CPS Guidance: Intentional Police Shootings

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the Crown Prosecution Service on guidance issued to prosecutors on intentional shooting by police, and on the application of the evidential and public interest stages of the test to decide whether to prosecute police officers in the case of the discharge of firearms.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, in begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, I draw the House’s attention to my interests as set out in the register.

[The Attorney-General (Lord Hermer) (Lab)]

My Lords, charging decisions made by the CPS are rightly independent and made in accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors and the Director of Public Prosecutions’ guidance to prosecutors. I have invited the Director of Public Prosecutions to review CPS guidance and processes in relation to charging police officers for offences committed in the course of their duties in order to consider whether any changes are desirable within the existing legal framework. The review will conclude by the end of the year.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I welcome the sensible decision to continue with the previous Government’s police accountability review, including the lessons-learned commitment. However, I would like to press the Minister on three issues. First, while I endorse the default presumption of anonymity in this small number of cases, an explicit and robust evidential test should be in place should a decision be made to deviate from this. Secondly, does he agree that it is imperative that these inquiries by the CPS and the IOPC are expedited in a reasonably timely and transparent fashion for the benefit of all parties? Thirdly and finally, will he undertake to ensure comprehensive and meaningful consultation with the Police Superintendents’ Association and the Police Federation?

[Lord Hermer (Lab)]

In respect of consultation with all relevant stakeholders across the range of reviews that we are undertaking, we have taken the measures agreed by the previous Government and we have gone further, and the details of that were set out last week by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary in the other place. In respect of anonymity, the Home Secretary set out that that is a measure we are going to take; there will be a presumption of anonymity in those cases. Ultimately it will rest upon the discretion of a trial judge.

Injunctions

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

The question of what role the Press Complaints Commission may play is clearly another subject that the House may wish to consider. I am not sure that I entirely subscribe to the right hon. Gentleman’s very pessimistic view of the Press Complaints Commission. I have seen examples where, it seems to me, it has operated quite effectively. That is a further reason why that may be a sensible area for debate.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I welcome the review, but does the Attorney-General share with me the concern at the deeply sinister and Kafkaesque prospect, under the present super-injunction regime, that an unnamed journalist could be imprisoned in a secret court for having revealed the name of a hitherto anonymous personality who had a lot of money to bring that legal action? That is more like the actions of a state such as North Korea or Zimbabwe than the United Kingdom.

[The Attorney-General]

I am not going to comment on individual cases.

Voting by Prisoners

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

It is a little unnerving to find myself disagreeing with so many right hon. and hon. Members and with a substantial proportion of public opinion, but I firmly believe that we must rescind the ban on a prisoner’s right to vote. I have listened to the arguments on the law and the role of the European Court. It has been suggested that the Court is extending its brief and seeking to prevail over the will of this Parliament and stretch the ambit of the convention beyond the fundamental human rights that it was originally set up to address. I see this in a rather different context—namely, as an opportunity to maintain and extend our understanding of human rights over time. There has never been a time when much of the popular will has been directed towards driving up protections and rights for prisoners. That is why it is important that the Court and our belonging to the convention should exert outside pressure to challenge us to go further in the name of social progress.

It has been argued that our standards are already among the highest, and in some respects they are, although not in respect of a prisoner’s right to vote. In many other countries, that right is extended either wholesale or on a more generous basis than it is here in the UK. It is absolutely right that we should aspire to the very highest standards in the rights that we afford people. The philosophical importance of convention rights is that they extend protection to minorities, even the undesirable ones that we do not like very much. We unpick and undermine those protections at great risk.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the House should be able to make a value judgment between a civic right and a human right? Human rights include the right to food, shelter and family life, whereas civic rights include the right to vote. There is a distinction between the two, and surely we can make a value judgment on behalf of our constituents and exercise our right to say that one is not the same as the other.