Cycling

Lord Freeman Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freeman (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham for securing this debate. His example, originally as the bicycling baronet and now as the cycling Peer, is much to be admired. I am sure he must have influenced the leader of the Opposition in the other place, and perhaps the current Health Secretary, whom one frequently sees on the television astride a bicycle.

I want, first, to talk about safety. Eight cyclists were killed in vehicle collisions in London last year. That is eight tragedies for the families and friends of those cyclists and eight casualties too many. We have had nationally, on average, more than 100 deaths per annum in the last decade, and that is far too many. I am concerned as a parent of a child who travels five miles by bicycle to work each day on crowded roads. I know that my wife and I literally pray for a safe completion of each journey. I think all cycle deaths are tragedies for families.

I want to mention three issues very briefly. The first concerns the equipment that cyclists should ensure that they have: a helmet, proper lights and luggage storage. This is not observed by many cyclists. It is not part of the law and anyone who has travelled by car in traffic in London, and who can see cyclists without those elementary precautions to protect themselves, must be concerned. In particular, the experiment launched by the current Mayor of London, the so-called Boris bikes, has presented a problem. There is no warning to visitors, many visitors who use those bikes are not wearing helmets and at night the bicycles do not always have proper lighting. There should be a warning before those cycles are rented and it should be a condition of operation of sites that helmets are provided.

The second issue concerns drivers. It should be a condition of the award of a driving licence that the potential driver is aware of good practice in relation to cyclists on the roads. As for heavy goods vehicles, the design regulations for cabs, in particular, which were agreed by the European Parliament in 2015, are not due to come into operation until 2022, I understand—perhaps the Minister could confirm this. That is too long. We need urgent action to prescribe nearside mirrors or electronic warning.

The third issue concerns street design on new roads. I agree very much with my noble friend Lord Young: I understand that the Dutch experience allows traffic lights to provide a unique opportunity for cyclists and pedestrians to cross the road together. That is a very sensible initiative, which I very much hope the department will consider.

Finally, the Conservative manifesto of 2015 talked about doubling cycling in this country and pledged £200 million for safer journeys. I hope the Minister will comment on progress on these two promises.

Protection of Freedoms Bill

Lord Freeman Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freeman]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak after the right reverend Prelate and I am very pleased that, given the decision of the House earlier on, I am still able to pay tribute to him with his proper title. I agree very much with what he has just said.

I support this Bill. It has been some time in gestation and, although some parts of it might need further consideration in your Lordships’ Committee, I think that this Bill needs to be hastened to the statute book. It is well balanced. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bew, in his comments on its construction and content.

First, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, who chaired the Joint Committee of the Commons and the Lords, on which I served, which looked at the provisions dealing with detention before trial. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Goodhart, who will be speaking later, will wish to comment.

I shall concentrate on Clause 58, which deals with pre-trial detention. As noble Lords will well know, this issue has been batted back and forth over many years in terms of the length of detention before trial. For many of us, it has been an annoying bone to gnaw on for many years, so I am delighted that we have now settled on a sensible period of 14 days as the norm. I support the Home Secretary, who has been at the forefront of trying to deliver a message, not just to the police forces and our security services but to the public at large, that this should be the norm. Gone are the days when we were talking about several multiples of that period as an aspiration.

As your Lordships will know, the 28-day period effectively lapsed in January this year, and we are now back to a standard 14-days maximum detention before trial. The Joint Select Committee of your Lordships' House and the other place took evidence from not only the police but former Home Secretaries, who warned of the serious risk that there might be individual cases, and perhaps collective numbers of people, who might need to be detained beyond 14 days before trial, but that was very much the exception.

A lot has changed in the past few years. We have extra resources for the police forces and our security services, new technologies that identify where people are coming from and electronic devices to understand where the threat might come from, whether individuals or groups, but the threat remains. As we come up to the Olympics, our security services are acutely aware of the prospect of—heavens above—multiple terrorist threats. Your Lordships will wish that those never happen, but the security services and the police are taking them very seriously. Therefore, we need a provision to go to 28 days in exceptional circumstances.

The Joint Committee of your Lordships' House and the House of Commons came up with a recommendation that has not been fully accepted by the Government, except that there is a provision that, when Parliament is sitting, the Government in the form of the Home Secretary—and, in your Lordships' House, the Minister responsible for the Home Office—would bring forward an order to extend the period and would explain why that was necessary. However, there is a danger, which we need to reflect on. It is very important not to prejudice the case of an individual or group of individuals, so I think that we must accept this provision but we must make sure that we preserve proper legal proceedings and the justice of the case as well as protect our security.

