Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill
Lord Marlesford Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Marlesford (Con)
The noble Lord made an important point about it never having been the practice that somebody could be commissioner or hold a similar post without having been a police constable. Presumably when Lord Trenchard, formerly Marshal of the Royal Air Force, was appointed Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, he had not had previous police experience.
Lord Blair of Boughton
The noble Lord makes a good point. It was only in the 1970s that the first commissioner who had been a police officer was appointed. Perhaps I should have said that in the past 45 years there has not been one. I certainly accept that the great and the good took those positions in earlier periods.
Lord Marlesford
“Littering from vehiclesCivil penalty for littering from vehicles
(1) A littering contravention in relation to a vehicle occurs when a person inside the vehicle acts in contravention of section 87 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (offence of leaving litter).
(2) A civil enforcement officer may impose a civil penalty if a littering contravention under subsection (1) has taken place.
(3) The registered keeper of the vehicle shall for the purposes of section 87 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 be treated as knowingly causing the littering contravention whether or not he gave any instruction for this to be done and shall be the recipient for a civil penalty under subsection (2).
(4) A civil penalty is not payable under this section by the owner of a vehicle if that vehicle is—
(a) a public service vehicle, within the meaning of the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981;(b) a hackney carriage licensed under the Town Police Clauses Act 1847 or the Metropolitan Public Carriage Act 1869;(c) a vehicle licensed under section 48 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 (licensing of private hire vehicles);and the person acting in contravention under this section is a passenger in that vehicle.(5) The amount of a civil penalty under subsection (2) is to be specified in regulations.
(6) The procedure for imposing a civil penalty on a person and for recovery of costs is to be set out in regulations.
(7) The regulations must, in particular, require the responsible authority to give the person written notice specifying—
(a) the amount of the penalty,(b) the reasons for imposing it, and(c) the date by which and manner in which it is to be paid.(8) Regulations may—
(a) give a person on whom a civil penalty is imposed a right to appeal against the decision to an adjudicator;(b) specify the grounds on which a person may request an appeal;(c) specify the time within which a person must request an appeal;(d) make provision for and in connection with the appointment of adjudicators;(e) make further provision about appeals (including provision as to the powers available on an appeal).(9) The registered keeper of the vehicle for the purposes of this section shall be taken to be the person in whose name the vehicle was registered under the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994 at the time of the contravention.
(10) A civil enforcement officer under this section must be—
(a) an individual employed by the responsible authority, or(b) where the authority has made arrangements with any person for the purposes of this section, an individual employed by that person to act as a civil enforcement officer.(11) A vehicle for the purposes of this section is a motor vehicle as defined in section 185(1) of the Road Traffic Act 1988.”
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, I am bringing back as Amendment 93 on littering from vehicles an amendment that we discussed in Committee. I remind your Lordships of the need for the amendment, which was discussed very fully in Committee. It is a sad fact that Britain is a particularly dirty country in terms of litter. Not only do we compare very unfavourably with most of our peer group in Europe, we sadly compare unfavourably with a number of other countries that are much less privileged than us but make much more effort to see that there is not litter. The contribution to litter by people throwing litter out of vehicles is a serious and significant part of the problem of littering.
The purpose of my amendment is to close a loophole. Although littering from vehicles is a criminal offence, nothing can be done under the present law unless it is possible to identify exactly who threw the litter out of the vehicle. I am trying to supplement that arrangement—not replace it—by saying that if litter is thrown from a vehicle, then the keeper of that vehicle should be subject to a civil penalty on rather the same basis as a keeper of an unwisely parked vehicle is subject to a fine of £80 or so and it is up to them whether they recover it from the person who was driving the vehicle. It is a civil offence intended as a deterrent.
This argument has been put forward for a very long while by CPRE—perhaps I should declare an interest as having once been the national chairman of CPRE for five years—and the Keep Britain Tidy group. They are both very keen on it. I introduced a Private Member’s Bill earlier this year for the same purpose. Both that Bill and my amendment in Committee received widespread support—virtually universal support—in the House from the Back Benches and from the noble Baroness on the Labour Front Bench, whom I would particularly like to thank. It is not a party-political matter in any sense. It is purely a matter of being able to do something that will actually resolve the situation.
Obviously, the amendment has been around a long time, but I know that there have been differing views inside Whitehall as to whether it should happen. There tends to be an inclination by civil servants in one department to take up a position and be reluctant, perhaps, to change their position. This sometimes causes a problem, with Ministers having either to overrule them or to accept their advice. Life is busy and there is often an inclination to have a quiet life. I am afraid that this is too important for Ministers to have a quiet life over it.
I have had very constructive and helpful discussions with the Minister on several occasions since Committee. I had a final and very useful discussion on Thursday last week, at which he advised me that the Government accepted the principle of what I wanted to do, but rather than accept the amendment as such—and I quite understand this, because it is late in the day to accept the amendment or amend the amendment—they wanted to do it by taking powers to make an order to achieve the objective. The Minister has indicated to me that he will be doing that at Third Reading. He will be introducing to the Bill powers to make an order that will enable the issuing of a civil penalty for littering from vehicles where it is not possible for there to be a prosecution.
