Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Lord Henley Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Berkeley is not here but I will take the opportunity to move his amendment, if only to hear the Minister’s reply. This amendment seems to address some of the concerns covered in the previous group, but relates to international rail services and the problem of delays to passengers on the Eurostar services caused by new immigration controls. It also sets out how that might be addressed. The amendment contains a number of proposals and appears to suggest a policy of facilitating and welcoming visitors rather than treating everyone in perhaps a less than friendly manner as a result of some of the delays which I understand occur on the Eurostar services at both Brussels and St Pancras. The amendment also refers to the monitoring of waiting times to process incoming passengers at fixed control points. It also talks about processing passengers on international train services between the nearest stations served on each side of the border.

I believe rather than know that there have been meetings between my noble friend Lord Berkeley and the Minister in which the issue of processing passengers on the train—which is perhaps a rather unfortunate phrase—might have been raised. The amendment also raises that issue. We are now part of an expanding high-speed rail network with the introduction of new routes using the Channel Tunnel and the prospect of new operators entering the field.

I think that I am right in asserting that there are significant issues with delays, certainly with Brussels-to-London traffic, which I think are caused in part by double passport checks on passengers at both Brussels and St Pancras, where, I am told, delays can be over an hour. If that statement is right—and I am sure that the Minister will correct me if it is not—it could be damaging to our image as a country and to our economy as it would have an adverse effect on tourism and on the UK as a base for new and expanding businesses.

I am absolutely sure that my noble friend Lord Berkeley would have had a great deal more to say, and that he would have said it an awful lot more effectively than I have, but if I am right in saying that the Minister has had meetings with him, I hope that the Minister will also be able to say where we are on the issue. Perhaps he could also say whether the issue of processing passengers on the train was raised with a view to eliminating some of the delays that are currently occurring. I beg to move.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, I will be relatively brief on this. I can give an assurance to the noble Lord that I have discussed this with his noble friend Lord Berkeley. I also welcome him back to this Bill from his travails on the Civil Aviation Bill. This amendment is, in effect, about the remit of the chief inspector. I think that I can give the noble Lord an assurance that this is all largely dealt with by Section 48 of the UK Borders Act 2007. I have a copy of Section 48 and could go through it in some detail but I do not think that the noble Lord or the rest of the Committee would welcome that. I will just say that the remit of the chief inspector is adequately dealt with in that and he can cover all those matters.

As the noble Lord said, I have had a meeting with his noble friend Lord Berkeley at which we discussed a number of issues, particularly the so-called Lille loophole; the problems coming into St Pancras, problems that we are aware are likely to get much worse when other services, such as the German trains, start coming in, just because of the physical layout of St Pancras; and how we deal with that. We also discussed—again, this is very important—the possibility of using immigration officers on the train to deal with the particular problems that the noble Lord quite rightly highlighted. That is something that we will have to look at for the future, beyond 2015, which is when Deutsche Bahn is likely to start bringing trains in.

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Moved by

[Lord Henley]

150: Clause 26, page 25, line 23, at end insert “, or
(c) in connection with the prevention, investigation or prosecution of any of the following offences (insofar as that does not involve the exercise of a function which falls within paragraph (a) or (b))—(i) an offence under section 26(1)(a), (b) or (g) of the Immigration Act 1971 (refusal or failure to submit to examination or to furnish information etc, or obstruction of immigration officer);(ii) an offence under section 22 of the UK Borders Act 2007 (assaulting an immigration officer).”

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendments 151 to 154. I have written to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, but I shall explain briefly to the Committee what the amendments do. They are essentially technical and drafting changes to provisions in Clause 26 and Schedule 14.

Amendments 150, 151 and 152 better define what is meant by an immigration offence within the context of Sections 136 to 139 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 and the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995, with which I am sure all noble Lords will be very familiar. The former allows immigration officers to exercise cross-border powers relating to warrants, arrest and search. The latter establishes a power of detention and arrest for immigration and nationality offences in Scotland. The amendments expand on the original wording which might, if given a narrow construction, have been read to limit the powers of immigration officers to dealing only with foreign nationals entering, residing in or transiting the UK. It is intended to encompass immigration enforcement offences, comprising offences of assaulting or obstructing an immigration officer, or failing to submit to, or produce documents requested during, an examination.

Amendment 154 relates to the provision of legal advice. Among other things, Clause 26 and Schedule 14 ensure that those detained on suspicion of having committed an immigration or nationality offence in Scotland are automatically eligible for publicly funded legal advice. However, as a corollary to this, a duty needs to be placed on the Scottish Legal Aid Board to ensure the availability of solicitors to provide such advice. The amendment makes the necessary change to the Criminal Legal Assistance (Duty Solicitors) (Scotland) Regulations 2011 to provide for this.

Amendment 153 simply corrects a drafting error in Clause 26(13). I beg to move.

