well. We spent a fascinating day at the London offices looking at the way in which the huge amount of information from all the various agencies and bodies was collected. They said, “We put so much in, they can’t possibly look at it”. In fact, there was a great deal going in. What was really becoming apparent was that it was being computerised in a very sophisticated way and whole patterns of criminality were being developed, leading one very quickly to see who was involved and where the money was going.

This clearly will help drive down crime. Although we have not mentioned it much today, it would certainly help to slow down, if not stop, terrorist funding. I say, not jocularly, that the days of terrorists rattling tins for collections in central European cafés have very long gone—they disappeared before the First World War. Terrorists now are highly sophisticated in the way they draw down the funds for operations.

I want to mention just three things. The first was touched on by the previous speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, just before he sat down. He is quite right: we have a very poor record in recovery of assets. We talk about large sums but, in proportion, they are very small. Law enforcement has to start supporting this legislation and I hope it will be encouraged—if not encouraged, certainly pushed very hard—to do so. The root of that is that the law-enforcing agencies—certainly police and others working similarly close to them—are judged on what are called “results”, and the results are arrests: “Get the person into custody and before the court. We know we need to chase the stolen property and need to chase the assets, but we are too busy because we have other things coming up and we are being judged on results”. That has to change quite considerably.

We have heard this very hackneyed story about the way the FBI, during the prohibition era in America, took down very high-level criminals by using tax-evasion legislation. That is very close and in parallel to this legislation. I hope to forecast confidently that through the use of this legislation we will move away, in selected cases, from chasing the criminal through the criminal courts and simply go for the asset. The damage it does to him—or her, but usually him—and his organisation is massive and total. Chasing to try and get the conviction is often counterproductive.

I gloss over the second thing very quickly, although I feel very strongly about it. We have heard a great deal about the overseas territories and the Crown dependencies and I agree with everything that has been said. I certainly support public registers of beneficial ownership.

The third thing we have brushed on very briefly in this debate is Bill Browder’s book Red Notice, which I too have read. For those of your Lordships who are still not sure, the book is about Sergei Magnitsky’s death, which led to the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act 2012 in the USA. He was a lawyer who stood up against high-level corruption and money laundering in Russia. He was arrested and, in custody, was tortured over a long period and then beaten to death. Browder then pursued his case for many years, eventually getting that Act that I have just mentioned on to the statutory book in America. It is all about human rights abuse and money laundering, and preventing those contributing to that from getting visas to go into the United States. The big thing is about freezing their assets wherever they could be frozen—certainly in the USA. There have been various unforeseen consequences on that; it is a very delicate situation and the Act led to a tit-for-tat war between Russia and the USA, and one has to watch that very closely. Notwithstanding that, the thought of being able to draw human rights abuse and money laundering into this Act in this way has much to commend it for, so my heart and sense of direction supports that.

I repeat, in conclusion, that the Bill has my very warm support—it is very-long awaited and I welcome it. I am confident that it should have a profound effect in the areas we are discussing: humanitarian, social, counterterrorism and so on. I will certainly do my best to assist its passage through your Lordships’ House.

Operation Midland

Lord Dear Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, it was the commissioner who asked Sir Richard Henriques to carry out the independent report. It is now for the Metropolitan Police to address the findings of that report, and to take action where necessary.

[Lord Dear (CB)]

My Lords, running throughout this report are two palpably obvious issues: the quality of officers at the top of any police service in this country and leadership. I spoke on this matter in Committee on the Policing and Crime Bill last week, as did the noble Lords, Lord Condon and Lord Blair, two former Commissioners of the Metropolitan Police. We raised very grave concerns that the requirements for training and selection of senior officers had been allowed to diminish to a point almost of invisibility, one example of which was the sale of the Police Staff College, which has not been replaced. Given that I am to have a meeting at the Home Office next week, will the Minister reassure your Lordships’ House that the issues of quality and leadership will be elevated to a point of prime concern in the Home Office, and will not remain almost invisible, as they are at the moment?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I preface my comments by saying that the sale of a building is not, in itself, the most important aspect of those issues. However, what the noble Lord says about the quality of leaders and officers in the Metropolitan Police, and the police in general, is very important. We will have further debates on this. Certainly, the training and leadership of police forces that protect the public are of the utmost importance.

Policing and Crime Bill

Lord Dear Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard - part two): House of Lords
Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Dear]

201SA: After Clause 107, insert the following new Clause—
“Power to remove disguises
In section 60AA(6) of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (powers to require removal of disguises) leave out “that is not practicable,” and insert “it is not practicable for an authorisation or direction to be given in writing, it shall be”.”

