Police (Complaints and Conduct) Bill

Lord Dear Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, it is my privilege to try to record some new facts in this debate and perhaps to balance some of the comments that have been made today—indeed, some of the rhetoric that has been employed—and particularly to answer, if I can, some of the questions posed by the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool.

As we have heard, the disaster at the Hillsborough Stadium occurred on Saturday 15 April 1989. The following day, I was asked to support Lord Taylor in the investigation of the causes of that terrible event. I was then chief constable of the West Midlands Police, which, I might add, is the largest police force in England and Wales, outside London. I met Lord Taylor in Sheffield on Tuesday 18 April and he expressed his wish to begin to take evidence in public within three weeks of the disaster. We discussed what would be involved to meet that three-week timescale; a timescale that had never before been attempted in circumstances of that magnitude and, I believe, has never been attempted since. Even with the 440 police officers that I was able to deploy to that inquiry, it was obvious to both of us that some extraordinary measures would have to be taken if we were going to work to that timescale. To speed the process, he directed that we should request South Yorkshire Police to arrange for police officers who were witnesses to the disaster to write their own statements and that their force would produce them for the inquiry. On that point, more later. I should also say that the procedure did not relate to the half dozen or so officers who would later be interviewed by my team to explore whether criminal charges should be brought against them personally.

To make the position clear, those decisions regarding the process concerning South Yorkshire officers and those timescales were his. I agreed with them and since his death in 1996, in post as Lord Chief Justice, I am happy to assume full responsibility for that decision. He was required to report, if possible, before the start of the next football season; speed therefore was of the essence. We concluded together this unusual approach hardly mattered. What did matter was that witnesses should be examined in a public inquiry as soon as possible, while memories were still fresh, and it was what they said in that inquiry that mattered, not what was or was not included in their witness statements.

Working to that timescale the West Midlands team, as you might conclude, faced a mammoth task. That investigation commenced six days after the disaster on 24 April. Special police offices were established in Sheffield, Liverpool and Birmingham. A free-phone telephone number was advertised and operated on no fewer than 28 different lines, all of them manned around the clock. They received 2,666 calls. Witnesses who were interviewed and had statements taken totalled 3,777. Many of my officers who were involved in those interviews were deeply emotionally affected. We have heard of the anguish, shock and horror of those in Liverpool who were caught up in this tragedy and this affected those officers as well. Some 3,777 statements were taken and 71 hours of CCTV footage were examined in detail. An inquiry into possible criminal charges was commenced. Most of that took place in only three weeks.

Lord Taylor began to take evidence in public exactly four weeks after the disaster occurred. He sat for 31 long days and examined 174 witnesses. Only three and a half months after the disaster, he published his report on 1 August. He had many conclusions but his major ones fell into three categories. First, he found there were a number of causes for the disaster. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool has already referred to the fact that there were serious misgivings from as early as 1981 and Lord Taylor reported on that and what had been done—and indeed not done—in the interim period. He was adamant, however, that the final and most serious cause of the disaster was the failure of South Yorkshire Police to control the crowd and to ensure its safety. Secondly, he looked at the conduct of the crowd and found there were a few very isolated examples of drunkenness, but there was absolutely no evidence that Liverpool fans had contributed in any way to what had occurred on the terraces. Thirdly, bearing in mind what we are debating today, he found that the oral evidence given by 65 South Yorkshire police officers impressed for the most part in inverse proportion to their rank. As he said, with some notable exceptions the senior officers were defensive and evasive witnesses, and did not, as he put it, show the qualities of leadership to be expected of their rank.

In particular, in his report at paragraph 285, he said:

“It is a matter of regret that at the hearing, and in their submissions, the South Yorkshire Police were not prepared to concede they were in any respect at fault in what happened”.

He continued:

“The police case was to blame the fans for being late and drunk, and to blame the Club for failing to monitor the pens”.

He concluded:

“Such an unrealistic approach gives cause for anxiety as to whether lessons have been learnt. It would have been more seemly and encouraging for the future if responsibility had been faced”.

Finally, both he and the Football Supporters’ Association warmly praised West Midlands Police for the way in which the evidence had been gathered and presented at the inquiry.

So it seems a little strange, and not a little disappointing, that the hugely excellent report recently published by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool has been hailed as the report that finally exposed the truth when it roundly endorsed and mirrored the findings of the Taylor inquiry. It perhaps begs the question that some of the language used by the Prime Minister and others that this has finally produced justice ought to reflect the fact that Lord Taylor got to the truth 23 years earlier.

It might also reflect on the fact that Lord Taylor informally expressed serious doubts to the coroner about the coroner’s plans to limit his inquest by employing the 3.15 pm cut-off; and also that he did not agree with the coroner’s intention to have witness statements read in the inquest which effectively denied opportunity for cross-examination. He was unable to influence the course of that subsequent process, which was out of his hands, and it did not begin until several months later.

The truth was first made public by the Taylor report in 1986. As we have heard, the waters were muddied considerably, more and more with the passage of time. Immediately the Taylor report was published, the South Yorkshire Police went public—on to the attack, if you like—with a condemnation of the conclusions and stoutly maintained that the police were in the right and the Liverpool fans were in the wrong. The inquiry that will be eventually mounted by the IPCC will of course examine this aspect in detail, and especially whether attempts were made by South Yorkshire Police wrongly to attribute blame. The Bill seeks to facilitate that inquiry. I hope that we shall not have to wait too long for the results.

