Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Lord Carlile of Berriew

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Wednesday 27th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I have already made a comment about serious sexual offences but there is something else that I want to raise, into which I have been provoked by my noble friend Lord Hogan-Howe. The point I want to make is about consistency. I do not agree with my noble friend that we should have a single national police force, but I do believe that 43 territorial police forces is a real recipe for inconsistency. I regret very much that successive Home Secretaries, from all political parties, have failed to take on this issue. What actually happens—Charles Clarke did it when he was Home Secretary—is this: when a Home Secretary has the courage to say they are going to reorganise police forces to bring policy consistency on issues such as this, immediately that Home Secretary is told by Members of another place that the world will fall apart if the Loamshire police force is abolished, because how could the world continue without it?

I was a Welsh MP for 14 years. There are still four police forces in Wales; there should not be. The Dyfed-Powys Police, the force in my constituency, operated generally well, but I could not possibly argue that more than one police force is needed, in Wales, at any rate. I therefore ask the Government to take consistency as a major theme in this matter and reflect—

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

We are going into a wider debate. My personal view is that we should never have abolished the Oxford City Police force in the 1960s, because we never recovered when it became part of Thames Valley Police, and we had our own watch committee. But there is an issue here, is there not, between what might be regarded as operational efficiency and overpoliticisation? Frankly, the experience in Scotland is not a good example of the risks of too direct a relationship between a national Government and a police force. That would surely be the risk in Wales.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Lord Carlile of Berriew

Friday 16th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, like the Government, the Opposition are not expressing a view on the Bill, and we have a free vote on this side of the House. I ask the Minister to help me with an interpretation of the meaning of Amendment 13, particularly in relation to the meaning of the provision that one of the registered medical practitioners has to have had the person registered with them for at least six months. Does he take that to mean that a patient has to be registered with a general practitioner for the provisions of the Bill to apply? I am assuming that when patients are under the treatment of other doctors, such as hospital doctors, they are not registered with them. This is important. If I am right—and I am expressing no view on the merits of the amendment—it would be helpful to the Committee to know from the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, what would happen in circumstances where, for reasons which have been set out by other noble Lords, a person is not registered or has been removed, sometimes forcibly removed, from the list by the GP under the arrangements that apply. It would be helpful if he could clear up that point.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

I am happy to clear it up. My understanding—and I am happy to be corrected by the Minister if I am wrong—is that if I am nominally registered with Dr A, who is in a practice with Drs B, C and D, and I go for treatment and am seen and treated by Dr D, I am being treated by a doctor with whom I am registered. That is because my registration with a doctor in a practice includes registration and treatment by any other doctor in that practice.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

That is a very helpful response. Can the noble Lord explain the circumstances in which a patient is not so registered? At any one time there are thousands of patients who are not registered.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

If a patient is not registered, they are not registered. If a patient goes as a temporary resident—as I think the term used to be; I am not sure if it still is—to see a particular doctor, a general practitioner, they are then registered for the period of the temporary residence, which from memory is, or at least used to be, one month, and which may be renewable for the purposes of that treatment.

To deal with the broader aspects of the noble Lord’s question it might be worth making the further point, while I am on my feet, that it is very difficult to imagine that a patient would be in the situation described in the Bill but had not been treated for at least six months by a practitioner, such as the practitioner who was treating their cancer. That is the general experience that people have.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Lord Carlile of Berriew

Friday 7th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, perhaps I may ask the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, a couple of questions. On his Amendment 67 and the question of independent medical experts, I think that it is right to say that in our first debate we reached a pretty satisfactory conclusion on the capacity of the courts to deal with these issues if the Bill was enacted. However, the noble Lord will know that sometimes the availability of medical experts can be problematic and I wonder whether he has given some thought to the issue of their availability.

The second question is about the connection between that amendment and Amendment 68, which provides that each report that was submitted to the court by the medical expert would be submitted also to the chief coroner, who would determine whether an inquest should be held into the death of the applicant. Could the noble Lord clarify the purpose of that amendment? Is it intended in effect that the chief coroner is almost put in a position of second-guessing the original decision of the court or the advice of the medical examiner? It would be helpful if he could clarify a little more his purpose.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

I am very glad to answer the noble Lord’s two questions. To the first, there is a very straightforward answer: I do not anticipate any difficulty whatever. The medical profession will prioritise like the rest of us when needs must. So far as the chief coroner’s role is concerned, I anticipate the chief coroner receiving not only the independent expert’s report but possibly other representations and determining whether an inquest should take place in a particular case. I anticipate that there would be very few cases anyway if the recipe that I have proposed was brought into effect and I doubt that there would have to be any inquest in those cases. However, we have to keep open the possibility of an inquest, and it is much tidier to have the chief coroner decide whether there should be an inquest than, for example, to have judicial review proceedings arising as a result of the complaints of affected persons. I think that these are both very quick routes to deal with simple issues that might arise.

Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Lord Carlile of Berriew

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

My Lords, in tabling this amendment, I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, who has put his name to it. This group of amendments is about relocation, an issue we discussed at Second Reading. The first sentence of the executive summary of the Justice and Security Green Paper, published today by the Ministry of Justice, is:

“The first duty of government is to safeguard our national security. In delivering this duty, the Government produces and receives sensitive information”.

I do not want to repeat at great length the arguments on relocation presented at Second Reading. I simply want to reiterate that the sensitive information, the security that the Government have received, points to the need, for the time being at least, to continue as part of the main legislation the power to order relocation, used sparingly as it is and subject to the scrutiny of the courts.

I have drafted the amendment so as to keep the existing control order provisions for relocation until after the Olympic Games, choosing a date after 1 January 2013. At that point, it would be open—and I am completely open-minded about this—to the Government to come back to Parliament and to replace the relocation provisions with what is in the Bill, which would remove relocation subject to emergency legislation. All that would be required would be an affirmative resolution of both Houses. There would therefore be a debate in which the Government would pass to each House of Parliament the advice that they have received from the security services, including the sensitive information to which I referred earlier.

I can best make my argument for this group of amendments by asking the Minister a series of questions. First, is it correct that the National Security Council, which is made up of Ministers only, has been advised against the removal of relocation from the list of available powers? If the NSC was so advised, I suspect that the Minister will be driven to confirm that the removal of relocation is not as a result of a debate on the merits but as a result of political considerations founded on the manifestos of the two partners in the coalition. I am as enthusiastic about the coalition as most Liberal Democrats—well, nearly—but I am not enthusiastic about political considerations trumping national security, which is what I fear may have happened.

My second question is: have Her Majesty's Government received any advice from those who are currently operational in MI5, MI6, GCHQ or SO15, the counterterrorism command, that the relocation power has become an unnecessary component of national security for the time being? If they have, perhaps they will tell us what it is and whence it came, because my belief is that the advice will be eccentric and not in the mainstream.

My third question is: does any part of the informed security bodies—those with the information—support the removal of the relocation power before the Olympics and Paralympics, as opposed to after them? In other words, what consideration has been given to the pinch point that will be created by the Games? We should remember in this context that we are talking about the security not only of the Olympic Park and the other venues where Olympic and Paralympic events will take place. One effect of the Games on policing in this country will be that a large number of police officers will be removed from their normal duties up and down the country—dare I say to the Minister, in Cumbria for example? Those officers will find themselves in unfamiliar places in east London, protecting the Olympic Park. Perhaps not in Cumbria but in some of our bigger and more populous resorts during the summer, there will be an increased risk of terrorism events going undetected.

My fourth question, which is connected, is really a rhetorical question. Surely on the basis of the evidence the Government must accept that they would be fulfilling what the Green Paper describes as the first duty of government by retaining relocation until after the Olympics and Paralympics are over.

My fifth question relates to something that was raised at Second Reading: the case of CD and the judgment of Mr Justice Simon. When the CD case was heard earlier this year, did Her Majesty's Government consider it proportionate and in the interests of national security to request a relocation component in CD’s control order? If they did, I come to my final question: have they changed their mind about CD? If they have, why have they done so?

The decision in the case of CD was taken on the basis of arguments presented on behalf of the Government, with special counsel present, after the publication of the counterterrorism review that was independently and very capably scrutinised by my noble friend Lord Macdonald of River Glaven. If the Government had decided that relocation was no longer necessary, it is surprising that they bothered to make the argument against CD. One should, after all, contrast it with the decision made in relation to Section 44 stop and search, which remained on the statute book long after the Home Secretary made the welcome announcement that it was in effect no longer to be used. I am driven to the conclusion that there was a merits argument in the Home Office about both these issues and that the decision that was taken on the merits was that Section 44 should no longer be used because we did not need it, but the decision that was taken on the merits in relation to relocation and CD was that it should continue to be used because we do need it. All that leads me very reluctantly to the conclusion that the removal of relocation has far less to do with the Government’s first duty than with meeting some arguments that have been made before this Government were formed and in a political context, including a very powerful argument made in a Times article by my noble friend Lord Macdonald before he was a Member of this House.