Amendment 150 agreed.

Moved by

[Lord Henley]

151: Clause 26, page 26, line 8, after “offence” insert “or immigration enforcement offence”

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Moved by

[Lord Henley]

154: Schedule 14, page 219, line 9, at end insert—
“(4) Regulation 3(1)(b) of the Criminal Legal Assistance (Duty Solicitors) (Scotland) Regulations 2011 (duty solicitors: advice for suspects) applies in relation to a person to whom section 25A of the 1995 Act applies by virtue of its amendment by paragraph 46 of this Schedule; and, accordingly, in regulation 3(1)(b), after “customs” insert “, immigration and nationality”.
(5) But regulation 3(1)(b) does not have effect in relation to such a person in a case where—
(a) the person is detained under section 24 of the 1995 Act, and the period of detention began before the time at which paragraph 46 of this Schedule comes into force; (b) the person attends as mentioned in section 25A(1)(d) of the 1995 Act, and the period of attendance began before that time; or(c) the person is arrested and detained as mentioned in section 25A(1)(e) of that Act, and the arrest occurred before that time.(6) Sub-paragraph (4) does not affect the application of regulation 3(1)(b) in relation to a person to whom section 25A of the 1995 Act applies otherwise than by virtue of its amendment by paragraph 47 of this Schedule.
(7) Sub-paragraphs (4) to (6) do not prevent regulation 3(1)(b) from being amended or revoked by exercise of any power conferred by the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986 or any other power.
(8) In this paragraph “1995 Act” means the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995.”

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[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is an eternal optimist if she thinks that we will have everything ironed out by Report stage but I am grateful for that optimism. I am also grateful to her for giving me a list of the various questions that she wanted to ask and then putting forward another list of slightly more detailed questions, not all of which I can begin to answer. It will become clear why it is neither possible nor necessary to answer them now. This is probably just the first stage in quite a long discussion that will take place in this House and the other House so that we can get these matters absolutely right.

I am very grateful that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, made it in time. At one point I thought that her amendment would not even be moved. It is very important that we have the first discussion—it is only a first discussion—on this clause. I agree with her that this is a road safety issue. It has nothing to do with other drugs issues. She and I will discuss those in other arenas on other occasions. The important point to remember is that anyone who is impaired as a result of using drugs, whether controlled or uncontrolled, can commit an offence under Section 4 of the Road Traffic Act 1988.

In responding, I shall try to keep a very complicated issue as simple as possible. For that reason, those who are old enough—even in this House, that does not necessarily mean everyone—should remember what it was like pre-breathalyser in relation to one drug, namely alcohol. The noble Lord, Lord Dear, was probably a young policeman at the time. There was an offence of driving while impaired by alcohol but it was very difficult to prove. There were all sorts of methods by which one could try to do so. We probably have to go back to the Wilson Government of 1964 when Barbara Castle was Secretary of State for Transport and, as a result of legislation, the breathalyser was introduced. The idea was that you did not have to show that you were impaired; you were deemed to be impaired if you were over a certain limit—that is, if there was so much alcohol in your blood. That has proved very effective over the years.

I do not have the figures in front of me for the number of deaths, other casualties and accidents over the years. However, we have seen not only a massive decline in those but quite a big cultural shift in people’s attitudes to drink-driving. People take much greater care about not being over the limit, as they put it, even though they might think that they are still capable of driving. In other words, people accept that being at the limit means that they are impaired.

In Clause 27 we are trying to do something similar with drugs. However, as I said, on an issue that we want to keep very simple, this is going to be very difficult indeed. All noble Lords who have spoken in this debate—and, I imagine, all those listening as well—will accept that we are dealing with a whole range of different drugs. There are controlled drugs and uncontrolled drugs—a vast array of over-the-counter drugs, which people take for colds or whatever, that we all know can impair driving, and people should be careful whether they take them. I have even seen on a bottle of cough mixture for my children when they were very small, “Do not drive heavy vehicles after using this”. I am not sure why my children were likely to be driving heavy vehicles or heavy machinery after taking some cough mixture, but there is often such advice with medicine. Whether a drug is controlled or uncontrolled, it will still be covered by Section 4 of the Road Traffic Act 1988.

Clause 27 is trying to deal with the controlled drugs at this stage, and we need expert advice on that. Noble Lords who have spoken will also be fully aware that we have set up an expert panel to look at this. I do not have the list of names in front of me, but everyone will know that the people dealing with this matter are very eminent in their field. They will have to work very hard to find ways of defining the appropriate drugs and the appropriate limits. Because of the way we have drafted the Bill at the moment, there might have to be zero tolerance with some drugs, but I note the points that the noble Baroness made, particularly about cannabis and other drugs and how long they stay in the bloodstream. I accept that it is difficult, but we want to wait and hear the advice from the panel. I very much hope that we will have some initial advice before we get to Report. As I said, we are in this lucky position of having Report delayed somewhat until, I imagine, late in October or the beginning of November, so it does give us time to see what comes out, to listen to what the panel has to say and to have further discussions.