By common consent, Peter Taylor was a man of rare talent. Noble Lords will understand already that I held him in high regard and respect. He was prepared to move fast to expose the truth. His report employed elegant and economical prose and it managed to cover the ground in only 71 pages. It was published a mere three and a half months after the disaster with firm, clear, unequivocal conclusions. That is exactly the same passage of time that has elapsed since the publication of the report of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool, and the IPCC is still scoping its inquiry and deciding on how it might begin to progress. I do not want to appear unduly critical, but I hope that we shall not have to wait too much longer for action.

On the Bill, perhaps the question at the forefront of the minds of many of us is: do hard cases make bad law? Nothing could be a harder case than the tragedy of Hillsborough. Is the Bill bad law? In some ways I think it is. The loophole that the Bill seeks to block by requiring serving police officers to attend for interview has been a small but recurring problem for investigators, on and off, for years, so why use emergency procedures to rush it through now? After all, that power will not much assist the Hillsborough inquiry by the IPCC because most of those it may wish to interview, as we have heard already, will no longer be serving. Mostly they are retired; in some cases, they are dead.

The power to require retired officers to attend interview is not sought, although one hopes that those who are approached will co-operate—and I fully concur with what has been said. Certainly I shall, if evidence is ever sought from me.

I am not sure whether Clause 2—the application of Part 2 of the Police Reform Act 2002 to old cases—breaches rules of double jeopardy. In particular, at this stage or shortly after, there have to be safeguards in place for police officers interviewed by the IPCC. The practice of sometimes interviewing an officer as a witness without first cautioning him, then using that witness statement against him in later criminal proceedings, has to change. Interviewing under caution is standard procedure for non-police officers and should be a protection afforded to the police as well. I endorse the recommendation of the Home Office Select Committee and believe that the IPCC should employ a more rigorous interpretation of the threshold set out in the Police Reform Act to ensure that it becomes the norm that officers are interviewed under caution in the most serious cases.

This is certainly a Bill in a hurry. Usually I would resist it on that ground alone, seeking more time and due process to consider the issues in depth. But having stood here and praised the approach of Lord Taylor, who identified the truth in double-quick time, I can hardly complain at another attempt to speed up the investigative process, when so much time has been wasted over the last 20 years or so chasing irrelevancies or trying to find a way through a fog of half truths and worse. So great is the public interest in Hillsborough for understandable reasons, and so important is it that this issue should be dealt with once and for all that, with some jurisprudential reservations, I support the Bill.

[Lord Blair of Boughton]

My Lords, I need to start by saying that I fully support the Bill. However, I have two caveats that I have already outlined to the Minister and to which I hope he will respond in a while. In asking the Minister about these two matters, I am not trying to weaken the Bill but to strengthen it. Put simply, it would be helpful if this House was to demonstrate that it understands that police officers themselves need to believe in the provisions of the Bill. They will best do that if they believe that the provisions are fair.

I was not at Hillsborough; I was not involved in Hillsborough; but I have no illusions about it. I am on record recently as describing in the Times what happened at Hillsborough as appearing,

“to be the most egregious example of deliberate dissimulation in the history of the British police”.

When I read the right reverend Prelate’s report, I felt thoroughly ashamed of my profession. So, like all noble Lords, I wish the IPCC and the future coroner well with all their efforts. I have no illusions about Hillsborough.

However, it is vital to remember that although the Bill is occasioned by Hillsborough and the tragedy and failures there, it is not only about Hillsborough. Until and unless these provisions are repealed, they will provide powers to the IPCC and other organisations working under IPCC supervision that will cover all their investigations now and in future. I need to declare a rather unusual interest: I think I am safe to believe that I am the only Member of your Lordships’ House who has been interviewed by the IPCC as a witness. I have a personal duty to try to help get this matter right for the future. I shall say something briefly about both clauses.

I do not think that there are any noble Lords with a military background currently in the Chamber but if there were, they would recognise something that I am about to say. Servicemen and women are always uneasy at being interviewed by military police. It is the same for serving police officers when faced with people investigating complaints against the police. The powers in Clause 1 compel serving officers to attend as witnesses. We seriously need to distinguish between witnesses and suspects. I am not sure that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dear, about strengthening the idea of cautioning all police witnesses. Remember that all police witnesses if cautioned will be told, “You are not obliged to say anything”. We want them to feel obliged to say something, so we have to distinguish between witnesses and suspects.

[Lord Dear]

I was not saying that all police witnesses should be cautioned, only those who are being interviewed for very serious offences, which is what the Home Office Select Committee said.

[Lord Blair of Boughton]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. What I took him to be saying was that all police witnesses in serious cases should be interviewed under caution. Perhaps we can agree to get the definition of that right.

If we are talking about witnesses, it would be extremely unlikely that the Police Federation or any other representative body would be able to provide detailed legal advice to those officers, let alone a lawyer, so they will be going into the interview room accompanied only by a friend. We need to dispel the kind of uneasiness that they will be feeling. My suggestion to the Minister is that, when closing the debate, he makes clear his expectation that police officers being interviewed as witnesses by the IPCC investigators should be given the maximum disclosure of information—that is what proposed new Section 19F(3)(c) should mean.

In no way should a compelled witness have any cause to fear, as he or she enters the interview room, that he or she will be tricked. These are witnesses, not suspects. If they are suspects, they have to be treated differently. If they are witnesses, they must be treated with obvious and visible fairness. Whatever happened at Hillsborough, the men and women now serving in the police service deserve no less than that.