[Lord Dear (CB)]

My Lords, it is with some trepidation that I drag your Lordships’ attention from the interesting subjects of tank transporters, pigeon post and emails.

Amendment 201SA stands in my name and those of the noble Lords, Lord Donoughue and Lord Campbell of Pittenweem. The noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, has asked me to say that he is not able to speak to the amendment due to the lateness of the hour but he would have done so, as would the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu.

The amendment concerns Section 60AA of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which gives the police powers in some circumstances to require the removal of facial disguises. An authorisation is required under that section. The authorisation is strictly time limited, and is specific in many ways, particularly as regards location and time. It gives a power to uniformed police to require the removal of, among other things, masks, balaclavas and scarves if it is suspected that the purpose of wearing those disguises is wholly or mainly to conceal identity. The authorisation gives the police the power to seize those balaclavas et cetera, and provides that any person who fails to remove them when required commits an offence. A police inspector can authorise the removal of those articles if he or she reasonably believes, first, that offences are likely to be committed and, secondly, that the authority to remove them is expedient. It follows from that that one is dealing with demonstrations and prospective incidents of disorder which are foreseen or advertised to the police. The authorisation has to be in writing, has to be signed by the inspector and has to specify all the grounds—locality, period of time and so on—before it is valid. That brings me to the wording of Amendment 201SA, which seeks to remove “that is not practicable” and insert the words printed in the Marshalled List.

Somebody listening to me or reading the amendment may wonder whether it is splitting hairs. In a sense, it is, but there is a reason for that. As I said, the law as it stands deals with anticipated demonstrations—those that are pre-advertised in one way or another. The police know that such a demonstration is going to take place and can take pre-emptive action by issuing an authority in writing. However, there is a problem—and it has been a problem for some years now. It is what is often called, in popular parlance, “flash demos”. These are demonstrations of which the police have had no prior knowledge and which have erupted suddenly and spontaneously—a sort of “hit and run”, if you like. There is no doubt that in some cases the people who organise those flash demos—if I may continue to use that phrase—are working on the presumption that they can organise them because of the growth of communication by social media, which makes it much easier. They also know full well that if the police have no prior knowledge, the numbers of police officers available to deal with that intended disorder are likely to be very few. Those police officers on the street, faced with that sudden eruption of violence or disorder, will be faced with a dilemma. Quite simply, in their terms, if they effect an arrest, those two officers—or one officer or whatever—will go off the scene and then nobody is left to deal with the disorder. So one sees a degree of deliberation behind all this.

The point of the amendment is that there is some confusion at the moment in the minds of the police about whether the Act allows the permission to be written ex post facto—in other words, the police officer at the scene faced with the demonstration will usually use the radio to ask an inspector at the base station for permission—and whether or not it is correct within the existing law for the inspector to give the permission and write it when the officer is already dealing with the situation with which he is confronted.

I think that my amendment has full support; I hope that it has. Certainly there is full support for that change from the police service at the top level. From the police’s point of view, it will clarify their position, give them a degree of certainty and enable a much speedier response to deal with disorder, either impending or actual. I hope that I can say with some certainty that there is support from all around the House. On that point, we shall learn more in a moment. There have been some discussions with officials, who, without any commitment at all, have indicated a sympathy to discuss this further. I ask the Minister to recognise that and, in the light of whatever is said in this Chamber tonight, to consider taking this issue away and bringing back an amendment at a later stage. On those grounds, I beg to move.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Dear, has raised a potentially important issue, and I think he is right to put it in the terms that he has. Particularly with the growth of social media and the very rapid organisation of demonstrations, there may be an issue here that needs to be addressed. Indeed, if the Minister, having thought about it, agrees to take it back and bring forward a proper amendment which addresses all these points at the next level—which I think is the noble Lord’s preferred course of action—there are a number of other issues that perhaps would usefully be addressed at the same time.

We have to be more explicit about what constitutes a disguise and the circumstances in which it happens. You could have a situation in which what would appear to a police officer on the scene as being a disguise might turn out to be a veil worn for religious purposes; or it might turn out to be the fact that it is extraordinarily inclement weather and no sensible people would go out without a scarf wrapped around their face; or it might be that they wear face masks—I have seen this; it is quite common particularly among Japanese tourists, although I am not sure that it is unique—allegedly to protect themselves from the notorious levels of air pollution in our capital city. All I am saying is that the definition of “disguise” that may have seemed to work in the 1994 Act may need to be reviewed and looked at in the context of whether it continues to make sense. There have to be some safeguards with regards to the way in which decisions are taken and recorded, which ensure that the power is not used in any way which could be deemed discriminatory, as that would be extremely unfortunate. I am sure that that is not the intention, but it is important that safeguards are built into this. While the process by which this happens should be able to respond quickly to the sorts of situations that the noble Lord, Lord Dear, outlined, it should also be amenable to ensuring that the power is not misused or used in a way which in retrospect turns out to be highly inappropriate.