Again, we are at that happy stage of the Bill starting in this House and we have the joy of discussing it, but it can go on to another place. Even in another place they sometimes discuss these things seriously and in great detail, as the noble Baroness knows from her great experience there. We have time to get this right and make sure that we have the right procedures in place. In response to the points made by my noble friend Lady Hamwee, we want to make sure that there are appropriate defences for those who have taken over-the-counter medicines inadvertently or incorrectly, or for those who are on prescribed drugs from their doctor—for example, in the case of a statutory offence of someone who takes controlled drugs for medical reasons. We need to look at all these issues.

At the same time, we want to make sure that the expert panel can offer advice about setting appropriate levels for whatever drugs we decide to include in the interests of public safety. I go back to the first point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher—that this is a road safety issue first and foremost. For some drugs, we might have to say that zero is the only safe limit, but we want to wait until we get advice from the experts in this field because, however knowledgeable we are, we are not the experts and we need to listen to that in due course.

I said that I was trying to keep a very complicated issue as simple as possible at this stage, because all I wanted to do was set out what we were trying to do and what the problems are. I hope that between now and Report we can have further discussions about this, and I certainly hope to involve colleagues in the Department for Transport, because I think that they should be involved. This is not a Home Office issue; it just happens to be in a Bill that the Home Office is taking through the House. Others might be involved, and I hope they want to be.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

The Minister’s alcohol analogy is a useful one, although the caution that I would place on that is that testing for alcohol is testing for one drug. As he said, there is an almost unlimited number of drugs to be tested in this case. His comments have reassured me that the matter is being taken seriously and that he recognises that it is a work in progress. However, I am always slightly concerned—alarmed is too strong a word—when the Minister refers to matters coming back to this place and says that we do not have to worry if we do not get it completely right because it then goes to the other place as well. I am glad that he is shaking his head. That is not what he meant, but it has happened a couple of times in the course of this Bill. There is an obligation on us to get it as right as we possibly can. I know that we are not experts—I do not think that I am an expert in anything—but we are legislators or we are advising on legislation, and it is incumbent on us to ask the kind of questions that have been raised today. We need assurances that we will have the answers to those questions before the legislation goes to the other place. If we had answers to those questions before we pass legislation through both Houses, and when this House passes its advice to the other House, we could in all confidence say that we know that we have the procedures in place for this offence to protect people as we think it should.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, if I put the matter in the terms described by the noble Baroness, I should not have done. We want to get it right and we shall try very hard to do so, but we need that expert advice. That is why I hope that we will have the beginnings of the expert advice from the expert panel before Report stage. At this stage, I was trying to make it clear that it was the beginnings of a discussion on a very simple idea, although it does not sound simple. The noble Baroness is right to say that we have had it very easy with alcohol, because it is just one drug and we have just one limit. We are now talking about lots of drugs—controlled, legal or illegal—and where we put the limits. It is going to be very complicated, so we want to listen to the experts and have further discussions.

[Baroness Meacher]

I thank the Minister for his response and openness to further discussions. Can he give a commitment that, if at all possible before Report, we could have an opportunity for some feedback from the expert panel and a discussion with it about the implications of its preliminary findings?

[Lord Henley]

I can never give an absolute commitment in relation to an expert panel discussing these things, because I cannot put a gun to its head about how it should proceed. However, I would very much welcome a chance for some sort of informal seminar among noble Lords interested in these things in the early days of October. That might be a useful way in which to take these things forward. I see a nod from the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and, no doubt, also from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. I look forward to it. Tea and coffee will be available on that occasion at some time in October.

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[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, as has been said, the amendment removes the word “insulting” from Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986. The noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney, has explained the reasoning behind the amendment. We will need to be satisfied as to its justification, the evidence advanced as to why it is needed and the extent to which that evidence reveals a problem that can only really be addressed by a change to the legislation. We will also want to be satisfied that removing “insulting” will not mean that people using such words or behaviour cannot be prosecuted when there is every justification and reason for doing so.

The consultation on this issue closed in January. The Government have not, as far as I am aware, published the replies to that consultation or their own response. Despite this, the Deputy Prime Minister, presumably in his official capacity, has apparently made comments supportive of the approach in the amendment. Bearing that in mind, and the distinguished noble Lords whose names adorn the amendment, I suspect that the Government, at worst, are not going to reject its intentions.

