Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Hogan-Howe and Lord Moylan

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Lords Hansard - part one & Report stage
Monday 10th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I generally support this important legislation, but I expressed at Second Reading and again in Committee my sense of unease about the whole concept of serious violence reduction orders but also about the detail of their implementation. It is clear that my arguments have not borne the fruit I would hope to see, because I have read—since she kindly copied it to me—my noble friend’s letter to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, in which the Government made it clear that they did not see any scope for budging either on the principle or on the detail of the implementation of these provisions. So, rather than engage in a discussion across a broad front, I shall simply focus my few remarks on Amendments 90K and 90L in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, which deal with what might be the most egregious question on this subject, that of “ought to know” or “ought to have known”, depending on how it is phrased in the Bill.

The Government are proposing that people should be subject to these orders, which are serious constraints on their liberties and which have potentially severe reputational consequences. In some cases, these may be merited, but in the case of “ought to have known” it is extremely difficult to accept that the burden on those who receive these orders is merited, on the basis not of their carrying a knife, not even that they knew a knife was being carried but that they ought to have known a knife was being carried.

There are three essential problems. The first is meaning. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, pointed to the difficulties that arise from the variability of language. The expression “ought to have known” is one that we can easily use in different ways in ordinary, natural language. But we are dealing here with language that ought to be drafted in a precise fashion and can be applied in a predictable way in a court of law, because we want our laws to be predictable. We want people to know that, if they do this or that, they will be in trouble, but if they do not do so, then that is okay. I do not know what “ought to have known” means in a legal sense.

The second problem is evidence. Even if you had a clear understanding of what the words “ought to have known” mean, how is that to be established in a court of law when, as I have said before to your Lordships, it is difficult enough to establish in a court of law what somebody did or did not know, let alone what they ought to have known. There is an evidential question here.

The third problem arises from the first two. It will be a decision of this Parliament to adopt this language which throws a huge interpretational burden on the courts. We do not know how the courts are going to interpret or implement this language. I do not want to draw unfair parallels, but when we discussed in Committee and on Report the question of prisoners serving indeterminate sentences for public protection, it was clear that the Home Secretary of the day, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, did not expect the provision to be applied by the courts with the liberality that the judges felt obliged to apply because of how it had been drafted. I hope I have explained that correctly. In other words, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, thought it would be applied only occasionally, but when the judges read what they were expected to do, they felt obliged to apply it more liberally to far more cases, which had never been his intention when he had proposed it. We are potentially in similar circumstances here. We simply have no idea, if we agree this language, how it is going to be applied by the courts in actual cases: with what breadth or how frequently it will be applied to people who were not carrying a knife and did not know that a knife was being carried but it is felt on some basis that they ought to have known.

I am not trying to detract from the other amendments in this group by focusing my remarks on this narrow point, which has been addressed by other noble Lords. I am focusing on these two amendments because I would hope that my noble friend might, after reflecting on it, be willing to come forward at Third Reading with something that rethought this approach. Or at the very least, if it did not rethink it, she would say that she was going to add words or guidance or some other supplement to the Bill which would make the circumstances in which this applied very specific such that we had that level of certainty that we did not impose this burden on the courts. We should have certainty in law but also certainty in our own minds as to how frequently and commonly this penalty would be applied in the event of “ought to have known” cases.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to support the general thrust of what the Government are trying to achieve, although I have some sympathy for one or two points that have been raised by previous speakers. I do not speak as a zealot for stop and search. It has dangers, which I hope I can persuade noble Lords I have taken seriously in the past.

The Government seem to be trying to change the culture of people carrying knives, either in public places or sometimes in private. Far too many people have been carrying knives and clearly still are, leading to minor arguments ending up in fatal events. We know that people who are repeat offenders disproportionately account for a disproportionate amount of crime. As few as 10% of offenders, on some occasions, can account for two-thirds of the crime. That applies to victims as well as to the places that they meet, which are repeat locations. Legislation over the years has tried to do something about that and, I think, has generally been well intended.

I agree with many of the things that the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, has said. He had a worrying experience, but a lot of it has been London based. For historical reasons, there have been three different types of legislation which have caused real problems in this city, but occasionally in others. The sus law of the 1960s allowed unqualified stop and search. That caused a great many problems and was got rid of.

Then along came Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Section 44 was precisely intended for locations that were likely to be attacked by terrorists—places such as Parliament. It was intended to draw a line around places and, if someone went into this area, they could be searched without cause. In fact, the Metropolitan Police applied that throughout London. Every one of the 32 boroughs was covered by that piece of legislation, so people who live in London have had that experience of stop and search without cause for tens of years. Whether it be people who are now being stopped and searched, or their parents or grandparents, they have that experience. That is the thing that I am afraid has disproportionately affected how they feel about the legislation.

The latest version is Section 60. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, raised this and I have some empathy with part of what he said, for the reason I will explain. Section 60 was intended, again, to circumscribe certain areas where there was to be stop and search without cause—perhaps a park where many people had been stabbed or a location where gangs had been meeting and attacking each other. In that area, everybody was warned, “If you go in this area and carry a knife, you are likely to be stopped and searched without cause”, because the idea was to disrupt their offending pattern. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, that often these areas are not well described. People are not told that they are about to enter one, so, therefore, when an officer stops someone, they can be suspicious and ask whether they are in a Section 60 area or have they been stopped and searched for no good reason at all.

As I said, I am not a zealot for stop and search. In 2011, when I took over the Met, we had just had the London riots. We never had a public inquiry into those events, but one of the conclusions I drew for myself when I looked at the figures was that stop and search had been very high. In the two preceding years, 2.6 million people had been stopped and searched in London. At the time, there were only 8.4 million people living in London. If we discount people who were not on the streets because they were older or younger, this was a very high number and that worried me. Over the succeeding three to four years, we reduced stop and search by 60% and we reduced Section 60s by 90% because, frankly, they were like confetti scattered around London. Ironically, the more there were, the less they could be policed.

There was a disproportionate amount of vague stop and search. Within that, we had disproportionality: there were very high figures for people of Asian appearance after 9/11 and that was certainly true of the black community as well. Over three years, we managed to get the stop and search disproportionality for people of Asian appearance down, from over seven times more likely than the white community, to less than one compared to the white community. We did not have as much success with the black community. We got better but nowhere near what I would call a more representative look.

I am only trying to convince your Lordships of two things. A targeted stop and search, even where there is not a cause, can be really helpful, either geographically or targeted on the offender. That is where the serious crime prevention orders can make an impact. Generally, they are targeted only at people who have been convicted already of carrying a knife, or who have been carrying a knife and have not been convicted but a court has been persuaded that there is a good reason.