The noble Lord, Lord Dear, has identified an issue that should be addressed, but it needs to be developed quite carefully to avoid some potential pitfalls in the future.

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, can I just put on the record what Section 60AA(2) of the 1994 Act says? To the best of my knowledge, it has not raised any problems in law so far. It says:

“This subsection confers power on any constable in uniform … to require any person to remove any item which the constable reasonably believes”—

those words are a well-known test in law—

“that person is wearing wholly or mainly for the purpose of concealing his identity”.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

Briefly, I agree with my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey, that the noble Lord, Lord Dear, has raised an important issue. However, it needs careful consideration for the reasons that my noble friend outlined. I therefore hope that the Minister will agree that the Government will take this away and have a look at this issue. We all want to make sure that the police have the appropriate power, but equally, of course, we should ensure that the proper safeguards are built in so that unintended consequences, which no one would want to occur, do not cause problems as well.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, is right that the permission in writing can be given after the event, but we now find that that is not an ideal situation. On what the noble Lord, Lord Dear, proposes, both national policing leads and others would welcome a clarification on this matter. The noble Lord, Lord Dear, answered the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for me, but I will repeat it, as it is important. With regard to removing face coverings for religious reasons, for example, the Act states that when an authorisation is in place, a constable can require a person to remove a face covering only if the constable reasonably believes that the person is wearing the item,

“wholly or mainly for the purpose of concealing his”,

or her “identity”. Of course, it is for individuals to ensure the fair and proportionate use of their powers.

If the noble Lord is content to withdraw his amendment—it sounds as though he is—I will give the matter further sympathetic consideration in advance of Report.

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, at this late hour I am grateful for the contributions that have been made. I am encouraged by and grateful to the Minister for what she has said, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 201SA withdrawn.

Policing and Crime Bill

Lord Dear Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard - part one): House of Lords
Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I support what my noble friend Lord Marlesford has said. He has identified something that has gone seriously wrong in recent years. The phrase “insufficient evidence” suggests the existence of some evidence. In some instances that will, of course, be right, but in other cases it will not be right—for example, in recent cases which will, doubtless, be in your Lordships’ minds. My noble friend has put forward a phrase which ought to be acceptable to the Government, but if it is not—and I am no wordsmith—perhaps I might suggest some alternatives. It would be proper to say, for example, “wrong to commence criminal proceedings” or “criminal proceedings are not justified”. Other phrases may occur to your Lordships.

What we must not do is to allow the police to come forward with a reason which implies the existence of a fire unsupported by sufficient smoke. That is not a fair state of affairs. My noble friend on the Front Bench may say that this is not a matter for statute. If the Committee is of that view, then advice could be given by ACPO to its members, but I think my noble friend has identified a real point which I hope your Lordships will support, by argument and debate.

[Lord Dear (CB)]

My Lords, I support what both noble Lords have said, the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, in particular. I am sure I am right in saying that there is a growing sense of disquiet throughout society, which has swung away from the rampant interest that one saw in recent years in pursuing sex offenders, in particular—the Jimmy Savile case comes to mind immediately—towards beginning to say, “Wait a minute, it has gone too far”. I believe that it has gone too far. We live in a world where reputations can be traduced almost within seconds, given the spread of social media—I think the phrase now used is “going viral”. That can happen and, worldwide, a reputation is in tatters in a way that was not at risk of happening before.

One has only to look at Members of this House, never mind anyone outside—and outside is in many ways more important than our own membership of your Lordships’ House. Lord Bramall comes to mind. The son of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Carey, has recently been in the newspapers for reasons I found totally disquieting. So have Sir Cliff Richard, Lord Brittan, Sir Edward Heath and Bishop Bell, who has been the subject of many of our debates recently. I will not take up your Lordships’ time except to say that I support what is being said. Whether we should do it by advice, as has recently been said, I do not know, but the Government should take note of this growing tide of disquiet at what is going on. I hesitate to say, and I am sad to say, that the police are front runners in causing this situation. Something should be done and this amendment is a step in that direction. I support it.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford. I might go a little further than the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and say that “lack of evidence” is probably exactly the phrase that should be used and it should be made compulsory. Saying that there is a lack of evidence could quite easily mean a complete lack of credible evidence, whereas “insufficient evidence” could imply that there was some credible evidence in cases where there was none. “Lack of evidence” is exactly the right phrase and I look forward to the Minister’s response as to how this can be made compulsory.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Hailsham]

My Lords, I hope the Committee does not accept this amendment. Of course, I have every sympathy with the generality of the points made by the noble Baroness, but I hope she will forgive me if I observe that many of the arguments that she has advanced are advanced in general against the use of Tasers, not with particular regard to the use on psychiatric wards. Your Lordships need to keep in mind that some people held on psychiatric wards can be prone to extreme violence. I am not prepared to say that there are no circumstances in which a Taser might not be appropriate in self-defence of the people with responsibility for the persons on the ward or in defence of third parties. That is an extreme position to take and I ask the Committee not to take it.

