Passport (Fees) Regulations 2018

Debate between Lord Dear and Lord Taylor of Holbeach

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Noble Lords]

Not content!

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, we seem to have got ourselves into a pretty pass about something that the Minister is not required to answer today. Noble Lords know that order in this House is constructed in such a way that they can get proper answers to questions that are troubling them. I suggest to noble Lords, who are obviously much better informed than I am about a particular issue, that if they wish to challenge a decision that the Government have made or might make or whatever, there are methods for doing so. They could put down Questions or they could put down Motions for debate, and I am sure that the House will try to facilitate those where it can. Really, we have a lot of business to do; a number of us want to be in Westminster Hall to pay proper tribute to the victims of the attack a year ago. I ask noble Lords, please, not to press this further.

Police Reform

Debate between Lord Dear and Lord Taylor of Holbeach

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dear (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the Statement. I endorse its subject matter and I am delighted to see leadership mentioned. It does not get a bold headline but it is in there and Members of your Lordships’ House will know that I have pressed that subject before. The fact that leadership needs ventilation by attachment to outside bodies is well taken. I have two questions for the Minister: one on leadership and one on another matter. Does he agree that, with good-quality, robust, visible leadership, all the issues of probity, ethics, due process, professionalism and so on are almost superfluous because they would flow naturally from it? Without good-quality leadership, any of the things I have enumerated would struggle to succeed. Leadership, therefore, needs not only to be endorsed, as it is in the report, but lifted to the top of the list, together with a proper career path for those who are recruited into the service with those attributes. Will leadership be one of a number of issues or is it going to be one of the prime issues that will lead the rest through?

Secondly, if leadership is a key to the door, this is surely a door with at least two locks. We have talked about the first metaphorically. The second key to the door is the structure of the police service. There is nothing in the list we have heard today on structure. There is a balance to be struck which is, sadly, out of kilter at the moment. Wherever I go in the police service or whenever I talk to the many people who are outside the service but interested in it, the question is always why we do not have a national force or a regional force; there are too many forces. I take no view on that other than it needs addressing. I am a great believer in loyalty to cap-badge and locality but the fact that we have the National Crime Agency at one end and police and crime commissioners at the other means there is a great gulf in the middle. So my question to the Minister is: will there additionally be an in-depth review, perhaps along the lines of what has been mentioned in the Stevens report, of the whole structure of the British police service, in which leadership and everything else can flourish?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Dear, who speaks with a great deal of authority on this whole issue.

The question of leadership is at the heart of the Statement because, as the noble Lord will know, the Home Secretary recognises that leadership is the key to achieving police reform. The noble Lord will share that view. It is therefore very much a key feature of this Statement. Probity is important and the noble Lord will understand that the reinforcement of the professionalism of the police by having proper measures for probity as part and parcel of this package is a very important thing. I hope the noble Lord will also acknowledge that the establishment of the College of Policing has led to a remarkable transformation of policing. Indeed, the leadership that it is providing to the force through the code of ethics and the many other aspects of policing that it is addressing is very important.

I agree with the noble Lord that in the long term we perhaps need to look at the structure and the balance of resources. There will always be arguments. I come from a very rural part of the country, where it is very easy for people to feel almost overlooked. But there are also places where the pressures on policing are much greater than they are where I live. Those issues will not go away. What the Government have done with the formation of the National Crime Agency is facilitate the ability to deal effectively with those things that operate across borders while at the same time enabling local policing to take place, governed by local police and crime commissioners.

Serious Crime Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Dear and Lord Taylor of Holbeach

Wednesday 2nd July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dear (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to re-emphasise the wording of subsection (1) of the amendment:

“The Secretary of State must consult on ways to strengthen and improve the effectiveness of confiscation orders”.

For many years, and bearing in mind my previous service in the police and my contact with it since, I have been concerned that the prosecution authorities generally do not pursue property that is the subject of crime nearly as rigorously as they should. That has gone on for years, although all the agencies concerned will deny it. It is a fact, however. I could produce evidence from recent personal experience but will not weary the Committee with that, other than to say that the police have always been, and still are, judged on reducing crime and gaining convictions. The CPS is also judged on its ability to gain convictions. It is not judged, by and large, on its ability to chase back money and other property.