I entirely agree with the purpose of Clause 2. However, some IPCC investigations and those by its predecessor body can be—and have been—very long. Careers are put on hold and the pressure of such an investigation can sit at the back of the mind month after month, year after year. When, after such a long time, the investigation is finished and an officer is exonerated—if he or she is—they are largely entitled to expect that that is and will remain the end of the matter.

I therefore ask the Minister to make clear his expectations of the IPCC that the words “exceptional circumstances” in proposed new Section 28A(1), in relation to opening a closed inquiry, not only mean what they say but refer only to circumstances in which new evidence appears to have arisen or the level of public concern makes it imperative for the case to be reopened. Cases should not be reopened capriciously nor for political advantage. It is not enough for the Minister to emphasise that it is important that IPCC resources are not to be misused in this way. The majority of officers in England and Wales deserve no less than a statement today that fairness to officers is also a consideration.

Putting it bluntly, a police officer—like any other free citizen—has the right to refuse to assist the police in an investigation, but I also believe that any police officer who does so should forfeit the right to be a police officer. I want all police officers to believe that full compliance with the inquiry is their professional duty and I want their predecessors, now retired, to believe that their pride in their previous profession should also make them want to assist the inquiry. To do that, we should try to ensure that the working practices of the IPCC, outlined in this Bill, make fairness clear and obvious. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Lord Dear Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Condon]

My Lords, I support this amendment. However, I must say at the outset that I am not interested in turf wars between the Metropolitan Police and the new NCA; I am not interested in protecting the status quo or over-arguing that it should remain with the Metropolitan Police. But I am passionately engaged in the constitutional issues which have been set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, in moving the amendment. This is a hugely important matter that deserves primary legislation rather than an affirmative order, however comprehensive that seeks to be. I had the role for seven years of worrying about terrorism nationally. I worked very closely with all the agencies involved here and abroad. History tells us that more than 80% of terrorist incidents in this country happen in London. The fight against terrorism is as much about hearts and minds as it is about laser-like operations to combat terrorism. That hearts and minds approach involves great co-operation with local communities; in the London context, that has involved working with the Islamic community, with the mosques, the schools and the integration of neighbourhood policing in that preventive role. In London, therefore, there is a very inter-connected prevention and detection response to terrorism which has been built up over many years and in response to terrorism which has emerged from all around the world.

As I say, I am not interested in a turf war or in arguing for the status quo. However, this is hugely important for this country. The Constitution Committee has isolated why this is so important and why primary legislation is more desirable than the super-affirmative process. I support the amendment passionately.

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, I, too, declare a registered interest from my experience in policing. I would add in this context that I know quite a lot about terrorism, having suffered two determined attempts on my life at the hands of terrorism, once in this country and once in India. We are talking about the National Crime Agency. I have already spoken in your Lordships’ House on 1 November, giving some examples of the gravity of the issues with which the NCA is likely to be confronted once it gets under way. Its role in the whole architecture of policing will be not only important but critical. One should reflect on the fact that it will be responsible for international dimensions, so far as they interface with and affect the United Kingdom, certainly England and Wales: national, cross-border, inter-force and cross-boundary dimensions of crime. That is what we are talking about: whether the NCA is a proper receptacle for this additional responsibility.

Having served in the Metropolitan Police for five years, I, too, recognise the first-class service on counterterrorism that it has given the population, not only of London but of the whole United Kingdom, going all the way back over 100 years to the special Irish branch, which re-named itself the Special Branch; to the 1970s, when the IRA and the Provisional IRA began bombing in London and elsewhere; to the bomb squad, as it was then called; and to the counterterrorist commands that we see today. If there is any logic at all in counterterrorism, it has to be handled nationally—by definition, the National Crime Agency is national.

At some stage, an argument could well be advanced to move counterterrorism into the ambit and responsibility of the newly formed National Crime Agency, but clearly not yet; the National Crime Agency is not yet born. In its gestation period and infancy, I suspect that it would not be able to pick up and run with the complexities and importance of counterterrorism. But there might come a time in the future when that case can be made—I do not say that it necessarily will be made, but it might be. It seems both sensible and proper that we should be able to legislate to move counterterrorism from the Metropolitan Police to the National Crime Agency if that case is proved.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Condon, I, too, hope that we are not going to get into turf wars over this. The Metropolitan Police has proved itself, as I have already said, and it is right to put on record the high degree of skill that it has demonstrated over many years and indeed the enormous personal bravery of some of its officers on occasions, to whom we owe a great debt. However, I do not think that we should stand in the way of a properly proven logical rearrangement.

The nub of the issue is set out in the Joint Committee on Human Rights paper published on 20 November, which has already been alluded to. I take no position on this, other than to say that on balance—I suppose that I am taking a position; it is a very fine balance—I am prepared to go against the amendment and with the Government. However, I would need reassurance that were such a move to take place—not now but in the months, perhaps even years, to come—there will be a proper consideration of the reasons for such a move, so that one can be satisfied that the decision is being taken in the open, so far as the diktats of confidentiality and so on are concerned. If one follows that line of reasoning, there can be no objection to the clause as it stands.

I do not want to get into a turf war; that would be totally improper. Recognising the severity and the importance of the issues concerned, I simply make the point that a logical rearrangement in the future, if it is so proved, would be the way to go.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

My Lords, my only excuse for intervening is that I was the author of the report on which the Terrorism Act 2000 was based. I was also the first Interception Commissioner and therefore had direct experience of the counterterrorism activities of both the Security Service and the Metropolitan Police.