Furthermore, if the Committee was to accept this amendment it would create an offence on the part of the officer or nurse who used a Taser, who would be guilty of an assault, whereas the circumstances that arose in any ordinary context would justify the use. That strikes me as a very rum thing to do indeed. I hope that we will rely on the ordinary law, which is that a Taser should be used only in wholly exceptional circumstances in appropriate self-defence or in defence of a third party, and we should not try to prohibit its use in very specific circumstances of the kind identified by the noble Baroness.

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, I echo the words that we have just heard. I have considerable sympathy with the emotions and reasoning behind the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. I make no comment about staffing in psychiatric wards—I have no knowledge of that—but as I speak against this amendment, we should remember that the Taser was introduced as an intermediate stage. It is intermediate between the use of batons, pepper sprays, CS gas and so on the one hand and firearms on the other. A Taser is not a firearm. It is something akin to it—it looks rather like one—but it is not a firearm within the definition of the Act. It does a different thing altogether. There is a violent interaction; of that, there can be no doubt. It brings immediate incapacity and some discomfort when it is fired but, as is sometimes said, in fact it knocks down the individual completely. That has to be the object of the exercise.

Perhaps I can give the Committee a circumstance which has already been alluded to. On a psychiatric ward a patient, for whatever reason, has become exceedingly violent and probably caused serious injury. They may even have caused death. The police are called; what are they going to do? If this amendment is passed into law, the police cannot use a Taser. They will use either the original, which is the pepper spray and so on, or a firearm. We need to remember that the use of a firearm in those extreme circumstances is justified in law, because there is a threat to life. By taking the Taser out we will in effect open the door, in extremis, to somebody being shot with a real lethal barrelled weapon.

I am all for looking at practice directions and reviewing the use of Tasers. Mission creep has been mentioned and perhaps there is mission creep—I do not know that and have not looked at the figures. However, to have something as extreme and prescriptive as this amendment within statute will certainly expose patients in psychiatric wards to the risk of death rather than anything else. In speaking against this, I am all for looking closely at the use of Tasers and for counselling officers using or thinking of using them to exercise extreme caution, but I would not go so far as the amendment stands.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, my name is attached to Amendment 194 and to a further amendment in this group, Amendment 201SB. As far as Amendment 194 is concerned, as has been said, it provides that a police officer may not use a Taser or electroshock weapon during deployment on a psychiatric ward. The purpose of adding my name to this amendment is to raise concerns that have been expressed to us about what is, in effect, a police response to what one might have thought was a clinical emergency but which has the potential effect of appearing to criminalise highly vulnerable people. I accept, though, that there could be very exceptional circumstances where a police officer might have to use a Taser during deployment on a psychiatric ward.

In response to this debate, perhaps the Government could provide figures on the extent of the use of Tasers or other devices by the police on psychiatric wards over the last 12-month period for which figures are available, and on the varying extent to which the trusts concerned called in the police and why there are such variations. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, clearly has similar information to that which I have been given. I have been told that there are trusts which call in the police literally hundreds of times a year. It would be helpful if the Government could say in response whether they accept that that is true and why they think it happens. If the police are called in on frequent occasions, is the heart of the problem that results in them being called in in that way either inadequate numbers of staff on duty to cope with situations that arise, or is it due in any way to inadequate or insufficient training of staff?

The second amendment which I have in this group calls for a review of Tasers, including in places of custody, and the extent to which there is or is not a disproportionate use of Tasers against black and minority ethnic groups. Once again, this concern has been raised with us—hence the amendment—and it was highlighted following an incident which led to the death of a former well-known footballer. I simply ask: what procedures exist to ensure that there is transparency and scrutiny over the use of Tasers? What information is kept of the details of those against whom Tasers are deployed, including age, gender and ethnicity? What requirement is there for the use of Tasers to be reported immediately and to whom?

