Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Wednesday 17th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I am sorry to speak after the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. I wanted to hear what he had to say about his amendments and those in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer.

I speak first to the amendment to which I have put my name, Amendment 259B—on which I entirely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said—about excluding jurors from the operation of the provision permitting participation in criminal proceedings by remote live links.

The proposal in the Bill is that the problem of jurors taking part in criminal proceedings by live link should be dealt with by a requirement that all members of a jury taking part through a live link should be present at the same place. So the suggestion is that, by being present at the same place, the jurors would be able to decide a case whether or not they were physically present at the trial. I do not believe that suggestion is accurate or that it responds adequately to the difficulties posed by the proposal that jurors should be able to attend remotely.

In the last group we considered how important it is for jurors to be able to see and hear witnesses giving their oral testimony live, with a view to assessing the truthfulness of those witnesses and the accuracy of the evidence they give. That involves a very personal judgment about credibility and reliability. Reliance upon that judgment—the independent judgment of 12 citizens, as distinct from the individual judgment of a professional judge—is what marks out the jury system. I believe it is what has given the public confidence in the system that we all have. I do not believe that that judgment is capable of being reliably made by live link.

Post Covid, we can all see the attractions of remote hearings. As a barrister, I have appeared in many such hearings over this period, as I dare say others have—certainly the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has. For hearings before judges alone, or before arbitral tribunals, they generally work well. Indeed, for many civil hearings, I suspect we will not go back to the system of all-oral hearings for a significant percentage of our work. That will be a matter for individual judges, arbitrators and lawyers, depending upon the particular circumstances of the cases before them.

However—this was the case that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, made—even during the pandemic and despite the pressures of increasing trial backlogs, we have not gone down the road of holding jury trials without jurors being physically present to hear the evidence and being in the same place as the judge. In my view, that is for good reason, so I invite the Government to think again and to accept Amendment 259B.

On the other amendments, having heard the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, explain his amendment about the need for health-needs screening, I agree with the noble Lord and invite the Government to accept that, too. As for the amendment in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thornton, I fully accept the argument that it would be unusual for the use of live links to be directed by a judge in a sensitive case involving children, but I can see an argument that some such cases might justify a direction. I see no reason not to leave it to the judge in any particular case to determine whether the use of live links would further or impede the interests of justice. In this regard, we need to remember that refusing a live-links direction may in many cases cause delay in the determination of those cases, and that such delay may lead to particular injustice in cases involving children, for whom an early determination of the issues surrounding their care is often of great importance. So, although I see the point of this amendment, I suggest that it is better to leave it to judicial discretion in cases involving children.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, the Committee will know that, as a non-lawyer, I very often attend these debates because I do not trust lawyers to make decisions about themselves. I therefore intervene here because, on this occasion, lawyers have brought to the surface a most important issue.

I am interested in whether people believe that justice has been done, and it seems to me that extending, in these circumstances, the use of technology to overcome the presence of people in court has a fundamental issue for the generality of the public believing that justice has been done. I am a great believer in Zoom and Teams. They have made my life a great deal better and I have spent more time in the beautiful countryside of Suffolk than I had been able to do before, but I am very conscious of the fact that there are many things that you can do perfectly well—indeed, better—through these techniques and there are some things that you cannot. One of the things you cannot do is replicate the public’s confidence in the concept of a jury. The point, which was made by the previous speaker so adequately, is that it is different, and our system is different because we have this element.

I cannot believe that there are circumstances when it would be sensible for the jury to be in one place and the judge in another. Therefore, I wish to say to my noble friend, whose explanations throughout today and previous days have been remarkable—he has been able to defend some very peculiar things more effectively than most people have managed to do, certainly in the other House—simply this: we have here a position in which it is hugely important that the public should feel that justice is done. I do not believe they will if we do it this way.

As somebody who was a Minister for 16 years, I warn him that I see the civil servant here, who said to some Minister somewhere, “Better do this in case”. Some of the cases proposed are frankly incomprehensible, unlikely and totally beyond any sense—but it is the duty of civil servants to say, “Better not leave this out, Minister, lest it should happen and then we’d be in trouble”. I suggest to my noble friend that he would be in less trouble by not doing some of these things than he would be in the extreme possibility that he might need this power.

Extradition (Provisional Arrest) Bill [HL]

Lord Deben Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 5th March 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, I assume that the process of extradition occurs under judicial control after the arrest and after the person arrested is in the custody of the judiciary or under the control of the arrangements made by the judiciary. That is quite important. In most of the speeches made at Second Reading, we distinguished between the Executive and the judiciary. They are two distinct parts of government. It is the Executive’s responsibility to take people before the judiciary, which is then responsible for how they are treated, subject to the Executive sometimes being part of the treatment afterwards. It is important to distinguish between the two. Therefore, it is acceptable that the authority deciding whether this arrest should go ahead is not a judicial authority but the responsible executive authority.

As far as both amendments are concerned, the information sought is reasonable and might be subject to risk, but it would be very easy, particularly if there seemed to be any public concern about the matter, for a parliamentarian to raise this as a Parliamentary Question, rather than have an obligation on the Secretary of State to keep to a time when there might not be much in the way of information to put out. I can see why these arrangements are a subject of public interest, but the Parliamentary Question system is a good way to deal with that as and when they seem important.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I support what my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay just said. There is a fundamental distinction between the Executive branch and the legal branch. My objection to the Bill is that it includes a country where that division is nothing like as strong as ours. One of the issues is that these mechanisms for extradition are politically motivated in one of the five countries. The distinction between the Executive and the judicial system is crucial in people’s protection. Therefore, I very much support my noble and learned friend making that distinction, which distinguishes us and four of the other countries from the fifth. We ought to underline that very strongly.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have made their points on these amendments and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for moving Amendment 1. To recap, at Second Reading there was considerable cross-party consensus on the Bill’s aims and measures, alongside the robust scrutiny that I expect from the House, and now the Committee. The amendments before us rightly tease out some of those points.

Noble Lords will be interested to know that the Director of Public Prosecutions, Max Hill QC, wrote to the new Security Minister on 2 March. His letter, which I will put in the Library following Committee, says:

“Overall, it is the firm view of the CPS that this Bill strikes the right balance between ensuring sufficient human rights safeguards and delivering the capabilities that the police and CPS require in order to safeguard the public … under the current process there remains a risk that UK law enforcement could encounter a potentially dangerous person wanted for a serious crime by a trusted partner, but for whom they would have no power to arrest and detain … The Bill does not make it more or less likely someone will be extradited, but it does increase the chances that persons wanted for serious offences by some of our closest and trusted partners will enter, with all the existing safeguards, the extradition process.”


I know that reporting on the effectiveness of the legislation, and the reliability of Interpol alerts, is a topic of interest. If the Committee will allow it, I will address Amendments 1 and 2 together as both concern reporting on the legislation’s effectiveness.

On the perceived risk of abuse of Interpol notices highlighted in Amendment 1, I reassure the Committee that the immediate power of arrest proposed in the Bill will apply only to requests from specified countries—currently the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. These countries have been specified as we have a high level of confidence in their criminal justice systems and use of Interpol notices. The Government have no intention of specifying countries likely to abuse the system to political ends.

Additionally, the UK is currently working with Interpol to ensure that its rules are robust, effective and complied with. The former chief constable of Essex was recently made the executive director of policing services for Interpol, the most senior operational role in that organisation. A UK government lawyer has also been seconded to the Interpol legal service to work with it to ensure that Interpol rules are properly robust and adhered to by Interpol member states. We will continue to work with Interpol to increase the reliability and trustworthiness of the whole red notice system.

