Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Criminal Conduct Authorisations) (Amendment) Order 2021

Debate between Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Tuesday 12th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, it is worth reminding ourselves that the original Bill contained a restriction in relation to the Human Rights Act. The person operating under this Bill with authority will operate on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government and will therefore be bound by the authority of the Human Rights Act in relation to the activities which they can undertake. That is an important consideration which was raised in the debate on the Bill.

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

My Lords, the CHIS Act was the final Act on which my right honourable friend James Brokenshire and I worked. I know noble Lords will agree on several aspects of how we worked; we engaged extensively across both Houses, and we saw compliance with the Human Rights Act as central to the Bill—as my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay just mentioned—and safeguards as incredibly important to it. As an earlier speaker said, it puts beyond legal doubt the deployment of CHIS for criminal activity.

The SI on which the noble Baroness bases her Motion to Regret passed unopposed and, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, is not in scope of this Motion. That aside, noble Lords will recognise some of the points I am about to make from the extensive debates that took place when the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act passed through the House earlier this year.

The passage of the Act provided significant opportunity for noble Lords to discuss and put forward amendments to the oversight regime for this power. Noble Lords will recall the collaborative approach we took in responding to the amendments. That included strengthening the oversight of the activity by accepting the amendment from the noble Lords, Lord Anderson—I join the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, in paying tribute to him—Lord Rosser and Lord Butler, and my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay, which provided real-time independent oversight of every authorisation by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner. We have a robust oversight regime in place with significant internal and external safeguards to make sure that every authorisation is necessary for and proportionate to the purpose for which it is sought.

The noble Lords, Lord Paddick and Lord Ponsonby, talked about the seniority of authorising agents. They must be appropriately trained, as I said during the passage of the Bill, and of the necessary rank. Public authorities all have their own training processes in place for their authorising officers to reflect the specialist remit in which they operate. IPCO will identify whether any public body is failing to train and assess its officers to the sufficiently high standard necessary for this very specialist type of activity.

The other matter, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, and referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, was limits and, following on from that, practices in other countries. We debated this point extensively during the passage of the Act and voted on it but let me again state that the limits on what could be authorised under the Bill are provided by the requirement for all authorisations to be necessary and proportionate and for authorisations to be compliant with the Human Rights Act. Nothing in the Act seeks to undermine these safeguards and every authorisation will be considered by the independent Investigatory Powers Commissioner, who will be able to ensure that this is always the case. However, on numerous occasions we went over the point that to explicitly place limits in the public domain risks creating a checklist for terrorist organisations to test for suspected CHIS and doing so would put not only the safety of the public at risk but the safety of the CHIS.

In response to the concern that the Government are seeking to repeal the Human Rights Act, let me be clear that the Government are committed to human rights and will continue to champion them at home and abroad. The Government remain a signatory to the ECHR, which provides for the right to life and the prohibition of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The requirement for an authorisation to be necessary and proportionate further limits the activities which can be authorised under this Act.

To address the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, regarding the comparative position in other jurisdictions, it is unhelpful to compare the UK legislation with that of other countries because each country has its own unique laws, public authorities and, crucially, threat picture. We know that CHIS testing takes place in the UK, particularly in relation to the unique challenges that we face in Northern Ireland, and it is important that we legislate for the particular circumstances in which we need our operational partners to operate in order to keep the public safe. I emphasise that our advice on this issue is based solely on the advice of operational partners, and I hope that noble Lords place the same weight that the Government have on their assessment of this issue.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, talked about the undercover policing inquiry and the separate recent ruling of the IPT. I have repeatedly made it clear to this House, as he referenced, that the conduct that is the subject of the inquiry was completely unacceptable and should not have taken place. It is never acceptable for an undercover operative to form an intimate sexual relationship with those whom they are employed to infiltrate and target or may encounter during their deployment. That conduct will never be authorised, nor must it ever be used as a tactic of a deployment. Nothing in this Act changes that. The noble Lord quoted from the IPT’s judgment that the authorisations made under RIPA were fatally flawed, but the court did not find that the entire CHIS regime under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act breached article 8.2 of the ECHR. It invited the UCPI to draw its own conclusions. The tribunal is still to hold a remedies hearing in light of the findings.