I am pleased that the Government have accepted that, when Parliament is not sitting, the Home Secretary should be responsible for acting to extend the period to 28 days, subject to a number of provisions, particularly as far as the Director of Public Prosecutions is concerned. If Parliament cannot be recalled because it has been dissolved before an election, there must be a provision, in exceptional circumstances, to go to 28 days. This compromise is workable. It was not the recommendation of the Joint Committee, but I support it.

I very much support the Bill and look forward to its further and rapid progress.

Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill

Lord Freeman Excerpts

Wednesday 5th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freeman]

My Lords, from the Government Back Benches perhaps I may pay tribute to the work of my noble friend Lady Browning in your Lordships’ House in taking through the police Bill. Not everyone may have agreed with the arguments, but we shall miss her patience, skill and courtesy. I hope that noble Lords will join with me in extending our best wishes to her and hope that her health allows her to return as quickly as possible.

I shall be brief because there is no point in repeating arguments that have already been made much more eloquently. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford, who is not in his place at the moment but has attended all the proceedings so far, was exactly right in arguing for the Bill and for what he described as light being “preferable to heavy”. It is time to amend the control order legislation and I agree with 90 per cent, or perhaps even 95 per cent, of what my noble friend Lord Howard argued and explained. I have some differences as to controlling movement outside, for example, the metropolis.

I should like to advance very briefly two reasons, from a business standpoint and drawing on my commercial background, why it is sensible to agree with a reduction in the nature of control legislation. It is time to move on from the 2005 Bill to a lighter regime. The first reason was referred to by my noble friend Lady Hamwee in her speech. Technology has improved enormously in terms of electronic intercept. It is now possible to track where people are moving, the telephone calls they make and their electronic communications, in a manner that seven years ago would have been absolutely unthinkable. With that tremendous improvement in technology, I feel much more relaxed about amending the original legislation by what is by all accounts quite a modest measure.

The second reason is the additional resources that MI5, MI6 and the police service in the United Kingdom now have. The £600 million available for cybersecurity being spent wisely on research at GCHQ in Cheltenham will enable us not only to track overseas terrorist threats, but more particularly where terrorists are in the United Kingdom and the communications between them. This is a complete revolution and these extra resources give me every confidence in backing the Bill. I look forward to the Committee stage.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Freeman Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freeman]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the moving maiden speech of my noble friend Lady Newlove. She has already won many friends in the House as well as great respect for her courage and, I am sure, for her speech today.

I strongly support my noble friends Lord Howard of Lympne and Lord Patten. I, too, strongly support the Bill and I want to spend a couple of minutes in defence of the political process and party politics. The assumption of many noble Lords today has been that this may turn out to be a corrupt and corrosive process. I think that the opposite will be the case. I have great respect for the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath—he is an effective debater and an astute politician—but I was slightly depressed by his assertion that somehow we will have a corrupt regime in place if and when the Bill becomes an Act, as I am certain it will.

My argument is this. With the protocols, which the Minister has explained will be tabled shortly before Committee, I hope that we can concentrate on the clear distinction between the chief constable, who has operational responsibilities, and the police and crime commissioner—he or she is not a commissar—who is an individual elected both to ensure that there is a clear division of responsibility and to build a sense of confidence and co-operation.

I take a positive view of these changes because, as my noble friend Lord Howard rightly said, there is a democratic deficit. My experience as a constituency MP was that very few constituents knew who the members were—people will certainly know who the police and crime commissioner is—and the activities of the police authority seemed not to be as central as I believe they should have been. Under the Bill there will be an opportunity for the commissioner to raise issues of responsibility, not the operational discharge of functions, reflecting the concerns of their constituency.

I very much agree with the remarks that were made earlier from the Liberal Democrat Benches. Larger constituencies—mergers of counties, if you like—are certainly in the best interests of making sure that we have a high quality of candidates coming forward, not only to stand as commissioners but to be nominated by the district councils to serve on the panel.

I believe that the protocols are going to be extremely important. I agree that, as several noble Lords who have served with great distinction in the police force have said, it is very important that the distinction of the two roles is made clear and I believe that that will happen.

I support the Bill. I hope that we will have a rational discussion and that the noble tradition of being a party politician, like 50 per cent of noble Lords in this House, will be preserved.