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, I have just seen the letter sent yesterday to Charles Walker MP from the Minister of State for Policing and the Fire Service on the use of Tasers in mental health settings. No doubt in her response the Minister will seek to place on record in Hansard the thrust of the terms of that letter and the circular that has been sent to police and crime commissioners, chief constables and the chairs of local mental health crisis care concordat partnerships in England. Nevertheless, I hope that the Government will seek to respond to my questions insofar as they can, bearing in mind that the circular states that at present there are no reliable data on the frequency or scale of any Taser use in mental health settings.

Policing and Crime Bill

Lord Dear Excerpts

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

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 176 I will speak also to our Amendments 177 and 178. These amendments all concern the quality and experience of senior officers.

Amendment 176 seeks to ensure that it would be unusual for a senior police officer not to have some international policing experience. There are two drivers for this. The main one is that the UK has done some great work with international policing missions. I recall visiting policing missions in the Balkans, where UK secondees were doing first-class work, although a lot of them were from the Royal Ulster Constabulary, for reasons that the Committee will understand. The rapid establishment of justice and the rule of law, JROL, in a post-conflict situation is extremely important—initially, I suggest, much more important than democracy and elections. I hope the Minister can show that we are still doing some useful international policing work somewhere in the world.

A difficulty with my amendment is that there are not always vacancies in international policing operations, for a variety of reasons, which is why I have broadened the qualifying roles. However, there are problems. In the past, particularly when we were carrying out policing operations in the Balkans, I detected reluctance on the part of policing authorities to authorise secondments to international policing operations, for parochial reasons. In other words, they saw no direct benefit to their policing operations—the Committee will understand that. In addition, our high-flying police officers know what they need to have on their CVs in order to secure a post at chief officer rank, and I do not believe it includes international policing operations. Although a relatively junior rank-and-file police officer can do a very good job in an international policing operation, we do not necessarily send out our very best people to those operations.

The other driver is that it is desirable that very senior police officers have broad policing experience, and not just in the UK. I am convinced that a senior police officer with some international experience would be a much better one, rather like politicians who have done something other than the standard route to Westminster: school, university, research assistant, local government. I have realistic aspirations for this amendment and the others, and there may be practical difficulties. But if the principle was implemented in some way, I would envisage high-flying police officers gaining their international experience at an early point in their careers. Police authorities and the College of Policing would know that it would have to be offered as part of the offer to recruits. It may be that they take on a big international policing job later on in their career.

My next amendment seeks to put quite tough limits on internal promotion or appointment to very senior positions within a force. I am more than content with the principle of PCCs, but at Second Reading we heard that there might be an unintended consequence of less promotion from outside a particular police force. The inherent risks of this are an unwillingness of the senior officers in a force to grasp unpleasant issues, sycophancy in order to gain promotion and, possibly, corruption. It would also tend to make it much more difficult to get wider experience, because positions in other forces would tend to go to internal candidates. An extremely unfortunate end result could be that the best-quality high-flyers might decide not to pursue a career in the police service at all, because they would realise that they would be unfairly competing with weaker, internal candidates. Can my noble friend say whether she has detected any change in recent years in the number of applications for very senior police posts?

My final amendment, Amendment 178, deals with leadership. First, I make it clear to the Committee that I do not regard myself as an expert on the matter of leadership or even an expert on measuring it. I regard leadership as the capability to get others to do things that they would rather not do or, perhaps sometimes, to desist from doing things that they want to do. It is not to be confused with management. For instance, a superior who relocates his or her centre of operations to an office rather more central for the majority of the team is exercising good management. If this relocation is to the superior’s personal disadvantage, there is an element of good leadership.

However, it is largely an acquired skill—that of being selfless. Leadership is not charisma, although the two often come together. There is innate leadership, and there may well be genetic factors at play, but I have no doubt at all that environmental and economic factors from the moment of birth are very significant. The good news is that there are methods of objectively measuring leadership, both acquired and innate.

Since at least the last war, our Armed Forces have had objective tests of leadership for selection for a commission. Several well-developed tools are used, but the command task is interesting. Candidates are tasked with the practical task of crossing an obstacle course with a range of 45-gallon oil drums, scaffolding planks and ropes. The directing staff know all the possible plans for achieving the objective, but only a few will work. What is being carefully measured is not the ability to select the correct plan but the ability to effectively lead the team even though the directing staff know that the plan selected will not actually work. How long will members of the team follow the task leader with such a plan? Most importantly, how willing are other members of the team to make a helpful suggestion, and how skilful is the task leader at taking up good suggestions while still maintaining command and control?