I do not disagree at all that in general littering should be a criminal offence. There are some very serious examples of littering—for example, fly-tipping and things such as that. Therefore, I am not in any sense divided from the Government by this. All that did divide us, but I think no longer does, is that there should be a supplementary provision for civil penalties, which will provide a deterrent for people who at the moment feel that they can perfectly happily and safely chuck stuff out of vehicles without anybody being able to do anything about it.
I am very aware that having a power to make an order is not of itself enough. What is needed is to make the order. I hope that the Minister will be able to assure me that the Government will be on the lookout to ensure that there is no “Yes Minister” scenario to delay matters. I experienced this once before on an amendment that I put forward to introduce an electronic firearms register. It took a very long time but it went through and worked extremely well, I am glad to say. There are other examples. I remember being involved in the Private Member’s Bill on the Parliament Square issue. Again, an awful lot of arguments were put forward as to why it could not and should not be done, but I think that your Lordships realise how much better Parliament Square is now than it was before without in any way having reduced the facilities for lobbying, which we all support. However, that is a quite different matter. I hope that my noble friend will ensure that the order is in place at the very latest by May 2015, a date of some relevance on the political calendar.
Finally, I was lucky enough at one time to have as a political master someone from whom I learnt an enormous amount—Ernest Marples. He was a brilliant Minister but he always had a great adage: “It is not what you say that matters; it is what you do”. With that, I beg to move.
Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)
My Lords, I support the motive behind the amendment of my noble friend Lord Marlesford. I think that everyone agrees that litter is a scourge and that it is getting worse. Were it not for the street cleaners, who are the unsung heroes of our local communities, we would realise how terrible is the amount of litter that is thrown and discarded. It is partly a matter of disfiguring the environment but it also poses a potential serious danger to other drivers on roads. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will give a very sympathetic response to my noble friend’s amendment.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
It is even more pertinent to the issue he raises. I will, indeed, draw to the attention of the devolved authorities what we propose when Parliament has approved the Third Reading amendment that we are tabling.
I shall conclude by saying that I and my ministerial colleagues share my noble friend’s abhorrence of roadside litter and his deep distaste at the behaviour of those who carelessly discard things from their vehicle. We have already discussed at length the kind of problems that can arise if the law on this subject is difficult to interpret or enforce. I am sure that my noble friend agrees that we need to ensure that we get the legal detail right. I hope that my noble friend will withdraw his amendment and allow us to bring forward an alternative that will meet all our aspirations.
Lord Marlesford
My Lords, I am obviously extremely grateful to my noble friend for what he said. I am well aware that it involved the political elite of the country in coming to this conclusion, and I much appreciate the fact that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is also in support and, indeed, my right honourable friend the Environment Secretary was involved. The answer is that it is wonderful that we are about to make a great step forward. As to where it applies, I will happily buy England only so as not to delay it and, indeed, perhaps it could become a minor or major issue on the future of Scotland. They can discuss what part they will play. In the light of what my noble friend so graciously and kindly said, I have pleasure in withdrawing my amendment.
Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill
Lord Marlesford Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Marlesford
“Part 10AForeign enlistmentOffence of participation in armed conflict against a foreign state at peace with Her Majesty
In the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870, after section 5, insert—“5A Participation in armed conflict against a foreign state at peace with Her Majesty
(1) It shall be an offence for a British citizen or British subject, without the licence of Her Majesty, to—
(a) participate as a combatant in armed conflict against any foreign state at peace with Her Majesty, or(b) induce any other British citizen or British subject to participate in armed conflict against any foreign state at peace with Her Majesty. (2) It shall be a defence for a British citizen or British subject charged with an offence under this section to—
(a) notify the Secretary of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office before such participation in such armed combat, or(b) prove that they acted in self-defence.(3) A notification under subsection (2)(a) must be made in writing, and the sharing of any information therein by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with other organisations is permitted notwithstanding any requirements of the Data Protection Acts.
(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be punishable by—
(a) fine and imprisonment, or either of such punishments; and(b) forfeiture of any United Kingdom passport held by the person, or(c) deprivation of citizenship under section 40(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981.””
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, I apologise for detaining the House rather late on a quite different subject from that which we have been discussing in the past hour or so. Let me first explain why I am moving Amendment 89, to add a new section to the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870 to make it an offence to participate as a combatant in armed conflict against a foreign state without the licence of Her Majesty. My purpose in doing so is to defend the realm, which is the first duty of any British Government.
As the world recovers from six years of financial crisis, the determination of the expanding Islamic jihadist factions to wage terrorism in the West is a growing threat to the stability and future of our citizens. The growth of Islamist jihad is now as dramatic as anything that has been seen since those decades of expansion that followed the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 AD. This now includes persecution of Christians in many Muslim countries, particularly Pakistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Egypt and now Syria, which was once an oasis of religious tolerance. It is reminiscent of Stalin’s description to Beria of the Bolsheviks as,
“a sort of military-religious order”.