I have not always agreed with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Blair, has said, but on this occasion I find myself in substantial agreement with him and also with what the noble Lord, Lord Condon, said on the constitutional issues involved. It may be that at some stage it would make very good sense for counter- terrorism functions to be transferred to the new agency, but not now and certainly not by order. I am not as comfortable on these matters as the noble Lord, Lord Dear. If the matter were put to a vote, I would vote with the amendment.

Horses: Transportation

Lord Dear Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, this debate, which I warmly welcome, follows hard on the heels of a Question that I had the privilege of putting before this House on 14 June, when I tried to concentrate on the transportation of horses. The noble Lord, Lord Higgins, to whom I am very grateful for securing this debate, has already addressed that issue in some depth.

Perhaps I might add to what has been said one or two statistics which have been gleaned by the World Horse Welfare charity, of which—I declare an interest— I am a trustee. Examinations by World Horse Welfare of horses leaving Romania en route to Italy showed that 14% were deemed unfit for that journey at the point of departure. By the time they had arrived in Romania, 37% were deemed unfit to have been transported. A separate tranche of investigations by World Horse Welfare, again in Romania, indicated that of horses transported on that terrible route from Romania to Italy, a quarter were showing at the point of arrival in Italy acute injury which had been inflicted or suffered during that journey.

Other evidence on the transportation route might also interest your Lordships. Anyone who knows anything about horses will recognise that an abnormal stance, or weight-shifting, in a horse indicates pain. Behavioural data from one randomly selected shipment two years ago showed that 94% of horses arriving at the point of reception had an abnormal stance and that 83% were weight-shifting. I shall not labour the point because it has already been made, but those statistics might well be of interest to those who read this debate later in Hansard or elsewhere.

The point is that the trade and transportation of horses across Europe is in a mess. I want to concentrate briefly not so much on the transportation issues which have already been very well illuminated by speakers before me but on the tripartite agreement which bears very much on the situation in this country. I will be going over information that has already been given to the House but I will do it in slightly more detail to make sure that the point is not lost. The tripartite agreement was entered into between three countries—the United Kingdom, France and Ireland—to facilitate the trade of high-quality horses, usually race horses but sometimes eventers and show-jumpers, between those three countries. Other countries in Europe would have a stake and a claim to say that they, too, are involved in high-quality horses but we all know that the majority of the racing industry is centred in those three countries, hence the agreement called the tripartite. It was originally intended to allow for the free movement of registered horses—racehorses and others—between those three countries without the need for a health certificate.

In 2005, as we have already been told, the agreement was extended to include all horses being shipped backwards and forwards between those three countries, other than those that were being transported for slaughter. What we now have is the completely unchecked and unmonitored movement of often low-value horses into and out of the UK from France and the Republic of Ireland. I venture to suggest that the problem is probably greater emanating from France, but it is also there in those that come from Ireland. Animals can enter France, as we already know, from anywhere in the EU. They can remain in France for a long or a short time—often for a very short time indeed—and they can then enter the UK unchecked under the original tripartite agreement and no one will know where they have come from or the premises from which they have been moved.

We know that welfare is compromised through this trade because many of these animals, as I have said, are low-value—they are vulnerable horses, ponies and sometimes donkeys—and the transportation, as we have explored in depth, is often quite horrendous. But because they pass from dealer to dealer with no check at all, mixing with other frequently low-value animals, they are constantly exposed to the risk of disease. We already know from the agricultural industry how bluetongue and Schmallenberg virus can affect sheep. We have already heard mentioned in this debate that African horse sickness has reared its head to a tremendous extent in Romania. Romania keeps cropping up in this debate and I really think that the Commission should pay particular attention to that country. In 2010 we had our first outbreak of equine infectious anaemia, EIA. That, too, was traced back to Romania and now, without any pun being intended, the stable doors are being locked there to some extent because restrictions are in place around that country.

The potential spread of disease across borders into this country will affect a UK equine industry which is pushing close to £4 billion a year. It is going to be seriously compromised unless we go back to the original demands and intentions of the tripartite agreement. The information that I have from World Horse Welfare is that there is no reason whatever why we should not revert to the terms of the original agreement. That can be done, I am confidently informed, without undue deference or discussion with the other two countries. As understand it, we simply go back and insist that the terms of the tripartite agreement are adhered to as they were before 2005. Without flogging this particular horse to death—again, no pun intended—I urge the Minister to look closely at the tripartite agreement, what it was intended to deal with in the first place and the tremendous amount of risk that we are now exposed to because of the position now being adopted, and to report back to the House as soon as he can on whether he has been able to ameliorate that position.

Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Lord Dear Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, it sounds as though in 1986 mere insults would have been quite a relief. I congratulate the noble Lord on the amendment, to which I put my name along with my noble friend Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, who, in a professional as well as a political capacity, has been quoted. I said at Second Reading that I hoped that the Bill might be a vehicle for this move, but I had little optimism that the Public Bill Office would accept the amendment as being within the scope of the Bill. So my congratulations to the noble Lord are doubled on that score.

I can spot when the House is ready to draw its business to a close and I have no doubt that we will have an opportunity to come to this at Report. When he left earlier today, my noble friend Lord Lester muttered to me that he would speak on it at Report. I leave it to your Lordships to decide whether that is a threat or a promise. The House has already heard that taking the word “insulting” out of Section 5 is Liberal Democrat party policy because, in summary, insults should not be criminalised and because of the essential nature of free speech. Our policy would, indeed, go further and take the word out of Section 4A as well. I, and my colleagues on the Liberal Democrat Benches, very much support the amendment.