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My noble friend Lord Deben asked about political motivation by “one country”. We do not accept that any of the countries concerned will be in the habit of making politically motivated requests. All those specified have justice systems in which the Government are prepared to put their trust.

[Lord Deben]

Did my noble friend notice that the President of the United States has just taken credit for 3,000 judicial appointments and said that he has therefore ensured that those judicial appointments will make decisions in line with his and Republican Party policy? How can one possibly say that this is the same kind of judicial system that we have?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

A judge would take a view on whether something was politically motivated. Something blatantly politically motivated would be rejected.

[Lord Deben]

I understand that, and we have the protection that the request has to go before a judge but, in this document, the Government give accreditation to the United States, which has no reciprocal arrangements with us, and talk about a “trusted partner” when it is not a partner. It will not do this the other way around and, clearly, it asks for the extradition of people on political or commercial grounds, which would not happen with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Liechtenstein or Switzerland. We are saying something about the United States that surely none of us believes.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I think my noble friend is referring to the Extradition Act itself, not the pre-extradition arrest process. I do not know whether he is questioning the Extradition Act’s efficacy, but that is not what we are talking about in the Bill. He also has an amendment down for later in Committee so perhaps we could come back to this at that stage if he wants to make further points.

[Lord Deben]

I am happy to do that; I merely say to my noble friend that I have tabled the amendment and wish to discuss it because this is our opportunity to do so and we are repeating our view. My noble friend is using phrases that are, I think, unsuitable, given the relationship. We are, after all, extending—perfectly properly, I think—the way the Extradition Act works. It seems reasonable at this point, before we go any further, to question whether one ought to use those phrases in these circumstances.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

We will get on to my noble friend’s point, but we use Parliament to make law rather than to make points. I hope he will respect the point that I make.

The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, asked about obligation to extradite. He is absolutely right. The Bill creates powers for the police, not obligations to other countries.

Amendment 2 requests the publication of an annual statement on arrests. The NCA already keeps data and publishes statistics around arrest volumes in relation to Part 1 of the Extradition Act. It does it without being required to do so by primary legislation. We have no doubt that it will similarly do so in respect of arrests under this new arrest power, as this is a sensible operational practice. I have sympathy for the amendment, so I have asked officials to look at how we can give the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, some reassurance. I hope he will accept that I will liaise with him between now and Report.

I am not persuaded that the either the Secretary of State or the NCA require a statutory obligation to take these steps. I hope I have been able to persuade the noble Lord not to press his amendments, but we will have further discussions between now and Report.

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[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 6; I also have Amendments 7, 9 and 10 in this group. I start with Amendment 9, which I think is the most important. This amendment would restrict additions to Schedule A1 to one territory at a time. Orders are not amendable; one says either yes or no—and it is rarely no—to the whole thing. Let us consider an order seeking to add, say, Turkey and the Netherlands—it might not happen but I am thinking of two very different states—where one might want more protections than are proposed by the Government, but one would not want to reject an order to add the Netherlands. I think that is a sufficiently stark pairing to enable your Lordships to understand why I am concerned about this. I have written myself a note about the delegated powers memorandum. I cannot now find it but I am sure that it said something quite relevant. I might be able to find it by the end of the debate. Anyway, that is my particular concern. I do not think that I need to expand on it any further. I am grateful to the noble Lord and the noble and learned Lord for adding their names to this.

Amendment 6 is to probe how a territory can be varied, as distinct to being added or removed. It did not seem to me that one could vary a territory to make it part of a state. If it is about a change of name—some states do change their names—surely legislation here is not necessary. Amendment 7 is to take out the provision in new Section 74B of the Act that regulations can amend new Section 74C consequential on the addition, variation or removal of reference to a territory. New Section 74C is about the validity of requests for an arrest, which have to be made in an approved way; so, again, I am probing. What could be amended other than that the request comes from an authority with the requisite function? I table this because I am uncomfortable that there might be regulations in contemplation that widen the category of authorities entitled to make the request.

Amendment 10 would deal with the basis on which the Secretary of State may add a territory. The Minister at Second Reading said that we would apply the provisions only to

“alerts from countries that do not abuse Interpol systems, that respect the international rules-based system and that have criminal justice systems we trust; and only to alerts relating to sufficiently serious offences.”—[Official Report, 4/2/20; Col. 1727.]

I do not quarrel with a word of that. This amendment seeks to transfer those words into the legislation. I beg to move Amendment 6.

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, I very much support this Bill. My Amendment 11B relates to the names of territories that were not in the original legislation but are in this Bill. My noble friend perfectly reasonably suggested that I might be objecting to our extradition system in general and that that would not be suitable. I agree with her. However, this Bill has a list of “trusted partner” countries. That is true of all but one of them. All the others have a system of justice that is removed as far as humanly possible from politics. In this country, we are proud of that. That would not matter if one could not show—as I hope to—that the United States, because of its different kind of legal system, is using the extradition arrangements in a way that my noble friend rightly objects to, and why quite a number of other countries are not this list. The problem is that, by putting the United States on this list, we are making a statement about its use of extradition which seems unjustified. I will explain why.

We know that, unlike with the other countries, there is no reciprocal arrangement because the United States has said that it is contrary to its constitutional arrangements to have reciprocity. Our original Act is not reciprocated by the United States. I find that difficult anyway, but we are not discussing that issue here. In the case of the United States, unlike many other countries with which we have had and probably will have reciprocity after negotiation, we accept that it will not extradite people to us in circumstances in which we are extraditing people to it. We are confirming that by saying that we will extend our extradition procedure—perfectly properly in other circumstances, I think—to enable us to arrest people in the circumstances that this Bill makes clear.

We are very fortunate in this country because the whole system is overseen by the judiciary. It would be arguable that it does not matter because the new arrangements will mean that the judiciary will still be able to oversee that. After all, we are not putting every country on the list. We are not saying that the judiciary oversees everybody; we are saying it about these countries and distinguishing them from others.

I will remind your Lordships about two cases that show why I think that this is very real. We have the case of a woman who killed a British boy in Britain, has admitted it and has not been extradited although we have asked for that extradition. Not only has she not been extradited but the United States has refused to reveal what it claims are the special and secret arrangements under which the extradition cannot take place because the person is supposedly covered by diplomatic immunity. However, the United States will not publicly explain the special arrangement. Not only is the lady not extradited, although we have asked for it, but it is on a basis that the United States has refused to reveal. Were this Turkey, Bangladesh or another country, this would be a very good reason for not putting the name on this list.

There is a second reason: the use of the extradition arrangements to pursue a political or commercial end. For the United States it is very often a commercial end. In this I speak of the case of my former constituent Dr Mike Lynch, chairman of one of our most successful companies. He sold his British company to an American company; it was sold under British law in Britain, bought by an American company and operated in Britain. After a bit, the American company had so badly mucked up the running of this business that it wanted an excuse for the sum it had paid, so it called on the British authorities to prosecute Dr Lynch, saying he had misled it. That may or may not be true. It had done very extensive due diligence before, so it is difficult to believe that so great an American company with so much opportunity to look beforehand should have been misled, but that is what it said.