I am not suggesting that the Armed Forces have perfect selection procedures. They do not; sadly, I have come across several pretty poor officers. As I understand it, though, the UK police do not select for promotion to any rank taking into consideration an objective measurement of leadership. I am also led to believe that the pool of talent is no longer being properly managed, and I hope that other more experienced members of the Committee will cover that point. I am therefore never surprised at the things that go wrong with UK policing. Your Lordships have only to think of the aftermath of Hillsborough or Operation Midland.

All the amendments in this group seek to head off problems that will only get worse if not addressed. I look forward to the noble Lord, Lord Blair, moving his amendment. In the meantime, I beg to move.

[Lord Dear (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 176, 177, 178 and, tangentially, 178A. I am pleased to support the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, in his amendments. I want to underpin much of what he has said and, to use his words again, to identify what I think is a growing law of unintended consequences that has flowed over the last five or six years in policing. To many of our minds, there is a growing shortage of leaders as opposed to managers, which the noble Earl has already alluded to. I might take that a little further and say that in my view there is some sign that the quality is diminishing among the senior ranks, and those who are putting themselves forward for senior ranks, within the British police.

It might be helpful if I go very quickly through the history of selection for the British police service, without taking too much of your Lordships’ time at this hour of the evening. Prior to 1948—there was a Police Act around that time—there was a superabundance of police forces in this country, many of them very small and most of them not talking to each other. The powers that they could exercise in neighbouring forces were severely limited or indeed non-existent. The words “parish pump” come to mind. This did not matter too much in those days because society was largely static; the great mobility of motorways, railways and that sort of thing had not yet come, so it was more or less okay for the time.

However, by the middle of the 1960s, following the royal commission of 1962, things had begun to change. There was a huge wave of amalgamations, which helped to fashion police forces in such a way that the parish pump largely disappeared, forces were largely aware of what was happening alongside them, co-operation began to grow and the whole policing scene changed for the better.

Underpinning all that was the establishment in 1948 of the Police Staff College. It started off originally in temporary accommodation at Ryton-on-Dunsmore in Coventry but moved fairly quickly in 1960 or thereabouts to Bramshill House in Hampshire. I venture to suggest, having been there as a student and on the staff, that it was probably the Bramshill staff college experience that helped to co-ordinate and make a cohesive whole of the police service in a way that nothing had done before. It brought together officers of various ranks on various courses, opened their eyes and broadened their horizons. It broke down, if you like, the old fetter of local training that was still going on in those days.

Historical Child Sex Abuse

Lord Dear Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dear (CB)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to speak in support of the Motion proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, which, as noble Lords will already have concluded, identifies a number of serious fundamental failures in our current system. First, I turn to the case of Field Marshal Lord Bramall. All of us will remember him as a Member of this House until his retirement two years or so ago. I remained close to him during the problems that arose as a result of his investigation. I should put on record that I was able to advise him constantly during that period and to give advice, when it was necessary, to his legal team. As such, I saw the unhappy case from the inside, from a particularly privileged position. As far as I am concerned, that investigation was mishandled from the very beginning. There was only one complainant: the man who is referred to under the nom de plume of Nick. There was no corroboration to Nick at the time, or indeed since. There was no early check made on the veracity of Nick. Checks that were carried out some time later indicated that his evidence was likely to be flawed; indeed, it is on record that some referred to him as a fantasist.

Of course, it is a matter of record, as the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, has already identified, that there is a very heavy duty on the police to investigate cases of this sort. Indeed, it was always Lord Bramall’s position that he expected nothing less. He did not seek preferential treatment at any stage, despite his staggeringly well-known record in public life. But when it comes to carrying out an investigation, it surely is totally inappropriate to turn up at his house in a small market town with marked police cars, with 20—no less—officers in white scenes of crime suits to carry out a search of his property, in a blaze of publicity. I shall mention publicity in another context in a moment.

At that time Lord Bramall put forward the names of a number of his staff who were serving with him at the time that the allegations concerned—drivers, secretaries, staff officers, protection officers and so on—all of whom could have spoken in some detail about where he had been and whether it was possible for him to have committed those offences. Those interviews were not carried out for something like five months after he first put that information before the police. The inquiry dragged on, as we all know, for around 10 months. It could have been—indeed, I contend it should have been—terminated at around the three-month point. Eventually a file was put to the DPP to review the evidence. I can say without any fear of contradiction that there was no evidence other than the one allegation made by the man, Nick, and, as we know, there was no apology for a very long time, until one was dragged out in a very tardy fashion. He was, in effect, put on a hook as bait for others to come forward and say, “Yes, me too”.