There are now much more stringent safeguards in place to guard against these mistakes being repeated. In 2014, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Covert Human Intelligence Sources: Relevant Sources) Order 2013 came into force. The order applies enhanced safeguards to authorisations for long-term undercover operatives from policing or other law enforcement agencies. This includes a higher rank of authorising officer than for other CHIS and greater oversight by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner.

To answer the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, all the changes were brought about to address specific concerns that were raised about law enforcement undercover deployments. They have been tested in the operational and judicial environment over the last six years and we think that they are robust and fit for purpose.

Domestic Abuse: Older People

Debate between Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Wednesday 14th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I was pleased to be able to speak to the commissioner in Wales. I think it is always advantageous to learn from good practice elsewhere. We know that the number of older people experiencing domestic abuse has increased in the last year. The Crime Survey for England and Wales shows that 5.5% of adults aged 16 to 74 experienced domestic abuse in the year ending March 2020. But I look forward to seeing more refined figures in the future, which I think is what the noble Baroness is alluding to.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, do the Government have a plan for the effective monitoring of this type of abuse?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]]

I thank my noble and learned friend for his question. There are various ways in which we can monitor this sort of crime. I have mentioned the Crime Survey for England and Wales. We have the National Domestic Abuse Helpline and of course we have police figures as well. So there are numerous different ways of measuring this.

Undercover Policing Inquiry

Debate between Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The cost to date is £36.2 million. The report to the Home Secretary is due before the end of 2023.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con) [V]]

My Lords, will my noble friend say whether there is any mechanism to ensure that an inquiry as important as this will report in a reasonable time?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My noble friend makes a very pertinent point because, of course, some of the inquiry goes back to 1968, so timeliness is very important. As members of the sponsor department of a statutory inquiry, both the Home Secretary and the Permanent Secretary have sponsorship responsibilities that are set out in the inquiries management statement. I have personally engaged with the chair in my capacity as sponsor to discuss the progress of the inquiry and stress the importance of learning lessons promptly.

Operation Midland

Debate between Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Thursday 11th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, over the past few years, we have learned many lessons about what went wrong in a number of those cases. As I said, IICSA continues its inquiry. I hope that nothing like this ever happens again.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con) [V]]

My Lords, when this report was commissioned, was it done for the purpose of preventing a repetition of what had happened; to consider the possible discipline required as a result; or did it include both?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, its primary focus was to learn the lessons of what went wrong during that period so that those mistakes would never be repeated. Obviously, the IOPC then declined to investigate further.

Children: Online Grooming

Debate between Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I cannot disagree with the noble Baroness that the sooner the online harms Bill comes our way, the better. I certainly know that the response to the consultation will be published very shortly. The sooner we can get on with this, the absolute better for our children.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con) [V]]

My Lords, is there any way for the authorities to monitor communications with children who are in local authority care and particularly vulnerable to the offer of a relationship, and in this way prevent the grooming altogether?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I have to say to my noble and learned friend that in local authorities, particularly when local authority systems are being used, there are firewalls to prevent some types of abuse, but if a child has a smart phone with such things as Messenger or Snapchat on it, it is incredibly difficult for local authorities to keep tabs on children who are at the end of such coercive behaviour. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, talked about the online harms Bill next year: that is going to be crucial, because it will place a duty of care on service providers and social media platforms to actually protect vulnerable people from this sort of thing.

Asylum: British Overseas Territories and Ferries

Debate between Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Monday 5th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Again, I will not comment on leaks.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con) [V]]

My Lords, can the Minister please say why there is such delay in deciding applications for asylum status that so much accommodation is required for applicants?