I simply endorse the main thrust of subsection (1) of the amendment. There must be ways in which the efficiency of those two organisations can be enhanced, not by rewarding them—although rewards are involved, I suppose, particularly in the reapplication of assets that we have been discussing—but simply by recognising that efficiency is not just detecting crime or getting convictions but also recovering property and money. When all is said and done, in the upper echelons of crime, in particular, the criminals are in it for the money. If the money is not chased, it is eventually there for them to use later when they come out of prison, or when they have paid off the fine or whatever else. This is a plea to underline the wording of subsection (1) of the amendment, which I endorse.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, this has been a short but very useful debate. I am pleased that the noble Baroness has reiterated that her objective in tabling these amendments has been to seek ways in which we can improve the effectiveness of recovery and confiscation of money. The noble Lord, Lord Dear, graphically described how important that is. It is perhaps true that there has been little focus by those who should be undertaking this task. There are two reasons why this mission is important: first, because money has frequently been taken from society and should be returned to it; and, secondly, if this money remains in the hands of criminals they will have every incentive to carry on with criminality as a way of life, and all the costs that it brings. That lies behind where we are on this. All these amendments are concerned with improving effectiveness, and I think that the whole Committee would support that notion. In dealing with these amendments I hope to show that the measures proposed in the Bill will address the issues that the noble Baroness raised. I am grateful to her for bringing them forward. Indeed, it is quite proper that we should consider their effectiveness.

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Dear and Lord Taylor of Holbeach

Wednesday 8th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I do not intend to give any examples to my noble friend. I have given the reason why we have a single test for anti-social behaviour leading to an IPNA. I have given my reasoning, and I hope that my noble friend will accept it; I am not going to go into listing individual activities that the IPNA is intended to address. That is why we have a single test and why noble Lords will understand that I am speaking in justification of that single test.

The second part of the test is not a throwaway test, as some have suggested. It is under this limb of the test that the court will consider whether it is reasonable and proportionate in all the circumstances to grant an injunction. In making such an assessment, the court will consider the impact on the respondent’s convention rights, including the rights to freedom of speech and assembly.

I agree with the noble Lord that we should not leave it to the courts to apply these important safeguards. All these factors will weigh on the minds of front-line professionals in judging whether to apply for an injunction. Our draft guidance makes this clear. This will be backed up by a framework of professional standards and practice operated by the police, local authorities and housing providers.

Having said all that—and I apologise to my noble friend for not giving him an example—I have listened to the strength of feeling around the house on this issue. The Government’s purpose is plain: we wish to protect victims. ASB, or anti-social behaviour, ruins lives and wrecks communities. In our legislation, we need to ensure that authorities seeking to do so have coherent and effective powers to deal with anti-social behaviour. Recognising noble Lords’ concerns, I commit to take the issue away to give myself the opportunity in discussion with the noble Lord and others to provide a solution that clarifies the use of the legislation and safeguards the objective, which I think is shared around this House, of making anti-social behaviour more difficult and protecting those who are victims of it.

On those grounds, and on the understanding that the Government will return to the issue at Third Reading, I will not move for now government Amendment 2, and I hope that on the commitment to discuss the issue the noble Lord, Lord Dear, will not press his amendment.

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, we have been detained for something over two hours and I shall take no more than a couple of minutes of your Lordships’ time to say what I have to say. First, I sincerely thank all those who have spoken in this debate, particularly the three signatories to my amendment and the Minister, who has had to sit through a varied and interesting debate.

Secondly, I want to pick up on the chilling effect. The experience with the word “insulting” in the Public Order Act is sufficient in itself to indicate what front-line practitioners will do. Governed as they are by very well-oiled complaints machinery, they will undoubtedly be faced with many examples when a set of circumstances are produced for them, and they will be virtually pressurised into taking some sort of action, to pursue the case and push it through to the courts to decide. That is the easy option, and it is what happened all too often with “insulting”. To take an exercise in discretion and turn around to the complainant and say, “Frankly, I think we should let this one go by”, is not an option that they will take willingly. That is undoubtedly why the Association of Chief Police Officers as one group has said that it thinks that “nuisance and annoyance” is wrong and that we should stay with the well tried formula of “harassment, alarm or distress”.

The choice between those two wordings is the pivotal point of the legislation—the absolute foundation on which everything else hangs. We can talk for as long as we like about reasonable, just, convenient, necessary and all those adjectives, and try to make it work but, if the pivot does not work, all the rest falls away. The pivot suggested by the Government is “nuisance and annoyance”. We have no knowledge of what will happen if that comes into play, but we know what will happen with “harassment, alarm or distress”; it is well proven, well tried and respected, and has never been faulted. To move way from that is a step into the dark.