I use the words “bait on a hook” because that is exactly how Sir Cliff Richard has described his experience in recent weeks. It was a different force—South Yorkshire Police—and I know little about that case, other than what I have read in the newspapers, and therefore have no personal inside knowledge of that investigation, except to say that it has a marked similarity to the Bramall case, almost holding up a mirror, as it were. There was the blaze of publicity that we all remember when Sir Cliff Richard’s house was photographed from a helicopter, with cameras from television companies, and a two-and-a-half-year inquiry. Again, as he put it, eventually the bait—him—was reeled in due to insufficient evidence. I would think that almost certainly there was no evidence other than the one complaint. Frankly, this is not good enough.

Sexual assault is a very serious allegation. When it involves minors, it becomes more serious and the duty on the police to investigate becomes even more pressing. But there is a fundamental principle that the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, has already identified—the need to preserve the legal tenet that you are innocent until proven guilty—which requires the investigators to hold the whole situation in balance. Until I realised that the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, was going to speak, I was going to identify some of the circumstances concerning the investigation of Sir Edward Heath. I understand that he will speak to that later. All I will say at this stage is that I fully concur with what I believe he is going to say: in that instance I do not believe that the actions of Wiltshire Police were either proportionate or appropriate.

It is not only the police that I would take a stick to on this occasion; the case of Bishop George Bell has already been mentioned. Here I claim some sort of inside knowledge, in that I too am a member of the George Bell group. As the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, has already told your Lordships, it is a group comprising senior figures from the Church of England, Members of the House of Lords and of Parliament, historians, investigative journalists and two QCs. I should perhaps ask your Lordships to note that those two QCs are, in one case, a retired judge, and in the other a man who was until recently the chairman of the Bar of England and Wales. So they are no slouches so far as the investigation of evidence is concerned.

Bell has been dead for around 60 years and the group is very concerned that there is apparently only one complainant, a lady named as Carol under a nom de plume. We believe that if she was indeed assaulted, it could not have been by Bell. All the geography, the timing and so on speaks very clearly: it points to the activities of a cleric who may well have been occupying the nearby theological college, next to the Bishop’s Palace. It seems to the group that there is a huge problem here, which the Church of England has not identified. As your Lordships have already heard, in the last few days the House of Bishops has launched an inquiry, which I understand is standard procedure when a bishop is involved in allegations of this sort.

I go back to a statement made by the Church of England on 22 October last year. In my considered opinion, that statement was slippery. The public were assured that the process of inquiry had been thorough; it was not. The allegation was presented as something very solid indeed; it is not. The statement actively incited a public judgment of guilt while allowing the Church room for manoeuvre. I would contend that that, at the best, is disingenuous. Nothing about the actual process was exposed to public scrutiny. There was complete silence as to how the decisions were reached. The independent experts, as they were called by the Church of England, were then and remain anonymous. No one has been left in a position to judge their authority and the statement on 22 October did not acknowledge the true legal standing of those reports. At that time, it quoted at length the complainant’s solicitor’s view and that of the Bishop of Chichester, both of whom were treating the allegation as proven.

Since that time, as has already been alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, the Church has refused to answer questions because it insists that there is a legal requirement of silence. Both the eminent QCs in our group have challenged that view. The Church has refused to answer questions because, it says, it would compromise the complainant; but the complainant herself, under anonymity, has undermined that by giving interviews to the press. It has refused to answer questions because of the impending Goddard inquiry; but that view is undermined by a spokesman for that inquiry who said—I paraphrase—that, “The case of Bell will be nothing to do with us”. So we face a body which, on this occasion, is simply unaccountable and deeply resentful of the most authoritative external criticism. It has misrepresented the arguments of its critics, rather than face up to them squarely, and provided absolutely no information about its processes or identified those responsible for them despite the fact that the reputation of a significant figure has virtually been trashed.

I turn back to the statement saying that we can expect an investigation into this by the Church itself. A diocesan spokeswoman has said:

“There is absolutely no suggestion that this review is about what decision was made”.

So if we are going to look not at the decision but at the process, it seems to me—I shall be interested to know what view is expressed later—that there is a grave doubt whether the same players will be marking their own homework. Quite clearly, as the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, said, the reviewer—the chairman of the review body—needs to have legal experience. It is no good having somebody who was involved in that process also involved in a review of what they themselves had conducted earlier.

I return very quickly to the problems that I identified in the Bramall case. There was clearly a lack of leadership and an overreliance on management procedures in that example. Only 10 or 12 years ago, shortcomings like that would have been identified, first of all, in the Police Staff College by changing the curriculum and insisting on different procedures being followed. However, we cannot look to the Police Staff College any longer, because it has been sold by the Home Office and there is nothing in its place. We would have expected, 10 or 12 years ago, advice perhaps to have come from the Home Office in the form of what were then called Home Office circulars—advice to all the police forces in the country, which was really quite powerful. That sort of advice has now been delegated to police and crime commissioners. The College of Policing—different from the Police Staff College—is embryonic and so far has not produced anything which is particularly convincing.