What I would ask the Minister to do is merely to confirm at this stage, because we will return to this later, that the Government are considering this matter and are now considering it on its merits. I beg to move.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and have added my name to his amendment. I really hope that the Minister will give this earnest consideration. He will know that I am highly critical of the Bill that he brings before us. It is clear that the exclusion provisions within control orders have proved to be highly effective. The evidence given by the deputy assistant commissioner to the Public Bill Committee in the other place was quite persuasive on that point. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has already referred to the case that the Home Secretary herself brought forward and argued for the use of such provisions. It is clear that the Government know that they may need these provisions in the future. That is why we have the enhanced TPIMs draft Bill for use if it were ever to be required.

We have the quite extraordinary provision in this Bill that if the enhanced provisions were to be required, and were to be required in the period between the Dissolution of Parliament and the first Queen’s Speech in the next Parliament, the Home Secretary is to be empowered by this Bill to use those provisions. If ever there were an admission that the Government know in their heart that they may need those provisions and, indeed, have used them in their period of office, there is the evidence.

We then come to the second issue that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has alluded to. It is whether it is right or sensible to remove those relocation provisions at the current time. We have the Olympics, and we also have the issue that, in lieu of the exclusion provisions, additional surveillance will have to be undertaken by the police at additional cost, with additional resources and using more people. The noble Lord will know that in the Public Bill Committee in the other place the deputy assistant commissioner expressed some concerns about the length of time that will be required by the police to put those measures into place.

The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, quite brilliantly in my view, gets the Government off the hook for the period between the end of the Olympics and the beginning of 2013. It also says to the Government that, if at that time or beyond it they reach a conclusion that they do not need the exclusion provisions, they can simply bring an order before Parliament. No doubt Parliament would assent to that order, as it does assent to government orders. However, if the Government at that time are not so assured, they already have the provisions on the statute book with the benefit of them having gone through Parliament and being effectively scrutinised rather than using the very unsatisfactory approach of having an emergency Bill in the stocks ready for use.

I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Henley, might be sympathetic to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. It is meant to be a constructive response to current circumstances. I certainly think that it warrants due consideration.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Lord Carlile of Berriew

Monday 6th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her response. I do not wish to detain the Committee. Three points have been raised in this debate. The first is that the issue of the European Parliament is a red herring. We changed the law because there was a problem with a Liberal Democrat MEP who, because of European law, would have been disbarred from standing for and accepting a seat in Europe because she was also a Member of your Lordships’ House. That was why we made provision for a special leave of absence.

The second issue is that many Members of your Lordships’ House also have full-time responsibilities. We have many lawyers. Indeed, I see the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, in his place. He always strikes me as being not only a hardworking lawyer, but also an assiduous Member of the House. The noble Lord, Lord Lyell, mentioned the Lords Spiritual, and we heard from my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Tope. What is of concern is that the Home Office seems to be enunciating a new rule which states that the Home Office is now deciding whether it is appropriate or not for your Lordships to take on another responsibility. It is not for the Home Office to so decide. I should tell the noble Baroness that I am certain of one thing: if this is put to the vote at the Report stage, she would lose it.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

Before we conclude this interesting debate, I thought I might add a few words. The first thing that occurs to me is that we are introducing an entirely new principle which will deprive an existing Member of your Lordships’ House of the right that he or she has acquired by Writ of Summons and under the Royal Prerogative to attend this House of Parliament. That seems to me to be a very serious departure within our own jurisdiction. I agree with the noble Lord opposite that the position of Members of the European Parliament is quite different for European constitutional reasons.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Lord Carlile of Berriew

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, this is ridiculous. Noble Lords know that the Government should have made a business statement at 8.30 pm to adjourn the House and allow the consequences of this to be fully considered by the Government and Opposition, and through the usual channels. It would have been helpful to have known earlier from the Chief Whip that Amendment 31 had been accepted as consequential. Clearly that is an important factor.

This is nonsensical. I am tempted to move the adjournment of the House. I plead with the Government at least to let us adjourn for 10 minutes to allow the usual channels to have a further discussion. I can see that I would win a vote on a show of hands. Surely the Government have the good sense to see this. Why are we going to waste an hour debating a theoretical amendment? It is ludicrous.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

My Lords, there are a number of problems with Amendment 31. The first is that we have not debated it yet. We have not agreed it. Logically, if we are to have a structured debate, it should start with Amendment 31. The problem is that we would be debating Amendment 1 all over again.