The British authorities investigated and found that there was no case to answer. Therefore, they declined the prosecution. The American company, Hewlett Packard, perfectly rightly—I have no objection to this—went to the civil courts to claim its case. That case has now been heard at great length. It is probably the longest case of this kind ever held in this country. Dr Lynch was cross-examined for many days. The case is over as far as the evidence is concerned, but there has so far not been a judgment, so we do not know whether the civil courts in this country will find my former constituent guilty or innocent. Hewlett Packard is clearly worried about this case. Indeed, to read it one might be worried oneself if one were on that side. But still, we do not know. It is for the judge to decide.

British justice is known internationally as the fairest system in the world. That is why lots of companies that are not here agree with other companies that are not here for their court cases, should they come up, to be decided in British courts; they know that they will get a fair deal. Hewlett Packard has however demanded that Dr Lynch be extradited from Britain to have the case heard not in this country but in the United States. I am quite sure the reason is that it feels a United States court is more likely to make a decision which pleases it—particularly given the geographical position of the court calling for the extradition and its long-standing relationship with Hewlett Packard—and more likely to accept its case than the British one.

We all know that there are many situations in which British companies have found that courts in the United States make decisions that we would find, let us say, commercially political rather than judicially objective. Here we are, saying that this “trusted partner” should be treated in the same way as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, all of which have systems that any of us in this Room would be happy to be tried before, but how many of us would genuinely say that, if we had a commercial disagreement with an American company with power and political punch, we would wish to be charged before an American court? That is a different situation.

I have tabled the amendment not because I seek to undermine the original Act, although I think it was a mistake to allow a non-reciprocal arrangement with the United States. I am merely saying that I do not think that the United States should be one of those countries that benefits from a perfectly proper extension of our laws.

My noble friend said that she would not want to have this kind of arrangement with anyone whose judicial system was subject to political influence. President Trump has pointed out that he has changed the judges in the Ninth Circuit because it was

“a big thorn in our side”.

He has now appointed judges who will not be a big thorn in his side. He has made, I think, 181 judicial appointments and encouraged the majority Republican Senate to change as many as possible while he is there so that they get the judges who will to make the sort of judgments that suit the right-wing Republican that he is.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. The amendments before us relate to the delegated power to specify any additional territories to which this new power may be extended. As I have said, in the first instance, the powers afforded by the legislation would be granted only to the UK’s closest criminal justice co-operation partners, these being the Five Eyes powers and the EFTA states. These are the countries in whose criminal justice systems and use of Interpol systems we have a high level of confidence. The amendments address the power to add, vary or remove countries from the Bill and a minor consequential amendment to vary what is meant by making an extradition request in the approved way if there is a good justification for doing so in the future.

I shall start with Amendment 9 because the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, began with it and other noble Lords have expressed a great interest in it. It specifies that territories should be added one at a time. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, for speaking to me about this and I did slightly warn him ahead of time that we are not going to agree with it. That is not to say that we would want to add territories in multiples, but it is common practice to allow for multiple territories to be specified together for similar legislation. Noble Lords will know that this is the process for adding territories in Part 1 and Part 2 of the Extradition Act 2003. I hope that the affirmative resolution procedure would give Parliament the opportunity to scrutinise the Government by voting either for or against a resolution and to express an opinion towards any country being added to the Bill. I expect that if the Government attempted to add a territory which Parliament did not agree with, it would act accordingly. However, I understand the substance of the point that the noble and learned Lord made.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, referred to our debate the other day on the Norway/Iceland issue. The Norway/Iceland surrender agreement operates under Part 1 of the 2003 Extradition Act, so an agreement with the EU based on that precedent would keep EU member states in Part 1 of the Act, where the power of immediate arrest already exists. The Bill is only for specified Part 2 countries where currently there is no power of immediate arrest. I do not want to prejudge the outcome of the negotiations, but we may well return to this issue.

I shall reverse engineer, as it were, and go back to Amendment 6. It looks to determine how varying a reference to a territory will be distinct from the addition or removal of a reference. I assure noble Lords that the term “vary” aims to future-proof the legislation and to ensure that technical changes do not place a restriction on the use of the power. An example of such a technical change would be a situation where part of a territory seceded from a specified territory and the Government wished to maintain this power in relation to only the successor state. This is of course not a particularly likely scenario but one for which it is responsible to be prepared.

Amendment 7 proposes to remove the power to vary the meaning of making a request “in the approved way” under new Section 74C. In the current draft, a request is made “in the approved way” if it is

“made by an authority of the category 2 territory which the designated authority believes has the function of making such requests in that territory.”

The power in new Section 74B(7)(b) is included to enable similar provision to be made, where appropriate, to that in Section 70(5) and (6) of the 2003 Act. These subsections set out the variations to the meaning of “the approved way” for extradition requests made from British Overseas Territories and for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. I will set out some examples of how that power might be used.

Where a newly specified territory had a number of different authorities which had the function of making requests, the power in new Section 74B(7)(b) would enable one or more authority to be singled out as the appropriate authority for making valid requests, should that be necessary. A further example might be if the Government sought to specify one or several of the British Overseas Territories. In such a scenario, the Government may wish to provide for requests to be made by the governor-general of the territory rather than the authorities within it. In such circumstances, the regulations might provide for requests to be made in the approved way by or on behalf of a person administering the territory.

Regarding preparing and publishing a report on adding a new territory, as well as any intention to add further territories or negotiations with prospective territories, to the scope of this legislation as specified in Amendment 8, the Government are committed to ensuring that Parliament has the ability to question and decide on whether any new territory could come within scope. Therefore, it is mandated in the Bill that any Government wishing to add a new territory to the scope of this legislation should do so through the affirmative resolution procedure. Any statutory instrument laid before Parliament will of course be accompanied by an Explanatory Memorandum, which will set out the legislative context and policy reasons for that instrument.

This procedure will give Parliament opportunity for scrutiny and will allow the House to reject the addition of any new territory to the Bill. Any Minister looking to add a new territory to the Bill would be expected to give Parliament good reason for doing so, therefore negating the need for this amendment. Having said that, I have sympathy with the spirit of the amendment and have asked officials to look into how we can give the noble Lord some reassurance on this. I will continue to liaise with noble Lords ahead of Report.

Amendment 10 would add a specification criterion for new countries to the Bill. This has not already been included to ensure that Parliament is given the full freedom to decide on any new territory. If criteria were to be added, Parliament might be put in the invidious position of having to accept that a particular territory that was not appropriate for specification for other reasons should be added. In this circumstance Parliament would likely want to consider all aspects of the proposal, so adding these criteria would limit Parliament’s discretion. As I have outlined, any Government proposing to add a new territory would also need to give clear reasons for doing so, both in the explanatory documents accompanying any statutory instrument and during any subsequent debate. We would not want to bind the hands of future Governments to decide on the criteria they use to specify a new country.

I think we can all agree that the factors identified by my noble friend will of course be important and relevant considerations that we would expect any Government to take into account when deciding whether it is appropriate to seek to add a new territory. However, we do not consider that they need to be in the Bill. The current drafting ensures that Parliament can assess the merits of each territory which is due to be added to the Bill and scrutinise any addition through the affirmative resolution procedure. I am not persuaded of the need for this amendment.

