National Security Bill

Debate between Lord Hacking and Lord Murray of Blidworth

Committee stage
Wednesday 21st December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

I will just say hear, hear—the Bill is far too long and far too complicated.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I thank noble Lords for their contributions. I speak first to Amendment 60, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. First, I thank him very much for the frank way in which he posed his questions, and I am glad to say that I can answer the first tranche of his questions simply with yes. I will set out in more detail why that is.

The amendment relates to the power for the Secretary of State to designate sites where those arrested under Clause 25 can be detained. There was a lively debate on this topic in the other place, which led to the Government carefully considering this issue and amending the Bill to provide for the sites to be designated only if they are in the UK. As the noble Lord observed, this provision can be found at paragraph 1(1) of Schedule 6, and I can confirm that is indeed the case. That states that the power

“may be exercised only in relation to land or a building in the United Kingdom which is owned or controlled by a police force”—

so that is any police force.

The Government consider that the amendments to Schedule 6 in the other place have sufficiently clarified the need for and the intention behind this power and I understand that this satisfies the noble Lord’s concerns regarding where the sites may be located. Just to confirm, the power therefore extends to the MoD Police, the British Transport Police, ,the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, et cetera, and there are no special arrangements in relation to Northern Ireland.

Clause 25(6) confirms that a 24-hour detention period can be extended by a reviewing officer to a maximum of 48 hours. The first review is as soon as reasonably practicable after arrest and then this must be reviewed at least every 12 hours, obviously up to the maximum.

The noble Lord mentioned arrest abroad. UK constables do not have the power of arrest abroad and the powers therefore do not therefore extend to Armed Forces police abroad. Any relevant people would be arrested by local officers and extradition would be arranged in the conventional way.

I will return to the topic of oversight later but I can confirm that His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services has a statutory role in inspecting all police forces under Section 54 of the Police Act 1996, about which the noble Lord knows. That body regularly inspects all aspects of policing, including places of detention. Given that any sites designated under this power will be under the control of the police, they would automatically be subject to their inspection, and the Government therefore believe that there is no need to include a further statutory inspection regime as this will be duplicative.

I can confirm that it was never the Government’s intention to designate sites located outside the UK. This amendment clarifies the policy position. In Northern Ireland, the Police Service of Northern Ireland is subject to annual statutory inspection by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services under Section 41. Similarly, in Scotland, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland provides independent scrutiny of Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority. We do not consider it reasonable to interpret this to include locations under the temporary control of a police force, such as a crime scene.

Amendments 61 and 63 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, are to Schedule 6. They seek to implement two of the recommendations from the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ report on the Bill. The first amendment seeks to remove the ability for the police to delay a suspect’s access to certain rights while being detained under the arrest power in the Bill for solely asset recovery reasons; I will address this first, if I may.

If the police have intelligence to suggest that a detained suspect has property that is connected to suspected criminal activity—for example, cash—and might use their permitted communication with a named person or their solicitor to ask them to take steps to move cash or property on the suspect’s behalf, to hide evidence or otherwise ensure that the asset cannot be seized by the police, it is clearly right that the police should be able to delay that communication taking place while they seize those assets, gather associated evidence and ensure that crime does not pay. I believe that the safeguards written into the Bill as drafted are sufficient when delaying these rights. The direction to delay must be given by a senior police officer, who must have reasonable grounds to believe that allowing access to these rights at that point in the investigation will hinder recovery of the property.

Additionally, it is written into the legislation that the suspect must be allowed to exercise both these rights within the first 48 hours of detention, so there will not be a situation where a suspect is detained for longer than this without exercising these rights. More details on this process will be contained in the code of practice made under this part of the Bill, including the fact that any delay in these rights must be recorded in the custody record and the suspect must be informed of the decision. Similar provisions can be found in PACE Code H, which operates for detentions under the Terrorism Act 2000.

I turn to the noble Baroness’s second amendment—