We have had no examples whatever of the sort of conduct that “nuisance and annoyance” seeks, rightly, to address. I pay great tribute to the Minister, for whom I have a huge liking and respect, but unless he can satisfy me—and I suspect that this is the case with others in the Chamber, from what I pick up from the atmosphere—that he is willing to move immediately to “harassment, alarm or distress”, I must seek to divide the House. I invite him to respond to that.

Undercover Policing

Debate between Lord Dear and Lord Taylor of Holbeach

Monday 24th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, it has been a privilege to listen to the noble Baroness, who has recreated some of the fears and anxieties which the Macpherson report sought to address. There have been few more damning indictments of an institution than that report. What is currently being alleged is that there may have been some aspects of policing at the time which were not reported to Macpherson, including this particular unit and its activities. These are matters of great concern. I have to be brief because other noble Lords want to come in, but I am pleased to have listened to the noble Baroness.

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, first, I declare my interest as a senior officer in the police service, and also that in the past 18 months I have given professional advice as part of a small group advising HMIC on the Kennedy case. That should go on the record.

I associate myself absolutely with the comments in the Statement that the noble Lord has read out to us. I share entirely the concern, and the tone of that Statement chimes exactly with my own feelings. I would also like to associate myself with the comments that have been made about the Lawrence family, and I will not go over that again. The whole issue is deeply worrying. I have only one small query in my own mind: why has it taken so long for that undercover officer to come forward? No doubt that will be a matter of record later on.

I will make one point and pose one question. The point I would like to make is that my knowledge of undercover operations at the extreme end is that it is a critical and highly dangerous part of policing. Penetrating officers into organised crime groups is difficult. It is critical—as the Front Bench has already acknowledged—and a very dangerous involvement indeed, which was not the case with Lawrence and is not the case with Kennedy either. I hope that the ongoing investigations will bear in mind the important end—the dangerous end—of undercover operations.

The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, has already mentioned the need for ethics and I subscribe to that. He is quite right, but I would take it a stage further. My question to the Minister concerns leadership. Ethics are no good unless the values of the service and the moral and professional compass of the service are there first. It needs leadership to hold it together and move it forward. This is a drum I have beaten here before, as the Minister knows. I would like reassurance from him that the whole question of leadership—not the College of Policing but leadership—is being addressed as a matter of urgency within the Home Office. It is to do with recruiting and training the right people, giving them the space to operate and encouraging leadership rather than management. With good leadership, this sort of thing should not and would not happen. That is the essence of the whole problem that we are looking at.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Many senior police officers are aware that there is far too much focus on management and not enough on leadership. It is, after all, the police force that we are talking about. Police forces need leadership and command and a sense of direction and focus. All that the noble Lord has said, from his vast experience, points to the disappearance of some of that focus in modern policing. The Home Office is determined to get it back. I hope that addresses the issues that concern him.

Police: Convicted Officers

Debate between Lord Dear and Lord Taylor of Holbeach

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I have already talked about the 12 February announcement made by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. The noble Baroness will know that part of our policy for improving standards within the police lies with the establishment of a College of Policing, which is leading a programme of ways to improve police integrity. It is important that the police generate these standards from within their own experience. It is not necessary for the Home Office to impose a standard on the police service. We are great believers that the integrity of the police force and the capacity for maintaining it lie within the police service itself. The figures that I have given have shown exactly that.

[Lord Dear]

Noble Lords will perhaps not be surprised when I say that I view the emerging picture of misconduct and, sometimes, criminality in police forces with great concern. There are a number of issues in this matter but one of them has to be attracting the right calibre of recruits in the first place, and then accelerating and developing leadership within the service. Can the Minister reassure the House that he, too, sees this as a fundamental priority? Can he reassure your Lordships’ House that when the results of the recently concluded consultation on leadership and fast-tracking have been evaluated in the Home Office, the Government will address this particular issue urgently and with all possible speed?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I can give the noble Lord that assurance. Earlier I referred to the vetting procedure also referred to by my noble friend Lady Doocey. The key thing is to make sure that you get the right people into the police in the first place. The vetting procedure set up by ACPO states that police forces should not recruit people with convictions, cautions and judicial or any other form of disposals which may call into question the applicant or their role in the service. It also states that each case must be judged on its individual merits; I think that the noble Lord will agree with that. Where standards have not been met, decisions about what action to take are for chief constables, based on the circumstances of each case. Other than in London, those decisions are monitored by the police and crime commissioners.