Immigration (Persons Designated under Sanctions Regulations) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2020 Grand Committee

Motion agreed.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

I remind Members to wipe their desks and chairs before leaving the Room. The Committee stands adjourned until 6.15 pm.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Lexden Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

I call the next speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins. She is not responding. I call the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock.

Metropolitan Police: Racism

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I can vouch for the fact that the Home Secretary speaks to the police every day because I am on some of those calls. As I said, she is chairing the national policing board today and one item that will be discussed is diversity.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has now elapsed.

Immigration: Detainee Support

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

People are released from detention for a number of reasons, including appeals that succeed because late information is provided. However, the noble Lord makes a valid point that we should look back on this period of the pandemic to see whether some of the things that we are doing now could be used in future to manage people in the community.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed.

Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I cannot answer on behalf of my noble friend Lord Agnew but I will certainly get him to respond to the noble Baroness.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

When the Government come to make their promised response to the inquiry’s report on Westminster, published in February, will they ask why it failed to interview Mr Tom Watson about his appalling slurs on innocent people? Will they also ask why the section in that report on Westminster, which dealt with allegations about a paedophile ring said to have been based in Dolphin Square in the mid-1990s—allegations in which I happened to be implicated—failed to mention that the allegations were shown to be a pack of lies and the magazine in which they appeared was closed down? How can we trust fully an inquiry that fails to show proper balance in carrying out its responsibilities?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend is absolutely right that the Westminster strand did not find evidence of a paedophile ring, but it did find deference by the police, prosecutors and political parties towards public figures. It found differences in treatment accorded to well-connected people, as opposed to those without networks and influence, and a failure by almost every institution to put the needs of children first. They are shocking findings; they should give us all pause for thought.

Operation Midland

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lexden]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, published on 13 March, which concluded that the Metropolitan Police Service has made slow progress in learning the lessons that arose from Operation Midland.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, the HMICFRS report commissioned by the Home Secretary is an important step in ensuring that lessons are being learned from the failures of Operation Midland. She recognises the critical importance of public confidence on this. Both HMICFRS and the IOPC recognise that the Metropolitan Police Service has responded positively since the publication of the Operation Kentia report in October 2019. The Home Secretary will continue to seek assurance from the Metropolitan Police Service that it is acting on the inspectorate’s findings.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, first, I pay tribute to the Home Secretary for ordering this very important review. But how can it have been that two Metropolitan Police Commissioners were asleep on their watch, largely unconcerned, it seems, by the misdeeds and malpractices of officers during Operation Midland and, presumably, content that lessons that ought to have been learned swiftly were ignored for so long? Can my noble friend give the House three or four specific examples of the lessons that have now been apparently and belatedly learned? Finally, I return to one aspect of these police scandals that concerns me particularly as a political historian. Will the Government now stop blocking an independent inquiry into Operation Conifer, which left an unwarranted slur on the historical reputation of Sir Edward Heath? I put it to the Government that they have not given the House reasons for vetoing the inquiry but the opinions of a number of recent Home Secretaries, none of whom is a lawyer.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, there is quite a lot in my noble friend’s follow-up question. I join him in paying tribute to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, who took very swift action in dealing with this. It is regrettable that there was no plan in place to deliver sustained improvements after Sir Richard’s review. Both HMICFRS and the IOPC have now found that the MPS has delivered significant improvements but, with respect to keeping track of those improvements, the Home Secretary will continue to seek assurances from the MPS that those improvements are being embedded across the force. On whether we will launch an inquiry into Operation Conifer, Operation Conifer and Operation Midland were quite different investigations. Operation Conifer has been subject to significant scrutiny. As Wiltshire Police has made clear, Operation Conifer did not pursue further inquiries into Carl Beech’s allegations after deciding that there was undermining evidence.

Metropolitan Police: Live Facial Recognition

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I understand that the Met has stated that the images on the watchlist are drawn from its own database of images taken on arrest, or other images of suspects.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Why is the Metropolitan Police so slow to improve its performance in this and some other respects?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

That sounds like a warm-up to our Question on Wednesday.