Knife Crime

Debate between Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Tuesday 21st July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The Home Secretary already meets policing leaders and other stakeholders on tackling crime. On the noble Lord’s first point, safeguards are in place to ensure that stop and search is used lawfully and not based on race or ethnicity. On his point about the increase in knife crime and the link to stop and search, I can say—and this is not a defensive point—that the rate of increase has slowed. However, I agree that we have so much further to go, and that working together across different departments and with different stakeholders is absolutely right.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it has just been said that stop and search is an important part of the police system for dealing with this matter. Is there anything that can be done to remove the fact that its use appears to be strongly biased against black people?

Public Order

Debate between Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness. It is a shame that we are talking about the public order offences, which have completely overshadowed what people were trying to talk about in the first place, which was peaceful protest against the awful events that happened in America. The minority have made that impossible. The noble Baroness is right to talk about the wider point of stop and search. The Government will be working across the piece to address some of those injustices.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con) [V]]

My Lords, will my noble friend commend the example of the organiser of the justified and peaceful protests in Glasgow Green, in his efforts to protect innocent protesters from the dangers of the virus? He tried his best to ensure that they were at proper distances apart.

Secondly, it is not for the Government alone to deal with this; it is a question for all the organisations in our country to deal with. The organisation that perhaps I know most closely in this country is the Bar of England and Wales, and I am glad to know that, in recent years, the number of those belonging to ethnic minority and black communities is increasing. Last time I saw the statistic, it suggested that the proportion of such in the Bar of England and Wales is about the same as in the general population.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend brings me two pieces of good news this morning. I am very pleased to note those statistics from the Bar of England and Wales. We do see improvements across the piece—in the police, in Parliament and in government departments—but there is a way to go. I am delighted that the organiser of the peaceful protest in Glasgow Green made sure not just that social distancing took place but that everything went off peacefully. That individual is to be commended.

Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) (Amendment) Order 2018

Debate between Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Thursday 14th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to ask two questions. First, on the six months, what record is there that it is a six-month stay that is allowed? Secondly, do the gates require adaptation for the nationals of the different countries coming in? If, for example, another country is added later, will it be possible to adapt the gates to enable that?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank noble Lords for the points they have raised.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked why we are doing this. Sometimes with SIs a suspicion is built into noble Lords’ minds. We are doing it because UK airports have asked us to and to make it easier for passengers. Noble Lords and Members of the Commons have been asking for the expansion of e-gates to make it easier for visitors—I stress “visitors”—to use them.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay asked about six months. It is the usual time allowed for visitors, so that is why six months is in play.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, asked about Ireland. The situation for Ireland is no different from what it was before this SI was laid. It is all about expanding e-gate facilities to countries other than the UK, so the arrangements for Ireland remain unchanged under the SI.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked about people who want to stay longer. They would have to do so under the terms of their reasons for wishing to stay longer, such as to work or as a visitor. They would have to make those arrangements. Generally, those arrangements are made ahead of travel across the border.

Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 7th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

I think that if the Government agree that the matter can be reconsidered at Third Reading, it does not need to be a government amendment.

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

My Lords, I do not doubt the sincerity of the intentions behind this amendment. The new clause comes directly from the experiences of the Hillsborough families, and anyone who has heard of their long fight for justice cannot fail to be moved. I entirely accept, however, that the issue raised by the amendment is of general application.

As noble Lords will be aware from the debate in Committee, the Government’s position on this amendment is that we should wait for the report commissioned from Bishop James Jones on the experiences of the Hillsborough families. In commissioning the work, the then Home Secretary asked Bishop Jones,

“to ensure that the full perspective of those most affected by the Hillsborough disaster is not lost”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/4/16; col. 1436.]

The families will have numerous experiences, including views on legal representation, and this will be reflected in Bishop Jones’s report, which he aims to publish next spring.

I entirely accept noble Lords’ points about the coroner, and we will bring them to the attention of Bishop Jones, but I reiterate that it is appropriate that the Government have the opportunity to consider his conclusions and recommendations fully before deciding what action to take. It would therefore be premature to proceed with the amendment at this stage.