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, I will take up very little time in your Lordships’ House this evening. The noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney, has made a very powerful case, citing a lot of examples of the way in which this word has been abused within the purview of the Public Order Act 1986. We should, in fact, note that the words have been around since they first went on to the statute book in the Public Order Act 1936. However, it is only in the last 10 or 12 years that the word “insulting” has attracted this sort of attention. As many of your Lordships know, I have taken a close interest in this for a very long time. I have spoken on at least half a dozen occasions in your Lordships’ House; I have tabled numerous Questions for Written Answer and written articles in national newspapers, including one in the Daily Mail online today, always pressing for the removal of this word from the Public Order Act. Over the last two or three years that I have been engaged in this campaign, I have watched public opinion switch from either indifference or opposition through to almost complete unanimity in the public domain. One might almost say that the door is swinging wide open—something that the noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney, has noticed for himself.

I will quickly cite two examples. I spoke on exactly this point at Second Reading during the passage of the Protection of Freedoms Act last November, and again on the fourth day of the debate on the Queen’s Speech on 15 May this year, and reflected that—but for the three-month consultation period which had produced something of a logjam in the process—I would be tabling the amendment myself. On 15 May, the noble Lord, Lord Henley, from the government Front Bench said in reply:

“As for the noble Lord's particular remarks about Section 5 of the Public Order Act, I ask again that he be patient for a little longer. It is a complex issue, and we have to give careful consideration to the views expressed in the 2,500 responses that we have had to the consultation”.—[Official Report, 15/5/12; col. 376]

As has been said, we are still waiting and patience is perhaps being stretched a little but I, for one, am prepared to wait, particularly since we have the prospect of the summer recess in which the Home Office can come to a conclusion on this. I am a little surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney, has tabled the amendment now, because it presses exactly the same point that has been pressed before and we are still waiting for the opportunity to get the consultation out of the way and then have a clear run at the issue.

My response is fairly self-evident. I will continue to advocate the removal of “insulting” from the Public Order Act and, to that end, I shall exert all the pressure I can in due course. This is not an amendment that I would have tabled today and I hope that it will be withdrawn at this stage. It would be helpful if the Minister could again signal an urgency in the Home Office to deal with the consultation so that we can properly address the issue at Report.

Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Lord Dear Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Lords Chamber

The only reason that these issues are being raised at all is that there is concern that the effectiveness of this highly successful and highly regarded organisation could be diluted by being absorbed into the NCA. When something is working so well, there will obviously be concerns about any changes. I am convinced that the Government have no intention of diluting CEOP’s work but I think that that needs to be set out clearly in the Bill. If the Minister can give such a reassurance and be very clear about those areas, that will be extremely helpful. I beg to move.

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, I fully endorse what has been said about the work of CEOP. We have referred to this organisation many times over the past year or so in your Lordships’ House. It is a highly successful organisation but it is only really beginning to identify the tip of an iceberg. We are just beginning to understand exactly how much crime in that area is committed. It has already been said today that there is a crossover with people trafficking, and in fact child trafficking comes very much within CEOP’s remit. People trafficking in general is a highly organised crime.

It seems to me that the question is: should CEOP come within the remit of the NCA at all? Personally, I think that it should, given the seriousness of what it deals with, the revulsion that all right-minded people feel about this crime and the way in which CEOP’s work interfaces with highly organised crime. The one thing that I am concerned about is the suggestion in the amendment that CEOP should be accountable to the NCA board, accepting that it is part of its remit, but should operate independently of the direction of the board. If that were to appear in the Bill, there would be considerable confusion. It seems to go against logic and against all tenets of management. “One man, one boss” is often used as shorthand for that. If CEOP is one of the four pillars of the NCA—as I believe it should be—not only should the board oversee the operation but it should be responsible for it, and CEOP should not be allowed to operate independently.

I take the point that, in a strange sort of way, CEOP is outside the normal remit of much of mainstream policing because it has a multiagency dimension. I understand that. In fact, I remember back in the 1970s piloting the first multiagency approach that attacked what was then called “baby battering”, then shorthanded as “child abuse”. That approach was highly successful and was rolled out right across the country from Nottinghamshire, where I was then serving. At that time it became the model of how best to approach this sort of problem. Therefore, I understand the particular sensitivities of multiagency approaches. Notwithstanding that, I would be unhappy to see CEOP operate independently of the direction of the board because I think that it would lead to confusion.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Dear, has expressed very well my concerns about the second paragraph of the amendment. He has also said very clearly exactly what I would want to be said right around the Committee and to be on the record concerning the value of CEOP’s work. Like those of the noble Lord, my comments are in no way directed at criticising CEOP, not valuing its work or not wanting to see it continue as successfully as it has done.

Perhaps I may add a query about the third paragraph of the amendment. First, I am a little unclear about what is meant by the delegation of funds within an organisation, as would be the case if CEOP were part of the NCA. What exactly is meant by delegation? Secondly, for what purpose are the funds reserved? If funds are identified as being needed for CEOP’s operation, are they not for the whole of its operation, or is there something specific that the funds are intended to be reserved for?

I am sorry to appear to be taking apart an amendment on this matter. Like others, I feel that what has been said about the importance of CEOP’s work is absolutely undoubted, and my questions about the amendment are genuinely probing.

Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Lord Dear Excerpts

Monday 28th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, I am very conscious that we are now four and a half hours into Second Reading and, batting as late as I am, pretty well everything that one wanted to say has been said. I will try to keep my remarks very brief and perhaps put a change of emphasis on some of the points that have been made. I want to address the National Crime Agency—no surprise, perhaps—and say just a little about community sentencing and drug-driving. I had quite a lot written down about courts but I will leave that to the succeeding stages in your Lordships’ House.

I declare an interest in that I served in the police service in England for many years. With particular regard to what I want to say tonight, I had a lot to do years back with the regional crime squads, then the National Crime Squad and the National Criminal Intelligence Service—all of which were rolled forward one way or another into SOCA, the Serious Organised Crime Agency—and for a while I worked very closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and I want to mention that agency very briefly as well.

As we know, the NCA has four major commands: organised crime, border policing, economic crime and CEOP, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, quite rightly made great play of the seriousness of people trafficking, particularly child trafficking within that insidious, growing, serious and very lucrative trade. There is nothing amiss about that not being mentioned in the Bill; I hope that, in winding, the Minister will reassure me that it will be encompassed by the new National Crime Agency. Of course, there is no specific mention either of cybercrime, the trafficking of drugs, arms or antiques and valuable works of art or the moving of high-value mechanical plant and motor vehicles, all of which cause immense distress, are highly lucrative to criminal organisations—

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

Forgive me for interrupting the noble Lord but I was not criticising the Bill, I was criticising CEOP’s letter, which did not refer to trafficking as part of the job it had to do.

[Lord Dear]

Thank you for making that point clear.

All those crimes are not in the Bill. I would expect to find them addressed within the rubric of the National Crime Agency and will look for reassurance on that. The one thing that I raised an eyebrow over was the apparent lack of corporate management or governance procedures in the Bill, and I think we might explore that in Committee. It seems odd that an agency as potentially powerful as this one should be able to operate directly under the Home Secretary without some sort of non-executive agency—can I put it in those terms?—to oversee it.

The press are already labelling the NCA as the FBI. Those of us who know anything at all about the FBI realise that it is a very different body, both constitutionally and organisationally, from what is proposed for the NCA. Yet there is an article, already referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, who is not in his place at the moment, in today’s Daily Telegraph, headed: “A British FBI won’t make us any safer”. It is an interesting article, written by John Yates who until recently was head of counterterrorism for the country and indeed a senior officer in the Metropolitan Police. It is a strange article that I commend to your Lordships although they might find, as I did, that it is something of a curate’s egg. What made me really concerned was that it seems to be some sort of plea for the Metropolitan Police to retain the counterterrorism lead in the country.

I should say immediately—having served in the Metropolitan Police and dealt with counterterrorism from a provincial force looking to the Met—that I have the highest regard for everything the Metropolitan Police has done in the past and continues to do in counterterrorism. It has a worldwide reputation for protecting us from terrorists and, if the protection fails, for then dealing with terrorism offences very well and successfully. I hope that this article is not the beginning of a turf war between police forces—some sort of demarcation dispute and parochialism—because we have seen from time to time, not necessarily with the Met but throughout the police landscape over the years, occasional examples of that: “It’s my ground and I am going to defend it”. If in the future, and it may be a long time away, the evidence was there to move the counterterrorism command away from the Met and into another agency, the ability to move it into the NCA might be a very sensible view.

There is a huge threat, and we have talked about it before: cross-border crime in the United Kingdom, cross-border internationally—you could almost call it pan-global and that would be accurate. The threat, as the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, has already said, is far too big for individual forces to deal with, no matter how big some of those forces are. We have seen before, and I think this should go on to the record, examples of police forces that have denied the will for successful operations to crime squads, preferring to look at their own problems on their own ground and not to co-operate across borders for the greater good, although that is not true all of forces. That is rare but it does happen and could in future. The threat will continue to grow, make no mistake about it, and the NCA will grow over the years. There is plenty of scope in the Bill for co-operation between forces and between forces and the NCA. There is a raft of operational powers available but the director-general, as we have seen, has to be able to direct in extremis. The point was made in the Minister’s opening remarks that the powers to direct will be used sparingly but they have to be there, and I would defend that posture very fiercely indeed.

We have heard a lot in your Lordships’ House about the tensions that undoubtedly will exist between the police and crime commissioners and the chief constables on the one hand and the National Crime Agency on the other—localism. I said just a year ago when we were discussing the Bill that launched the concept of PCCs that a constructive tension between the PCC and the chief constable was a good idea; there has to be balance. There also has to be a constructive tension also between the localism of police forces—PCC and chief constable together—and the NCA. I do not see any way around it. It surprises me that nobody else in your Lordships' House has mentioned that every single western democracy—at least to my knowledge—has a two-tier policing system. I cannot think of one that does not have a national organisation of some sort and a local web of organisations as well. How they relate varies, but they still have the two. If one tries to knock down the concept of the NCA, the two alternatives that are left seem equally undesirable. One is to have a purely local police service, taking no account whatever of national and international pressures; the other is a national police force, which I do not necessarily espouse. Scotland will have a national police force shortly, but Scotland is smaller and, if I may say with the greatest respect to Scotland, the range of problems there is probably smaller than it is in England and Wales. If you recognise that there has to be a national entity of some sort, you are three-quarters of the way towards accepting the necessity for the NCA.