Amendment 11B aims to remove the United States from the Schedule. The US is a critical partner in fighting terrorism and international organised crime. It is a responsible user of Interpol and has a criminal justice system with extensive checks and balances. We are confident of these points in relation to the US as much as to the other countries that we seek to specify. The new power of arrest, which is designed to protect the public in this country, has nothing to do with whether UK extradition requests to other countries are successful. It is about ensuring, when we have robust and trustworthy information that a person is wanted for a serious offence, that the police can arrest that person. Requests from the US are backed by judicial warrants predicated on probable cause. This is a firm ground on which to bring a person before a judge in the UK to decide on their further detention.

My noble friend talked about the US President’s comments on judicial appointments. Of course, this was raised by the leader of the Opposition in another place. We need to bear in mind the context in which the President might have said that in an election year. The Prime Minister made his views on the US treaty very clear in another place last month. The Government’s long-standing position is that the treaty with the US is fair and balanced in practice.

[Lord Deben]

Will my noble friend give way?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Not at the moment. If my noble friend could wait until I have finished my comments, I will be happy to take his intervention. It is just that I have a number of points to make; I hope that is okay. The Prime Minister has committed to looking into the questions raised by the leader of the Opposition, so I am sure that my noble friend will look forward to that. This issue should not delay or undermine our efforts to ensure that police in the UK have the right powers in place to get wanted fugitives off British streets.

My noble friend talked about Anne Sacoolas, which is a valid issue; the US refusal to extradite her is a clear denial of justice. The Government and UK law enforcement continue to explore all opportunities to secure justice for Harry Dunn’s family. I bring to my noble friend’s attention the fact that this is the first case that has ever been refused under the UK-US extradition treaty. By contrast, we have refused 19 cases. The Government’s long-standing position is that the treaty is fair and balanced in practice. My noble friend also mentioned Dr Lynch. As we have stated, consideration of the substance of an extradition request includes any statutory bars to extradition such as political motivation. These are properly a matter for a judge at the extradition hearing. I will not comment any further as this is before the courts.

My noble friend also talked about reciprocity. What we are doing in this Bill is creating powers for the UK police, not obligations on the countries concerned. I know that he is concerned about reciprocity, but the Bill will enable UK police officers to protect the public more effectively. It is about ensuring that UK police officers have the power to remove dangerous individuals from our streets before they can abscond or offend, not relying on some sort of reciprocity that may depend on the nature of the regime in the other country. I am happy to take his intervention now if he wishes.

[Lord Deben]

I thank my noble friend the Minister. I realise what she is saying and acknowledge the care with which she is saying it; I thank her very much for that. I tried to intervene earlier specifically on the issue that President Trump had said what he said. The Minister said that we had to realise that that was an election situation. She then moved on to the Prime Minister. I put this to her: how happy would she be if our Prime Minister got up during an election and said, “I am very pleased that there are 181 judges that I have managed to get appointed, who will make decisions much closer to the Conservative Party’s views than the judges whom they replaced.”? I think that she would be deeply upset and would feel that that struck at the very heart of British justice. I am trying to make the point that the United States makes political decisions about judges, who are very often able to act in support of American business. In fact, this is one of the issues that President Trump has always raised—“America first”. My concern is that there is an actual case where that appears to be what happened. I do not think that it helps us to give the impression that the United States’ legal system is on a par with that of Switzerland, because it is not.

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[Lord Judge]

My Lords, let us just look at what we are saying in paragraph 29(2): “Let’s pass this Bill, which is a very good idea, and let’s pass it in such a way that regulations may change the whole thing.” Is that really what we want to do?

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, I feel very strongly that although we may have disagreed on the subject of the United States, that should not stop us recognising the wider argument to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, has referred. Far too much legislation going through both Houses ends up leaving everything to be decided in secondary legislation where it is almost impossible to make changes, and this is another example.

I want to underline what my noble friend Lord Inglewood has said, which is that extradition is far too important a matter to leave basic, material decisions merely to secondary legislation. This is part of the freedom that people in this country rightly feel they have and I do not believe that we should allow the Government to have the powers that this seems to allow. I hope that my noble friend will recognise that this is a matter of real principle, a principle that the party to which we both belong is supposed to believe in above all things—constitutional propriety. This is not constitutional propriety, but sleight of hand.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I do not have many remarks to make on this and I could not think of a quixotic quote. However, I really like Shakespeare because he is connected with the borough I grew up in, so I will remind you of this quote

“haste is needful in this desperate case.”

Some of the points which have been made are very important and should be taken on board. What are we doing here? We support the legislation in principle, but we have asked for reasons why we are doing this and we have gone through some of the wording before.

I look forward in particular to the Minister’s response to Amendment 12 because when you look at the wording it seeks to take out, it is quite worrying that it is in there at all. It may well be that there is a perfectly understandable explanation and I will be able to get up in a moment and say, “I fully support what the Minister intends to do”, but as it reads now, I am worried about what we are passing here. Perhaps she will say that it is fine because it talks about further consequential provisions in the sub-paragraph above and the Government will do nothing. However, there is an issue about the powers we are giving to the Executive and our ability to scrutinise or change them at a later date. That point has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, so I want this to be looked at.

Amendment 13 seeks to remove regulations about “saving” or “incidental” provision. What is that about? We could make all sorts of changes by saying that something is a saving. We could get rid of whole swathes of stuff, so what are we agreeing to? We do not want to find ourselves saying months or years ahead that we did not realise when we agreed to this that we were giving those powers to the Executive. I will leave it there and look forward to the Minister’s response, but I may intervene at some point for further clarification.

Deaths in Police Custody

Lord Deben Excerpts

Monday 30th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I am glad that the noble Baroness forgets parts of questions because I forget parts of answers. In terms of whether black and minority ethnic people are more likely to die in police custody, the report commissioned by Dame Elish found that deaths in custody are representative of the detainee population and that the proportion of black people who die in police custody is lower than the proportion arrested for notifiable offences. In addition, in 2011 the IPCC published the results of a 10-year study that it had carried out into deaths in custody from 1998-98 to 2008-09. It found that 22 deaths—that is, 7% of deaths—were of black individuals. The report noted that the ethnicity of the deceased in police custody was broadly in line with the ethnic demographic of detainees. On the question of cameras in police vans, I shall have to come back to the noble Baroness.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

Does my noble friend accept that it is damaging to the police if the public or those who have lost a relative feel that they have been unfairly treated? This is a question not just of those people but of the reputation of the police. Will she therefore reconsider all the caveats that she has put around support for the families? As the noble Lord opposite said, this support should not come out of the legal aid budget but should be on all fours with the support provided to all the other people who are represented. Unless that happens, frankly the public will not believe that they are getting fair dos. I am afraid that it will be expensive but I do not see how we will otherwise be able to protect the police force from the attitudes that are becoming increasingly prevalent.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I most definitely agree with my noble friend that it is damaging to the police if people feel that they have been short-changed or indeed prejudiced against in the investigation of the death of one of their loved ones. I did not express caveats; I said that there would be—

[Lord Deben]

There were “ifs” and “buts”.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

There might be “ifs” and “buts” but we are a cautious lot in the Home Office. It is not a no or a caveat; we will be considering it in the round as we proceed.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords—

[Lord Deben]

Another “if”.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I say to my noble friend that there is not another “if”. It is important that the police protect the public with honesty and integrity and that they uphold the values set out in the policing Code of Ethics. Police integrity and accountability are central to public confidence in policing. A system that holds police officers to account helps to guarantee that, so the Government must ensure that the public have confidence in the police to serve our communities and keep us safe. I think that on that we all agree.