Women’s Suffrage Centenary Fund

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Will my noble friend agree—I think she will, in view of what she said—that it is entirely appropriate that the projected statue in Parliament Square should be of Dame Millicent Fawcett, leader of the law-abiding suffragists for over 50 years, a Liberal and then a Liberal Unionist, whose work helped to create a Commons majority for women’s suffrage in the 1890s?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

In view of what I have said, of course I agree with my noble friend. She played such an important part not only in history but in where we are today. When I look across this Chamber and the other place, I know I would not be here had it not been for her.

Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2017

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Newby made the point last week, when the Leader of the House asked for this House to suspend its Standing Orders in order to consider this matter today, that this legislation has not been scrutinised by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments because of the Government’s failure to appoint their Commons members of that committee. This is clearly unacceptable and must be resolved as soon as possible.

In this particular case, the order is the result of a recommendation, as we have heard, by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to permanently classify the drug MPA as a class B drug. I am therefore confident in supporting this order as the recommendations of the ACMD are evidence based.

However, the comments of the parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Office to the first Delegated Legislation Committee in the other place yesterday, which presumably were a repetition of what the Minister said this evening to the House—again, I apologise for being slightly caught out by the early start of this particular debate—draw questions around bigger issues about the Government’s approach to controlling drug misuse.

MPA is a synthetic drug designed to replicate the effects of cocaine or MDMA. MPA started off life as a legal replacement for these class A controlled drugs. Prior to the Psychoactive Substances Act and the temporary class drug order, MPA would have been legal to both supply and possess. As we have heard, the Psychoactive Substances Act permanently made manufacture and supply of the drug illegal, but not possession, while the TCDO and this measure make possession as well as manufacture and supply illegal. Whether it sends a message to users about how dangerous the drug is is questionable.

The development of synthetic alternatives to existing controlled drugs—and in this case I am thinking in particular of things such as spice, the synthetic alternative to cannabis—runs the risk of creating even more toxic, and far more dangerous, drugs than the drugs they are designed to replace. The risk of continuing with a prohibition-based strategy of controlling the misuse of drugs is likely to increase the number of drug-related deaths.

Can the Minister tell the House, or write to me subsequently to tell me, how many deaths have resulted from the misuse of cocaine and MDMA between 2012 and 2017, compared with the 46 cases where post-mortem toxicology showed traces of MPA, and the 33 cases where MPA was implicated in the actual cause of death, as a proportion of arrests for possession of each type of drug—which we can assume is a proxy for how much cocaine, MDMA and MPA is being used? Can the Minister also tell the House how many deaths have resulted from the misuse of cannabis between 2012 and 2017?

If MPA is as dangerous, or more dangerous, than cocaine or MDMA, the question must be: why is it being classified as a class B drug while the others are classified as class A drugs? If MPA is, as I suspect, more dangerous than cannabis, at least in terms of fatalities, why is it in the same class of drugs as cannabis? Assuming, as I do, that the ACMD has made the right evidence-based decision in terms of its recommendations as to which class MPA should be placed in, what does this say about the classification of cocaine, MDMA and cannabis?

The point I am trying to make is that the current classification of drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act lacks credibility, certainly with users. No one I know who misuses drugs starts from a point of asking, “What class is it in?” when deciding which drug to take.

We should be taking a harm reduction-based approach to the misuse of drugs, which should be treated as a health issue and not a criminal justice issue. That having been said, just because the classification of drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act lacks credibility and other drugs may be wrongly classified, this does not mean that this evidence-based recommendation from the ACMD is wrong. On that basis, we support the order.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, made reference to the unusual circumstances in which this order comes to the House this evening. It has not been scrutinised by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments because that committee has not been re-established because of the failure of the other place to provide its members to the committee. I was a member of the Joint Committee in the last Parliament, and I am looking forward to resuming work, I hope, at an early point in this Parliament.