It must be right that any consideration of this amendment takes account of the financial implications. The cost of the legal representation for the 103 Hillsborough families at the fresh inquests amounted to £63.6 million. Clearly, the Hillsborough inquests were an exceptional case, but they provide at least an indication of the level of financial commitment such an amendment could imply. While it is the case that the Hillsborough families received public funding for their legal costs at the fresh inquest, it was a bespoke scheme, instituted due to the exceptional nature of the events that took place 27 years ago.

Recognising the exceptional nature of the Hillsborough inquests, it is also right that we look at other data. We cannot say for certain in how many inquests the police are named as an interested person. However, we know from the Independent Police Complaints Commission report Deaths During or Following Police Contact: Statistics for England and Wales 2015/16 that in the last financial year, 200 persons died following contact with the police. All of those deaths would have been subject to an inquest. Of course, the financial implications of this amendment are but one of the matters noble Lords will wish to take into consideration, but we cannot be blind to the impact on the public purse.

However, I come back to my core objection to this amendment: that this is neither the time nor the place to pursue this matter. As I have said, the Government are firmly of the view that we should wait for Bishop Jones’s report and then determine, in the light of that, the most appropriate way forward. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, will accept that this is the proper way to proceed and agree—

Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Monday 13th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, first, the Bill confers a discretion on the Secretary of State which is not restricted in any way whatever. Therefore, to say that this Bill is restrictive and that the amendments are intended to increase the discretion does not seem to be in accordance with the wording. Secondly, there are two powers in proposed new Section 107B, under Clause 1, providing for the election of a mayor under subsections (1) and (3). For some reason, these amendments apply only to subsection (1). That is rather strange. There may be a reason for that and if so, I would be glad to hear it.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, Amendment 3 would set out in the Bill that the introduction of a mayor for a combined authority area would not be a precondition for the transfer of functions to combined authorities. We had a very lively debate on this amendment in Committee and we have had another very lively debate today. In that context, I am not surprised that we are considering the amendment.

I have been very clear on the Government’s policy on the devolution of far-reaching powers to local areas. I think we can all agree that if areas are to have such powers they must adopt strong governance and accountability arrangements. As my noble friend Lord Heseltine said, it is not for us to come up with the proposals. It is a bottom-up process, and we want to hear from areas what their proposals are for the powers and budgets they want devolved to them, and the governance arrangements that they think are necessary to support such devolution. As my noble friend Lord Deben said, we need something new.

What sort of governance arrangements will be necessary—the scale and scope of the powers—will depend on the sort of proposals put forward. Last week, in his Budget speech in the other place, the Chancellor was very clear when he stated:

“The historic devolution that we have agreed with Greater Manchester in return for a directly elected Mayor is available to other cities that want to go down a similar path”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/7/15; col. 329.]

Our policy is therefore clear and this amendment is directly at odds with it.

We have this policy for good reasons. We have it because where there is devolution of the ambition and scale as in Greater Manchester, there needs to be a clear, single point of accountability. People need to know who is responsible for the major decisions in their area—decisions which will affect their daily lives.

My noble friend Lord Deben highlighted the importance of there being real change in local government. That is why we committed so clearly in our manifesto to legislate to implement the Greater Manchester deal and to offer similar deals to other cities that choose to have a mayor. The Bill, with its provisions on mayors, allows us to implement the Greater Manchester deal and fulfil our manifesto commitment. The amendment would, in fact, frustrate it.

As other noble Lords have said, mayoral governance for cities is a proven model that works around the world. It provides a single point of accountability. As my noble friend Lord Deben said, it has made a big difference to Bristol. When the office of the Mayor of London was created there was not much excitement across the country. As either my noble friend Lord Heseltine or my noble friend Lord Deben said—I cannot remember who it was—it is now seen as a force for progress in our capital.