We did not mention Clause 23 in the early part of this Second Reading, but several of your Lordships have since done so. The noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, gave us a compelling argument for everything around Clause 23. The Bill is of course very light on detail—we are waiting for that to come; there is nothing in the explanatory document to help us on that. I sincerely hope that when we get down to the detail of Clause 23 we will see an enhanced role for the probation service working in conjunction with voluntary organisations. I am sometimes asked by people who believe that I know far more about policing than I really do, “What would you do to really help the police?”. I tend to say, “If you really want to help the police, stiffen up and make really efficient the probation service, because in doing so you will stop the revolving door or slow it down. You will drastically cut recidivism; you will stop repeat offending; and that at a stroke would help policing and society no end”. Out of Clause 23, I hope to see emerge a discussion that takes us somewhere along that line.

I know that the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, is going to say quite a lot about drug-driving. I shall not try to steal any of his thunder other than to say that this matter is long overdue for addressing. It is exactly two years since the publication of Sir Peter North’s report, identifying that the problem was perhaps even more serious than we first thought; pointing out, as we already knew, that it was very difficult to prosecute drug-driving under the existing law; and recommending the creation of the offence of driving with a controlled drug above a specified limit. We should look at the specified limit in Committee, because, in December 2010, the Transport Select Committee put that to one side and recommended zero tolerance. The difference between specified limits and zero tolerance is considerable. It seems to me rather odd that drink-driving, using a legal substance illegally in a car, should be very different from drug-driving, where you are using ab initio an illegal substance before you get into it. We will need to keep our options open on zero tolerance.

I have spoken for too long. I commend the thrust of the Bill, I support the concept of the NCA and I look forward to being involved both in Committee and on Report.

Police: Reduction in Numbers

Lord Dear Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for talking about the need for the police to respond to individual and repeated complaints that come in. I refer her to the White Paper that we issued only yesterday, which makes it clear that we see it as vital that the police respond when complaints come in from the same individuals a number of times. That is why we talked about the community trigger in that document. The noble Baroness makes a very good point.

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, I suspect that we can probably talk about numbers for a long time. Of course, cuts are regrettable but I think that most Members of this House appreciate why some cuts are necessary. Earlier, the Minister mentioned getting value for money. Perhaps he could reassure the House that not only is it a question of having the right people in the right place at the right time but that the amount of equipment and the quality of training are also important. That would reinforce the statement that some cuts can be more than offset by the way in which the police are deployed.

[Lord Henley]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for what he has said, which is absolutely right. The way that different police forces co-operate with each other in terms of getting their equipment procurement right is a very valuable way of getting greater value for money in those matters. It is not just a question of equipment but of IT and all such matters. Only yesterday, in the Moses Room, I dealt with an order relating to the national police air service. Again, that is a service where true value for money can be obtained only by all the police authorities operating together. That is something we want to continue to pursue.

Queen’s Speech

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Tuesday 15th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, given the recent barrage of criticism of the Home Office, I may make a welcome change. I want to throw a bouquet in the direction of the Home Office on one point and words of encouragement tinged with some disappointment on the other.

I start with the words of encouragement, which flow from a certain disappointment—that there has not been a move within the Crime and Courts Bill to remove the word “insulting” from Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986. I shall not go into detail on this, because I spoke at some length about it on Second Reading of the Protection of Freedoms Bill on 8 November last year. Those who are so minded could check what I said in Hansard at col. 192. Put very simply, the use of the word “insulting” within the current legislation is proving to be a grave impediment to the exercise of free speech. Some noble Lords will know that I have spoken on several occasions in the past to try to preserve the existing situation where we champion freedom of speech above almost everything else.

The first Public Order Act in 1936 used the term, “criminalising, threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour”. The words, “threatening, abusive or insulting” have been carried through successive legislation. They now find themselves, 50 years later, in the 1986 Act—the current Act. I will not weary your Lordships with the detail but certain sections of that Act—Sections 4, 4A and 5—give a descending ladder of seriousness. Right at the very bottom of that—the least serious, if you like—is “insulting”, in Section 5.

To put it simply, what is happening today is that those who stand up in public and express views that are unpopular to some members of society find that they are in grave danger that those who disagree with those views will invoke the police and insist on action being taken—“I have been insulted; therefore, officer, become involved”. The police may or may not become involved. If they do, they may or may not charge. If they charge, the Crown Prosecution Service may or may not prefer charges. But whatever happens and however the situation winds up, it has a very serious chilling effect on the exercise of free speech.

The Home Office instituted a consultation on 13 October last year, which concluded three months later on 13 January this year, but in the ensuing four months we have heard nothing about the consultation. I am somewhat disappointed at that. I urge the Home Office to look very closely at what has been said, to report the results of that consultation as quickly as it can and, I hope, to look for early inclusion of the removal of those words from the relevant legislation.

Those are my words of encouragement. The bouquet that I throw to the Home Office is the inclusion within the Crime and Courts Bill of the creation of the National Crime Agency, the NCA. We have travelled a long road on this, starting with the creation—I vaguely remember this—of the regional crime squads in the 1960s, through the national crime squads, the National Criminal Intelligence Service and SOCA, the Serious Organised Crime Agency. We now stand on the brink of the NCA. The media have labelled it the British FBI. To some extent that is understandable. However, although there are some similarities, organisationally and constitutionally the FBI is very different. Nevertheless we should make no mistake about it: the creation of the NCA is absolutely essential, given the current range of problems that we as a society face.