As a result, with no Home Office overview and instead the device of looking towards chief constables and PCCs, who are understandably preoccupied with local issues, the only overview that one seems to detect from the Home Office is value for money and collaboration agreements which lead to it—and not an interest, I should say, of any great depth in national standards of recruitment, training and, particularly, procedures.

That being the case, it gives me great pleasure to support the Motion put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, and to congratulate him on securing this time. I reflect on the fact that we are here to protect the complainant and the accused together and that there is a very strong case for a code of conduct—whether it be statutory or persuasive matters not, so long as it is powerful—that will bear on this issue and the quasi-judicial bodies that would be encompassed within it, for example the Church.

In conclusion, I say only that it seems we have lurched as a society from the extremities of the mishandling of the Savile case into the extremes identified in the current cases, and we need to put the balance point back where it belongs.

Hillsborough

Lord Dear Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, first, I agree with the noble Lord about the ordinary people on that tragic day who did indeed open their doors. In other tributes that have been paid, it has been widely acknowledged, even by those who were themselves suffering the tragedy, that the people around the stadium of Hillsborough—the ordinary people of Sheffield—showed the warmth and hospitality that really defines our nation, opening their doors to strangers at a time of acute need. That was reflected by many.

On the issue of police officers specifically, as we witnessed on our television screens, and as those in the stadium witnessed, there were individual police officers who tried to act in the best interests of the fans who were clearly suffering in this tragedy. It is important that we now see that the people of Liverpool—particularly the families of the 96 tragic victims—have suffered far too long. Twenty-seven years to wait for justice and truth in a country such as ours is plainly and simply unacceptable. Therefore, I am sure that I express the sentiments of all—and it is resonating—when I say that we look forward to the conclusion of the two ongoing inquiries and the inquiry that the CPS will launch to ensure that we get the justice that the 96 tragic victims need.

[Lord Dear (CB)]

My Lords, my question concerns Lord Justice Peter Taylor, whom noble Lords may remember was later appointed Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales and who sadly died in office in 1992 or 1993. It was Peter Taylor who conducted the first inquiry into the Hillsborough disaster. He published his report only three and a half months after the disaster had taken place. Although he laid blame in a number of directions, he was quite clear in the main thrust of his report that he wanted to focus on three issues: first, that the fans were absolutely blameless; secondly, that South Yorkshire Police had largely caused the disaster by their lack of control of the crowds at the Leppings Lane end; and thirdly, in fulsome manner, he criticised South Yorkshire Police for the then emerging criticism from South Yorkshire, who were trying, as he put it, to shift the blame from themselves on to the fans. His clear findings were largely submerged by the growing flow of lies, half-truths and misinformation that occurred before, during and after the first inquest. Bearing in mind that what he said and what he found was entirely mirrored and repeated by the inquiries carried out by the Lord Bishop of Liverpool and by Lord Justice Goldring in the current and shortly to be concluded inquest, will the Minister do everything possible on every appropriate occasion to reflect on the fact that it was Lord Justice Taylor who got to the truth first, even though that truth was later obscured? He was the man who spoke the truth and gave the signpost. In making this statement, I remind the House that it was I who led his inquiry and produced to him the evidence on which he based his findings.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

As I have said, we acknowledge all those who have made a contribution to ensure that truth and justice prevail for the tragic victims of the Hillsborough disaster.

Criminal Justice: Anonymity

Lord Dear Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The College of Policing guidelines on the relationship with the media are currently under review. A number of the points raised during this Question would merit submission to that review.

[Lord Dear (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned apologies and the machinery for handling police complaints, but frankly, that does not go far enough. If I correctly sense the mood of your Lordships’ House, while all of us perhaps understand that there is some advantage on some occasions to publicising the identity of a person subject to inquiry, that is massively and frequently outweighed by the considerable reputational damage not only to those already in the public eye—public figures, if one likes—but to those who hitherto enjoyed anonymity. Is the Minister willing to explore with me and others introducing legislation at the earliest opportunity to prevent personal identification until the preferment of a charge by the police?

[Lord Bates]

That specific idea was raised by the Home Affairs Select Committee in one of its recommendations. As the noble Lord will know better than most, it gives rise to particular issues and difficulties when applied across the board in all cases. But it is certainly something we should look at, and there will be legislative opportunities, most notably in the Police and Criminal Justice Bill, to consider such issues further.