Criminal Finances Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 28th March 2017 Lords Chamber

My question is simple and goes back to the one which I asked originally: given that this money is coming into the country in huge amounts, why has no bank in the UK been prosecuted for laundering corrupt money here? The Minister implied at Second Reading that they had. It turns out that they have not—or are there other papers that we have not seen? Those are questions that need to be answered. The noble Lord spoke of the number of properties that the Land Registry had registered. Others have looked at the square footage. Millions of square feet of London homes are owned by these secret companies—owned by money from abroad. That must have come through the banks. The estate agent doing the selling has a duty to look only at one party in terms of the money; it does not have a duty to look at the others. The solicitors and the banks are all involved. How come no bank appears to have ever been prosecuted and why has the Minister obviously been given duff advice in answering questions?

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment because I have been for many years concerned about housing. This issue is a matter not just of corrupt investment but of investment in housing for purposes which are other than housing. This is a very serious social issue in London and other cities. If the Government do not take it seriously, they will reap the whirlwind.

The number of such houses and flats—real estate—in London in particular, causes considerable resentment among those unable to buy their own home. It is no good any party any longer ignoring it. All parties have to admit that they have not solved this problem. This is not a party-political comment, but it is an increasingly serious matter because it is creating divisions in our society which are greater than they have ever been. I ask Members of your Lordships’ House to remember when it was possible for them as young people to buy a house or a flat in London, now to think about their children or grandchildren unable to do so and to recognise the divisive effect of that. It is against that background that this amendment should be considered.

The second issue is simply that most of us are fed up with the intrusive questions asked by people with whom we have banked for most of our lives, including being asked to send one’s utility bills to a bank with which one has had an account that has been in reasonable order for 60 years because it has to meet the perfectly understandable anti-money laundering arrangements. The second resentment is that normal, ordinary British people have to go through this amazing series of hoops to bank money or get money out if they wish to do anything which is slightly out of the ordinary, yet they know perfectly well that the banks must have been involved in the transmission of money in situations which are, at the very best, dodgy.

I, too, sought some figures about who has been prosecuted for this. It actually beggars any kind of belief that no bank of any kind has ever helped anybody to buy, with improperly gained foreign money, property in London. I am sorry but that does not stand up. So the second disillusion that comes is that decent people in this country go through this kind of unbelievable series of hoops knowing both that they must accept them because of the security that we properly wish to impose and that others avoid this to the tune of millions and millions of pounds.

The third reason this amendment is so important is that there is a real concern in this country, with the atmosphere of Brexit, about attitudes to foreigners. I am an absolute and continuous remainer and will not be pushed off that by anybody’s arguments, so I am biased. However, I do not like the society we are building in circumstances of antagonism to foreigners of all kinds. That makes it even more important that where dishonourable activities take place and money earned dishonourably elsewhere is invested in this country that is dealt with clearly and transparently, so that the kind of accusations that are and have been made against people who invested here honourably are totally distinct from that which has been unacceptable.

My fourth reason—and last, as the House will be pleased to note—is that we recently, honourably, passed the Modern Slavery Act. We are beginning to be serious about the way in which people are exploited and the benefits of that exploitation coming to people in this country. People are serious about this, the Government have been serious about it and it has all-party support. If we are serious about the Modern Slavery Act, we must also be serious about the proceeds of crime and often of exploitation being brought into this country and used in the real-estate world. That is why I beg my noble friend to take this amendment very seriously. It addresses some deep disillusion in our society and also some deep injustice in the society of the world. This is not just a passing amendment to tease out the Government’s position here and there but a fundamental amendment that challenges the whole of our society to behave in a way that we can be proud of, rather than one that facilitates activities we should condemn.

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood]

My Lords, I start with a very pedantic point. If this amendment is to go ahead, it needs to begin with an “or”. As the noble and very clever though not technically learned Lord points out, this is a further alternative to the two already listed in new Section 362B(4). The next point is that of course the property here envisaged, registered in the name of an overseas company in which the respondent has an interest, is not—I repeat, not—the same property as referred to in subsection (1), in respect of which one seeks to have an unexplained wealth order made. It is a different property altogether.

I have great sympathy with the amendment and the policy underlying it. Like the noble Lord, Lord Deben, I deplore the extent to which London properties are in foreign ownership nowadays. But I respectfully wonder how far the amendment would go—if any distance—in actually dealing with that problem and with money laundering. Surely with regard to most of the people who buy and own these London properties—if they are not already PEPs, or politically exposed persons, and we know that a lot of them probably are—nobody questions how much money they have. But would it not then be rather difficult to satisfy the earlier requirement —which, again, has to be satisfied to make one of these orders—in new subsection (3)? Each of the various requirements set out in proposed new subsections (2), (3) and (4) has to be satisfied. First you have to show that they hold property of the relevant value; then, in new subsection (3) you have to be satisfied that,

“there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the known sources of the respondent’s lawfully obtained income would have been insufficient for the purposes of enabling the respondent to obtain the property”.

The property there being referred to is not property in London registered in the name of an overseas company, it is the property in respect of which you are seeking a UWO.

Those points need to be borne in mind before one goes down this particular road. It is not going to be the panacea that some who have contributed to the debate thus far seem to think it is likely to be.

Policing and Crime Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 12th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, as a non-lawyer, I hesitate to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, but it seemed to me that he undermined his case right at the beginning when he said that there were allegations that were ridiculous and had no basis at all, yet the police announced these allegations to the world. I happen to know about this because, as I was seen at the funeral of my late friend and colleague, Leon Brittan, I was for some time followed by certain people claiming that they had evidence of his wickedness. They were silly enough to state that evidence, which was total nonsense. It was without any foundation. It could not have been true.

However, I do not want to talk about my friend. I want to talk about somebody whom I do not know at all, although I have met him: Lord Bramall. The allegation against Lord Bramall could have been proved to have been entirely wrong merely by looking at the date on which it was claimed, because at that point he was in a public place, at which it could not have been as alleged. The issue is not that we wish to restrict the opportunities of giving to others the chance to come forward. It is simply, narrowly, to say that somebody other than the police has to be involved before such an announcement is made in public.

There are too many examples of the police giving information to others in all sorts of circumstances. A relation of mine was in precisely such circumstances. What the police told the press was entirely proper and complimentary, but she did not want that to be given out. But the police did—they were clearly paid for it—and it resulted in a long and extremely congratulatory article. The issue was that the police decided that they would make that decision, when there was no reason for it. That was a happy example, but there are some terrible examples. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that we cannot live in a society in which there is no guard against those who give out such information before a charge has been laid.

All we are saying—the two amendments have different ways of doing this and it may be that neither is satisfactory—is that it should not be up to an individual policeman or an individual police force to make this kind of allegation before there is any charge. It should go to someone else. If I may say so to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, this someone else may not be able to judge whether allowing this will bring forward more witnesses, but what he or she is able to judge is whether it is a load of old rubbish. At least he or she can assess whether what is proposed as the basis for investigation has some foundation. That is why it is perfectly proper to say that a judge or a magistrate might take this role.

I therefore beg my friend—I can call him that because the noble Lord and I are usually on the same side—to recognise that it is too dangerous an insult to the British legal system for people to be seen as guilty when they are innocent on the say-so of an individual policeman. All I am asking is that it should be on the say-so, in the quietness and care of a proper circumstance, of someone whose future does not depend on the publicity, who can look at the evidence and say, “Really, officer, I don’t think there looks like being anything in that because of x, y and z. Perhaps you might find out more about it before you move in this way”. That is what we ask.