The committee receives advice from a formidable array of legal experts. They invariably find points that need correction—sometimes smaller, sometimes larger. I have just one question for my noble friend. In the absence of the committee, is she satisfied that this order has been subjected to sufficiently rigorous scrutiny by legal experts?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for the contributions that they made to the debate, and the helpful points that have been raised. I trust that I made the case based on the available evidence and the advice provided by the ACMD that this order to permanently control MPA as a class B drug, under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, should be approved.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, rightly makes the point about the JCSI and the failure to appoint members to the committee. My noble friend the Lord Privy Seal apologised for that to this House this time last week. My noble friend Lord Lexden makes the same point and asks if we are satisfied that this order has been given the correct amount of scrutiny before it comes to your Lordships’ House. It has gone to the other place. It has come here on the advice of the ACMD and I am satisfied that, in getting full airing from both Houses, we have given it correct scrutiny. I appreciate that many noble Lords almost did not get here tonight because events moved a lot more quickly than we thought. The timescales for achieving the full control of MPA under the 1971 Act, before the expiry of the temporary class drug order, are very tight. Further delay in attending to JCSI clearance means that there is a significant risk that we would not be able to pass scrutiny and finish debate in time for the Privy Council to make the order at its meeting on 15 November. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, made the point that it is most important that this order is considered in good time. I must reiterate my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal’s apology on this, but I am satisfied that scrutiny is being fully applied to it, particularly as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, is in her place.

The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, talked about the outcome of the ban and asked whether we have done any analysis of it. We have seen a significant fall in the use of new psychoactive substances among 16 to 59 year-olds in the past year, from 0.7% in the 2015-16 Crime Survey for England and Wales to 0.4% in 2016-17.

I was asked why this was being done under the Misuse of Drugs Act, not the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016. Given the reported risks and known harms that this substance has already posed to public health, the ACMD has advised that the MDA is the preferred option for control. Permanent control of MPA under the MDA—this is a real tongue-twister—utilises the stricter offences of production and distribution under any circumstances without a licence. Permanent control of MPA also makes the act of possession an offence under the MDA and increases the maximum penalties for the other offences. The stricter offences and penalties will prove a stronger deterrent to the supply and possession of these substances.

The noble Baroness also asked about plans for the Home Office to review the 1971 Act. We have no plans to do so, but Section 58 of the Psychoactive Substances Act commits the Secretary of State to review the operation of the Act, prepare a report of the review and lay a copy of it before Parliament 30 months after commencement of the Act. This review will therefore report its findings in 2019.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, asks why MPA is classed as class B when it is believed to be more dangerous than MDMA and cocaine, and he gave some compelling examples of synthetic versions of traditional drugs, if you can call them that. In the past year, cocaine was related to 371 deaths. That confirms its status as class A drug-appropriate. I will write to him on the other points he raised on the comparisons between the synthetic versions of some of the more traditional drugs and the number of deaths associated with them, particularly cannabis, because I know the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, is listening with intent.

On that note, I hope I have answered most of the questions. If I have not addressed all of them, I will of course write. I think there was a question from my noble friend Lord Patten about advice from the advisory committee on stronger forms of cannabis. I will write to him on that.

Child Sexual Abuse

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lexden]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the lessons to be learned from recent police investigations into allegations of child sexual abuse in the past.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have done more than any other to tackle child sex abuse, declaring it a national threat and investing millions of pounds to enable officers to actively seek out and bring offenders to justice. Investigations are operational matters for the police and must be free of political involvement. It is also the responsibility of the College of Policing to set the standards for policing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Can action be taken by means of strengthened codes of practice or other measures to ensure that police forces throughout our country conduct themselves with absolute propriety and honour when investigating allegations which, if mishandled—and some have been—can ruin the lives of innocent people and besmirch the reputations of the innocent deceased?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend makes the crucial point that where people are falsely accused and have their names in the media, their lives can literally be ruined. Noble Lords may have seen things in the paper over the weekend. The College of Policing guidance provides that, where an investigation identifies a false allegation, it may be appropriate to support a prosecution for attempting to pervert the course of justice. Steps should be taken to test the validity of statements and corroborative accounts and to establish an accurate picture. The decision to support a prosecution would be an operational matter for the relevant chief officer.