For our part, we will listen to whatever points the Minister has to make, as well as the points made by noble Lords in the debate, to which we will want to pay regard. We also want to consider the replies to the consultation when they are published, along with the Government’s response, before coming to a firm conclusion.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I hope that I can be relatively brief in responding to the speech of my noble friend in moving the amendment, and the remarks that other noble Lords have made. My noble friend need not apologise for the fact that he was a member of the Government and was a signatory to the Public Order Act 1986, which included the word “insulting”. As the noble Lord, Lord Dear, has reminded us, “insulting” goes back to the Public Order Act 1936, introduced by the then National Liberal Home Secretary, Sir John Simon. That was very much borne out of the fascist marches of the 1930s. Section 5 of that Act referred to any,

“person who, in a public place or at a public meeting, uses threatening, abusive or insulting words”.

That is much the same as the 1986 Act which my noble friend now feels embarrassed about having signed up to.

To take the history lessons back a bit further, I take my noble friend back to the Metropolitan Act of 1839. That was under a Whig Government—the forebears of the Liberal Democrats—who, again, introduced the word “insulting”, but which applied only in London and not in other parts of the country. I make this point to say that this has been going on for some time.

Similarly, I apologise to my noble friend for the fact that our consultation ended in January and we have not responded within the appropriate three months; however, it did cover a number of other issues. Obviously, it is now six months since that consultation ended. As has been made clear by a number of noble Lords who spoke, we had some 2,500 responses to that consultation and we want to consider them carefully. It is clear that there are a number of different and passionately held views on the subject. Given the complexity of the issues raised, we in the Home Office, as Ministers and officials, are still considering the balance of all those representations. So, I say to the Committee—and to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser—that I am not in a position today to set out the Government’s position on the amendment.

This is a timely debate, which will help to inform the Government’s further deliberations. I would have been grateful if it could have happened at a time when more noble Lords were here in Committee. Although I appreciate that the names on the amendment of those who support it come from different parts of the House and they all seemed to be on the same side, there are strong believers in other views. We have heard a number of cases indicating the weakness of having “insulting” in the provision. Different noble Lords have cited a number of different cases.

We also have to accept that freedom of expression is never an absolute right. It needs to be balanced with other competing rights. It was made quite clear in the case of Percy and the DPP that Section 5 is proportionate and contains that necessary balance between the right of freedom of expression and the right of others to go about their business without being harassed, alarmed or distressed.

I do not want to go into details at this stage because we are debating this at too late an hour with too empty a Chamber. All that I am saying is that we have had a consultation. That has ended and we have had 2,500 responses. Those need to be considered carefully and all of us need in time to take a view. I hope that all noble Lords will accept that there are arguments on both sides, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, put it. Those need to be considered very carefully. I am pretty sure that I can say to my noble friend Lord Mawhinney that we are likely to come back to this issue at a later stage in the Bill.

As I have said on other occasions, we have some considerable time before we get to Report. That might make it easier to come to that considered view. I hope at that point we will be able to put forward the Government’s considered view to the House. Therefore, I hope that my noble friend will, on this occasion, feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Mawhinney]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his response and to other colleagues who have spoken. None of us who spoke is responsible for the fact that the debate is on very late and the House has well below the number of noble Lords who might normally have considered the matter. That is not our fault. I hear what the Minister said about the lateness of the hour tonight. If we come back to this at Report, I am not sure that that argument will carry much water were it to be tried a second time around.

The Minister will have heard that those who have spoken have all spoken with one voice. I would like to pick up the point that the noble Lord, Lord Dear, made about the timing of this. Having been privileged to spend 26 years at the other end of this Corridor and a mere seven at this end, I understand why Governments and Parliament issue guidance. They issue guidance to constrain the power of the Executive to put stuff in the long grass and let it lie there. Guidance is designed to say to Ministers, “You can have reasonable time, but there comes a point when Parliament must be accorded the rights and privileges that go with the name Parliament”.

My noble friend pointed out that there were 2,500 replies, and six months later they are still studying them. Okay, but the guidance was that they should have replied in three months, so at the very least we should have had a message from the Executive two months ago saying, “This is really taking us longer than we thought. We hope Parliament won’t mind if we take a little longer”. Do you know what? I am guessing that Parliament would have said, “Okay, take a little longer”, but here we are after six months. I say to my noble friend, “Take a little longer”. However, I also say that the mood of the House and the mood of the other place would be that, well before Report stage, we would wish to be encouraged to believe that not only had the Government formed a view, which they were willing to share, but that they had done something politically quite sensible and aligned themselves with the vast majority of people who want to see “insulting” removed from Section 5.

As my noble friend goes away to sit at his desk over the summer pondering things, I offer him a reflection from former US President Harry Truman, who had only two frames on his desk. One frame held a picture of his wife, and in the other was a saying from Mark Twain. Every day, Harry Truman read these words:

“Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest”.

I offer that encouraging thought to the Minister as he contemplates those 2,500 responses and the content of this short debate. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.