[Lord Pannick]

Before the noble Lord sits down, does he think it is in the interests of the potential defendant for a judge to determine that there really is something in the allegations, and therefore to authorise that publicity is appropriate? Is that not seriously damaging to the presumption of innocence?

[Lord Deben]

Not at all. The fact is that what the judge would be deciding is whether that name should be put forward at that point, and in most cases he would probably say no. I can think of very few cases when publishing the name in connection with an allegation would reduce the number of people coming forward if that name were later published at the point of an actual charge. It would therefore affect a limited number; in fact I do not believe there are any in this group. But if there were, I would want someone to be able to say, “In this particular case, it is so important that I will allow it to be done”.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill (LD)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, I was not intending to take part in this debate. However, with his great skill as an advocate, he has persuaded me to support my noble friend Lord Paddick’s amendment. I want to try to explain why. The main reason is that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, with his usual brilliant, destructive analytical skill, has explained objections to the amendments but has not answered the fundamental question from the noble Lord, Lord Lamont: what safeguards does he propose to put in place of either or both these amendments? I am sure we will hear that from the Minister in her reply.

As a lifelong friend of Leon Brittan and his wife, during that one year while he was dying I witnessed the destruction of both of them through the callous misconduct of the police service, to which there was and is no effective remedy. The United States, which takes due process very seriously under its written constitution, has not abolished the grand jury. When the grand jury is investigating a federal crime, the one thing that is absolutely clear is that there must be no publicity for any of the evidence that it is investigating before deciding whether to recommend that the prosecution should be brought. The reason for that is the same reason that noble Lords have expressed today about the unsatisfactory nature of our legal system at present—it is the need to protect the innocent before the presumption of innocence has been applied at a trial.

Whether either of these amendments is acceptable or not, I believe that some kind of safeguard is needed—not just through guidance or a code of practice, but a binding legal rule that will protect people in the position of Lord and Lady Brittan from the kind of scurrilous allegations that were made, and the misconduct of the police in failing even to tell them before he died that they were satisfied there was no evidence against him. They allowed him to die not knowing that. There needs to be a prophylactic rule. If the Minister is against these amendments, I ask her to indicate in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, what the Government propose instead.

Policing and Crime Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 30th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lords who tabled this amendment. I listened to the explanation of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, the chronology of which I understand, but which may be difficult for others to understand. I totally accept the passion with which he spoke on that issue. I support the amendment but make it clear that I am one of the few Members of the House who gave evidence to Leveson in person and on oath. I support the amendment precisely because it fulfils the previous government commitment. As I was the commissioner at the time the first phone hacking case appeared to arise, which concerned the royal household and to which the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, referred, it would not be appropriate for me to say in this House that I do not accept any further scrutiny of the Metropolitan Police or other police forces over this matter. Therefore, I very much support the idea that Leveson 2, in whatever form, or whether it is through this amendment, should be introduced.

However, given that I gave evidence to the inquiry, I need to make it clear that I shall be very surprised—at this point, I move towards the position adopted by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham—if a new inquiry uncovers anything involving major corruption in recent years. To that end, I ask the House’s indulgence to allow me to read one paragraph—paragraph 49—of my statement to Leveson, which I made in 2012, which set out my position on the question. It refers to the Met and only to events post-2000. Therefore, it does not refer to Morgan or Hillsborough as that was the question I was being asked: what had I done since I had been the deputy commissioner and the commissioner? It was submitted in spring 2012 and says:

“Whilst I therefore accept that current enquiries may reveal that a small number of relatively junior officers took bribes from the press, I do not believe that corruption in monetary terms lies at the heart of any major problem in the relationship between the”,

Metropolitan Police Service and the press. We can now say that a number of junior police officers were convicted, and rightly so. I continued:

“I believe that where that problem may have become significant is that a very small number of relatively senior officers … became too close to journalists, not I believe for financial gain but for the enhancement of their reputation and for the sheer enjoyment of being in a position to share and divulge confidences. It is a siren song. I also believe that they based this behaviour on how they saw politicians”,

behaving with the press,

“and that they lost sight of their professional obligations. The MPS did not have adequate defences against this behaviour and in previous decades would probably not have needed it”.

In short, what will be revealed by such an inquiry, which I still say is necessary, is behaviour that was wrong, reprehensible and unprofessional, but largely not criminal.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, many of us wish that we were not having this debate at all. I will ask three questions of the noble Baroness who will reply. The first is: will she not agree that there is a promise, and that it is a serious thing not to carry that promise through? That is particularly true given the circumstances in which we live, where large numbers of people have ceased to believe in the integrity, the impartiality and, if I may use a non-word, the upstandingness of those in authority. Therefore when a promise has been made, to renege on it is always harmful but particularly harmful at this time, when not only in this country but elsewhere there is clearly a fundamental feeling among large numbers of people that they have not been dealt with properly by those who are in power, have authority and are able to change the lives of others. Therefore, first, there is the promise.

Secondly, there is the need. Will my noble friend explain why it is not necessary to clear the reputation of the police, and particularly the Metropolitan Police, given that so much has been said about them and so much is thought about them? As somebody who lives much of the time in London, I have to say that the Metropolitan Police’s reputation is not good, has not been good for some time, and needs to be improved. Therefore one has to ask why this would not be a valuable way to ensure that that happened. The noble Lord, Lord Blair, said precisely that—there is a need for that.

There is also a need for the press to face up to the fact that it, too, has perhaps the worst reputation in this country that it has had, certainly in my lifetime, which is getting embarrassingly long. This is a very unhappy time, when we think of the purveying of hate that has been on the front pages of so many newspapers, and the attacks on our institutions and their independence, which we have seen latterly. We therefore have to say to ourselves that this is an opportunity for the press, too, to clear that part of its name which is clearable. For my noble friend Lord Hailsham to stand up today and say that he expects the press kindly to arrange in future that it will sign up to not doing bad things suggests that he has not followed the news over the past months. This is not the mood of a press that is largely owned outside this country, by people who have little commitment to this country, and now has standards wholly different from those which perhaps we might have expected.

My third question to my noble friend Lady Williams is as follows. If the noble Baroness’s amendment is not agreed—or, more importantly, if it is not accepted—and if there is no alternative that we see as satisfactorily meeting the very powerful statement that she made, does my noble friend not agree that the public will think that we have not taken these steps due to the power of the press and our closeness to the constabulary, which leads me back to my first point? That is extremely dangerous at any time and particularly dangerous at the moment. The amendment attacks neither the press nor the police; it suggests that perhaps this is the moment to clear both of unfair allegations and to reveal real allegations, which seems to me a not unreasonable position to take. I hope that my noble friend will enable me to support her in the Lobbies by giving me an alternative to this amendment that meets those obligations.

Policing and Crime Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

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

[Lord Condon]

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

[Lord Deben (Con)]

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

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

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

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. It is of course very difficult not to stray into other amendments when talking about something in the round. I thank my noble friend Lady Redfern for laying out her experience of using volunteer police officers in Lincolnshire. It must be one of the first areas in the country to do that, so it was very useful to have that information in the round. In thinking about my noble friend Lord Deben’s point about the importance of the public knowing the difference between a volunteer and a special police constable, or indeed a fully trained officer, I asked myself whether I wondered, when my children were at school, what the difference was between the teaching assistant and the fully trained teacher. In fact, as long as they both contributed to my child’s education, I was not that much bothered—but it may be an issue for some people and I recognise the point that my noble friend makes.