I want to focus on Clauses 5(5) and (7) of the Bill, which concerns the creation of the NCA and gives the director-general of the NCA—if such an organisation is created—the power to direct local compliance from local police organisations. I believe that some may well fly in the face of that and say that it runs completely against the grain of what we did in the previous Session in creating police and crime commissioners, localising policing and placing a local focus on local problems. However, we do not need to remind ourselves of the internationalism of problems—the fact that drugs on the streets of Evesham may well have been imported through Rotterdam; that illegal workers in fields in Cambridgeshire may well have been trafficked from eastern Europe through Southampton; and that teenage prostitutes in London may well have been trafficked from the Ukraine through Heathrow. In other words, local problems are created nationally and internationally. However, if the power to direct local compliance does not lie in the hands of the director-general of the NCA, I fear that the move towards localism, which I support in so many ways, will cause the NCA to founder. It would become something akin to a crime tsar and would certainly espouse a pious hope that something will happen, but without it having the wherewithal to pursue it and to get total national co-operation.

I conclude by referring to one word. The word “direct” is undoubtedly tough and it undoubtedly smacks of, and is, central intervention, but I do not believe that it is contradictory to the move in other ways towards the localisation of policing. It is absolutely essential to deal with international and cross-border national crime. It is the very bedrock of what is envisaged within the National Crime Agency. It is, in fact, the keystone to the whole creation of the agency and without it the agency would founder. I commend the Bill to your Lordships in those terms and I very much hope that we shall see the word “direct” in Clause 5 when the Bill is passed and becomes law.

Police: Racism

Lord Dear Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

The noble Lord makes a very important point about the problems that we are dealing with. What I want to get over is that we do not believe that the police are institutionally racist. It is very encouraging that in the case of the recent allegations the police officers themselves reported that issue, and it is evidence of the fact that there is no institutional racism in the police force. Obviously, cases will nevertheless come to light from time to time, and they must be dealt with in the most appropriate manner. That is why we are looking at the leadership of all police forces, and why we want ACPO and the Met to do their bit and the Mayor of London to do his bit—and in future we want police commissioners to do their bit—to make sure that racism is tackled at every possible level.

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, I am sure that we all deplore racism and discrimination wherever it occurs, particularly in organisations as pivotal as the police service, which can intervene and interfere in everyday life. I have two questions for the Minister, both concerning leadership, which have already been mentioned tangentially. Will he agree with me on the Floor of the House that in any organisation, and particularly in the police, leadership is absolutely key in influencing the culture of the service—its standards, ethics and so on? If he does agree, as I am sure he will, will he then go further and agree with me that part two of the recently published report from Mr Tom Winsor presents a golden and once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to seize the issue of police recruitment of top-level people and their advancement into rank at an early stage, that it will remain at the top of the Home Office agenda, and that there is a real will to continue to pursue that to its final conclusion?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dear, for emphasising the importance with which we see the role of leadership within the police force in dealing with these matters and getting the culture right. I hope that will continue. As regards his second point about Winsor, I agree with him on that and we will pursue it. However, I believe that a degree more consultation is needed, and we will certainly do that in due course.

Protection of Freedoms Bill

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Tuesday 31st January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Royall. I do so even though I am not entirely in agreement with her, simply because in my view six years is too short. I think that we should go further. This is not the time or the place to argue the whole case, but I want to place on record my total opposition to those who say, on libertarian grounds, that we should not keep DNA because it affects people’s privacy. I think of the people over the years who have been caught because DNA has been kept for 10, 15 or 20 years, sometimes not for a specific offence but because it was standard practice to take a DNA profile. I regret very much that we are going to the extent of saying that we should keep DNA only for three years, with all the qualifications that there are around that.

Technology has improved over the years, not least in the storage of DNA samples. We have seen a case recently, which is probably sub judice because it is now in appeal, where a tiny fleck of blood was found on someone’s shirt but that was enough to lead to a conviction. As I say, one defendant is appealing so I shall say no more on that.

With that one reservation, I give my noble friend my full support on this. If it comes to a vote then I shall certainly vote with her, but I think that even six years is too short. We are going far too far on the basis that people’s privacy is more important than the conviction of someone for a serious offence.

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, I have a good deal of sympathy with the view that the noble Lord, Lord Hughes of Woodside, has just expressed; it is a view that one hears frequently when talking to, as it were, the man on the Clapham omnibus. I rise neither to support nor to oppose the amendment at this stage. I have not checked with ACPO to see whether it would prefer a lift from three years to six, but in a straw poll it would probably agree that six years would be a help. However, it is incumbent on me to point out that ACPO has already expressed the view that it is comfortable with three years, following the Scottish model, and the ability to go further.

I wait to hear what the Minister says, but the nub of this is the question of balance and proportionality. It is necessary to follow to a large extent the judgment in Marper, which we all remember and which started this debate in the first place. What the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, has said is very pertinent; I drift very much towards his point of view. Still, I would like to hear what the Minister says, particularly on the question of balance, proportionality and how that affects the Marper judgment.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, on the same point about the balance of proportionality, I am assuming that this clause is based on a detailed and careful analysis of the evidence, so perhaps the Minister could share with the House the numbers of people who are affected in terms of their DNA samples being removed and destroyed. Over the past few years, how many individuals whose DNA would now have been removed from the database would not have been brought before the court for offences that have either subsequently come to light or where their DNA has subsequently been matched? It is incumbent on the department to place this evidence before us. That would deal with the concerns raised by the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

If in fact there is no evidence and a judgment has simply been made that three years is better than for ever, but there is no reason why it should be three years instead of five, six, seven or two, that is not a sound basis for making an extremely important decision, not least for the sanity of the victims of serious crime where the perpetrator might otherwise be convicted. It is a very unwise position for this House to be making that judgment without an understanding of the evidence.