Amendment 167 returns to an issue that was debated at length in the House of Commons: namely, whether it is ever right for designated members of police staff, or the new category of designated volunteers, to carry these particular sprays for defensive purposes. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has also given notice that he intends to oppose the question that Clause 38 should stand part of the Bill.

I hope that I can assist the Committee by first explaining what Clause 38 seeks to achieve. It makes necessary consequential amendments to the Firearms Act 1968 to ensure that police volunteers come within the definition of “civilian officers” for the purposes of that Act. The effect of this is that they do not then need a firearms certificate or authorisation under either Section 1 or Section 5 of the 1968 Act in order to carry a defensive spray. The clause simply puts community support volunteers and policing support volunteers in the same position in relation to defensive sprays that police officers and police civilian staff are currently in.

Clause 37(6) makes it clear that police staff and volunteers cannot use other weapons within the meaning of the Firearms Act 1968 unless the Secretary of State makes regulations under new Section 38(9B)(b) of the Police Reform Act 2002. Any such regulations would be subject to the affirmative procedure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Yes, I totally take the noble Lord’s point, and I am hoping the clarification will arrive from my left in the next five minutes.

As we have made clear in our delegated powers memorandum, this is intended as a future-proofing provision to cover any self-defence equipment not yet invented—and I am not talking about guns. We are also taking the opportunity to make it explicit in the 1968 Act that special constables are members of a police force for the purposes of that Act, and therefore similarly do not require a certificate or authorisation under the 1968 Act when equipped with a defensive spray. This will avoid any doubt being created by the insertion of a specific reference to policing support and community support volunteers within the meaning of “Crown servant” in the Firearms Act.

I turn next to the various points that have been raised in relation to equipping staff.

[Lord Deben]

I did not quite understand the bit about things that have not yet been invented. The reason I did not understand is that I am not sure that I would be very happy about giving powers to give permission for the use of something that has not been invented, because I do not know whether what has not been invented would be something that I would like to give people the powers to use, if you see what I mean. This is a very dangerous route down which to go.

[Earl Attlee]

My noble friend does not need to worry about that at all, because it will be under the affirmative procedure, so Ministers will have to justify it. I have to say that future-proofing this seems to me to be a sensible thing to do, although on the other hand I slightly have sympathy for the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey.

Immigration Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Lords Chamber

In addition to the HMRC statistics published in 2014, figures produced by StopWatch show the scale of the problem in this country. From its analysis of British Crime Survey data produced in 2008 and 2011, StopWatch found that black and ethnic-minority drivers consistently reported higher levels of car stops: 33% of people with mixed black and white ethnicities reported being stopped; for both the black Caribbean and Asian Muslim communities the figure is 18%; for white drivers, the figure is just 11%. We already have lax stop powers on the statute book which allow individuals to be stopped without reason. Yet rather than working to address the discriminatory reality of this provision, the Government seek to tie this power to the immigration system, creating the obvious potential to ramp up discriminatory impacts and inflame existing grievances. I oppose Clauses 41 and 42: they should not be part of this Bill.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, it seems to me that a very serious proposition is being made by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and I think that we ought to be very careful about it. The proposition being made is that, however valuable this clause is, it should not be passed because we cannot trust the police to carry it through properly. That is a very serious criticism. I have not been alone in my criticism of the police; I think that, particularly in London, there are very serious criticisms to be made. However, if we are to legislate on the basis that we cannot trust the police to behave properly towards the citizens of the United Kingdom, we had better look much more seriously at what we are doing with the police. We really should take it more much more seriously than is proposed here.

I think that many things happen in the police which are unacceptable. It is still true that relationships between the police and the press are far too close, and many of us have significant criticisms. But if the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, suggests that the police cannot carry through a necessary activity to ensure that illegal immigrants are properly dealt with and that the activity should be carried through not by the police but by immigration officials—who, evidently, can be trusted to behave in a proper way—then this is an argument not for this Bill but for a wholesale Bill about the nature of the police.

I do not believe that the British people would be very happy if this House decided that it would legislate in a way which was less likely to meet the needs as this Bill presents them simply because we have now accepted the inherent racism of the police force. That seems a fundamentally dangerous step to take. I would be very unhappy if the Minister were willing to be led down that route. Yes, of course, we have to have the toughest guidance; yes, of course, we have to make sure that whenever racist or discriminatory activities are found to be in the police they must be dealt with considerable severity; but we have to solve this problem—if it is a problem, and I am prepared to accept the views of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, from his own experience—by reform and training in the police, not by saying that we will have less efficient laws because they cannot be properly and safely implemented. Are we going to say, therefore, that there should be no stopping of cars being driven in a dangerous condition because the police feel that they would be more likely to stop some kinds of people rather than others? We really cannot run a state on that basis. If this is a real problem—and I am certainly not saying that it is not—it is a problem which has to be dealt with by the Home Office and the police force, and not one which should lead us to make laws which are different from those that we would have made because we are afraid of the way in which they would be implemented.

Therefore, I hope that my noble friend the Minister will take this very seriously, not for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has presented but for the reason that a democratic society has to have the laws which it needs irrespective of the differing feelings of people of differing ethnic or any other backgrounds. We are touching something fundamentally dangerous. It is precisely that kind of feeling that causes the resentment which one finds widely in Britain—a belief that we do not legislate in a colour-blind manner but in a manner which takes the view of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and therefore stops us legislating as effectively as we should. I hope that my noble friend will be very careful in the way in which he responds to this debate.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, in briefly following what the noble Lord, Lord Deben, has just said, I say that there is a case for examining the way in which policing is conducted, and I agree with him that it is unfortunate that we have to have a debate in the context of the Bill. I support what the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, as I did in Committee. That is based not so much on a belief that all our police officers behave badly, but more on the experience I had more than 30 years ago, in 1981, when the Toxteth riots erupted. They did so in part because of bad policing, and indeed they were linked directly to the stopping of a young black man on his motorcycle in Lodge Lane in Toxteth. The riots led to a thousand policemen being hospitalised in Liverpool as a consequence. Everyone who looked at the events in Brixton and in Liverpool afterwards, notably Lord Scarman, found that the overuse of stop-and-search powers had been part and parcel of the problem.

I guess that the question for the House today is: will this take us back to that kind of regime? That is what the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, is asking us to address. I must admit that I looked carefully at the letter kindly sent by the Minister as part of the compendium of letters he has written during the passage of this Bill. They run to page 146, which probably tells noble Lords quite a lot about the volume of correspondence we have had, and that is to the Minister’s credit. I just want to mention two phrases set out in the letter because they help to bring some clarity to what is intended in the Bill and perhaps might reassure both the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence of Clarendon. The first is that,

“it is important to bear in mind that the police will use the powers contained in these clauses reactively, after they have stopped a vehicle for an objective reason”.

Later in the same letter, talking not now about vehicles but about the entry into people’s homes, the letter states:

“The officer could then only enter premises where there are reasonable grounds for believing the driving licence could be found there”.

All this revolves around the words “objective” and “reasonable”. When the Minister replies to the debate, I hope that he will explain in a little more detail what kinds of circumstances he envisages as objective and those he regards as reasonable. That might give us greater confidence that the powers suggested here will be used properly.

I conclude by saying that it would be dangerous to presume that the police of our country are incapable of implementing the laws that Parliament passes in an objective way, and the noble Lord, Lord Deben, was right to remind us of that. But we must remember our story. In 1981 Sir Kenneth Oxford was the chief constable for Merseyside. Many people believed, as I did myself at the time, that the policing had been overly aggressive. It is notable that the young assistant chief constable who subsequently came to Merseyside, Bernard Hogan-Howe as he then was, would later rise to become chief constable of the area. He introduced very sensitive community policing, and I suspect that the extremely effective policing he developed during that period is one of the reasons he was appointed the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. Good community relations were built up during that time. I would therefore be very nervous of anything that destabilised that delicate balance, which is why I seek further clarity about the reasonable and objective use of these powers.

Immigration Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my declaration of interest and the fact that for many years I have helped businesses trying to combat modern slavery. I am a little less critical than the noble Lord, Lord Alton, of the changes being made, because I think that they are necessary, but I agree that it would have been better, had we had the time, to make them in a different way. But we have this opportunity and not to have made them would, I think, have been a grave mistake. I support the noble Lord’s suggestion that the Government give an undertaking that we will come back to this in a year’s time to make sure that these necessary changes have done what we hope they will do.

I want to draw the attention of the House to something that is very often forgotten. It is that when companies look at their supply chain and seek to see where there is modern slavery, they usually start in some distant country. They think about somewhere where the rule of law is not as we would expect it to be. The shock, to many, is how much is found in so-called civilised and advanced countries—not just in Britain and the European Union but in the United States. It is very valuable that we have moved from the narrow attitude that you get this only in agriculture or with gangmasters, or that you get it only a long way away, to an understanding that we actually get it in almost every place, in almost every country and in the most remarkable situations.

I will quote an experience of mine. While I was working very hard on what we should do in countries in the Indian subcontinent, the very first and worst case happened in Manchester. We have to recognise that the issues with which we are dealing here are almost universal and a terrible indictment of man’s inhumanity to man.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I want to ask about the information gateway provisions, and in particular Amendments 8 to 11. These are very substantial and intrusive new powers introduced at a very late stage of the Bill. Will the Minister elaborate a little on the justification for introducing them and why they were not thought of at an earlier stage of the Bill, even before Committee? They seem very wide, talking about the disclosure of information,

“for the purposes of the exercise of any function of the Director”.

Like my noble friend Lady Hamwee, I would be interested to know whether the Information Commissioner has given advice. If so, will the Minister share that advice and assessment with us? There is a need for safeguards to match the breadth and depth of the powers. It strikes me that, while mention is made of the Data Protection Act and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act—which is not quite RIP—there is, of course, a new EU regulation on data protection that will be directly applicable and therefore will not have to be transposed into an Act of Parliament. Have these powers been health-checked against the new regulation, which may be somewhat tighter than the Data Protection Act in certain areas?

I want to ask specifically about medical confidentiality. In Amendment 9, which introduces a new clause after Clause 5, subsection (1) says:

“A disclosure of information … authorised by section (Information gateways) does not breach … an obligation of confidence owed by the person making the disclosure”.

Since health bodies—NHS trusts, the Care Quality Commission and so on—are on the list for information sharing, this obviously raises the question of whether medical information is going to be covered, which is likely.

There do not seem to be any similar provisions to those in new subsections (5), (6), (7) and (8) of the new clause in relation to intelligence information and information pertaining to HMRC, where there is an obligation not to disclose information,

“without authorisation from the appropriate service chief”,

or “from HMRC Commissioners”. There does not seem to be anything comparable for medical data. Clearly, these are sensitive personal data for which a higher level of stewardship is already required under the Data Protection Act, and even more so under the new EU regulation. I would like an assurance that these provisions have gone through the filter of the ICO and the new EU regulation.

--- Later in debate ---

I think that I have responded to the majority of the points that were raised—

[Lord Deben]

I thank my noble friend for giving way. I still have a problem, and that is that we are making these major changes, but the Bill is still called just the “Immigration Bill”. Given that the Bill now covers things that are at a much further remove from immigrants, the Government really ought to think seriously about its Title. It really is something very different from that.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

My Lords, may I just remind the House that the Companion is very clear that, on Report,

“Only the mover of an amendment … speaks after the minister … except for short questions of elucidation”?

[Lord Deben]

If I may say so, I was asking for direct elucidation. I wonder whether the Minister would answer my question.

--- Later in debate ---

Is there not also a possible perverse result? If people are illegally in the country—I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, about asylum seekers not being illegally in the country; I assume that we are focusing on those who are—is not the priority to seek their removal? The proceeds of crime proceedings that could be taken against them could be very lengthy, and you would be finding a reason to prolong their stay in the country at the expense of someone—certainly the criminal proceedings would be at the expense of the taxpayer. It would be very hard to remove these people and therefore say that they could not be present at their own criminal trial, so you would give a perverse extension of the stay of people in the country who should not be in it. This does not seem to be terribly wise policy-making, as regards both the resources of the CPS and the perverse incentives to prolong people’s stay in the country.

[Lord Deben]

I wish simply to thank the Minister for these changes, particularly in view of the two codas from our legal friends on the dangers of the amendments and the explanation that my noble friend put forward about their real meaning. I hope the Minister will take back to the Government the great advantage to be gained from being seen to listen to sensible arguments in the House of Lords and changing the legislation as a result. There are many other occasions when we would get through our business much more quickly if sensible debate was ended by a sensible change of mind by government.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I will contribute a slightly wider point to the discussion. It is surely clear to all of us that a substantial number of people would like to come to this country and work illegally. As the Home Office will confirm, nearly half of those who apply for asylum have previously been working illegally and apply only when discovered. We have literally thousands of people queueing up in Calais wanting to get into Britain and work illegally. They know perfectly well that they will be illegal when they get here but they come because they want to work and send money home. Understandable though that may be, it is surely essential that there should be a disincentive to those people from making that attempt. The obvious thing is to make it illegal. There is no way that they will understand the intricacies of British law—indeed, the deputy mayor of Calais does not understand them—so it must be made illegal. If the Government can usefully adjust the law in terms of prosecutions, so be it, but let us keep our eye on the ball. There are literally thousands, if not many thousands, who would like to come and do this and they should be deterred.

Riot Compensation Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Friday 26th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I shall detain the House only for a short period, I feel that that this is another of those occasions where my intention is never to allow the lawyers to have it all their own way. As a non-lawyer, I should point out that Lord Mansfield was of course extremely prejudiced on this matter because he himself had been the subject of a riot. His house was entirely destroyed and his books thrown out in the Gordon riots. He was saved in his major house, Kenwood, only by ensuring that the rioters were liberally supplied with drink as they appeared on the edge of Hampstead Heath. Most of them having drunk enough, they decided it was better to go home than to burn Kenwood House. We owe our present ability to visit Kenwood entirely to the provision of drink by Lord Mansfield.

The only reason I know this is that the house I live in was occupied at the time by the magistrate who called the Riot Act as far as the Gordon riots were concerned. As a Catholic, I understand that those sort of riots were very uncomfortable. His house was marked by the rioters; they would go through in the daytime and mark the house with a cross, and because others were on their side you would not dare rub this cross out. However, he stood in front of the doorway and rubbed it out with his hand behind his back and therefore saved his house, although he was unable to save Lord Mansfield’s.

When we discuss this later we should not do so with too much dependence upon Lord Mansfield, who had every reason to want compensation.