The brutal ferocity, using a combination of guerrilla warfare and terrorism, with which jihad is being pursued by a relatively small number of fanatical Islamists is hard to counter. The Islamist challenge is the one issue on which the five permanent members of the UN Security Council share a common interest.
Components of the disorder that has followed the Arab spring include: a desire for freedom; an aspiration for better living standards; hope for democracy; tribal conflicts; revenge on oppressors; incitement to new human rights abuses and other activities—all of which are overlaid with the historical and tragic hatreds between Sunni and Shia, which are reflected both nationally and regionally. Both Sunnis, led by Saudi Arabia, and Shias, led by Iran, struggle for hegemony. Over that hovers the shadow of the Islamist Wahhabi agenda, of which the new generation al-Qaeda is the guardian and choreographer for a world-scale jihad to install Sharia law under a Sunni caliphate in as many countries as possible.
In Libya, the operation of various militant groups has now raised the risk to a level where international construction companies are starting to withdraw their personnel from major development programmes. In Iraq, the ferocity of the Sunni backlash against the Shia majority has led to rapid escalation of sectarian terrorism with a massive death rate. With the establishment of al-Qaeda-dominated Islamist factions in Yemen, the Government are struggling to maintain control over the country.
It is now clear that American and European policy towards Syria has been a disaster. Western moral support with implied crucial military backing for the rebellion against Bashar Assad sustained and expanded the struggle to a point where the brutality of Assad’s resistance outraged international opinion. Then in August, plans for the imminent military action by the US, Britain and France to achieve regime change in Damascus were aborted after the British participation was voted down by Parliament. By then, the Islamists had taken control of the rebel forces and any hope of democracy in Syria was replaced by the wholly unacceptable prospect of an al-Qaeda-dominated Islamist state perhaps even worse than the present Government.
The Islamist influence is spreading rapidly inside Africa. In Nigeria, a particularly vicious form of hostage-taking terrorism by al-Qaeda is prominent. In Mali, the French have intervened against al-Qaeda. Similar intervention by French forces is taking place in the Central African Republic. In Somalia, 6,000 mulitnational Sunni militants of al-Shabaab, another al-Qaeda offshoot, are fighting 17,000 African Union troops, who are attempting to defend a weak Somali Government. In predominantly Christian Kenya, al-Shabaab is expanding its attacks, for example with the September attack on the Nairobi shopping mall.
During 2013, more British citizens were killed by terrorism overseas than in the previous seven years combined. In Pakistan there is almost total anarchy, with the army appearing ambivalent about the fight against Islamist extremists. A real indicator of the hold that the Taliban fundamentalists have over Pakistani thinking is the way in which the schoolgirl Malala, who in December 2012 was shot in the head by the Taliban for demanding education for girls, has now been demonised in certain parts of Pakistan.
All that is the backdrop to my amendment, so let me now come to the specific risks. In this, I have been guided by the evidence given on 7 November 2013 in a rare public meeting of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament by the director of GCHQ, Sir Iain Lobban, the director-general of the Security Service—MI5—Mr Andrew Parker, and the chief of the Secret Intelligence Service—MI6—Sir John Sawers. They outlined some aspects of the direct threat to this country from British jihadists who go to fight overseas.
The head of MI6 said:
“The threat comes from those countries which are either secretive states, where there is ungoverned territory where terrorists can operate … the Middle East, South Asia, Africa”.
If there is a terrorist there, he said,
“it is important for our security, in the UK, that an eye is kept on him, that he is surveilled, that he is monitored. Maybe he needs to be detained and arrested at some point”.
The head of MI5 said:
“A very important strand of the threat we face is the way in which there is interaction between people who live in this country, who sympathise with or support the Al-Qaeda ideology and they travel to areas where they meet these Al-Qaeda groupings, either Al-Qaeda itself in South Asia or some of these other groupings … they meet British citizens who are willing to engage in terrorism and they task them to do so, back at home where they have a higher impact in this country”.
He went on to say that the threat,
“has grown recently and is growing … because of Syria. Syria has become a very attractive place for people to go for that reason”.
He referred to:
“Those who support or sympathise with the Al-Qaeda … message … We have seen low hundreds now of people from this country go to Syria for periods and come back, some large numbers still there, and get involved in fighting”.
He went on to say,
“the vast majority of the plots come from people who live here. There are several thousand individuals in this country who I would describe as supporting violent”,
terrorism or being “engaged in it”. I hope that I may have convinced your Lordships of the threat.
My amendment, which builds on earlier legislation, discriminates against no one. It merely means that any British passport holder who takes part in armed conflict as a combatant against a foreign state with which we are not at war, or who induces any other British citizen to do so, will be subject to penalty unless he has informed the Foreign Secretary before doing so. There could be three penalties according to my amendment: a fine or imprisonment; the forfeiture of a British passport; or the deprivation of citizenship. It would send a clear message to those considering taking part in armed jihad. It would necessitate HM Passport Office being aware of the details of other passports that British passport holders have. This is something that I have urged for a long time, as part of the better methods of defending our national borders, and I hope that my noble friend the Minister will at least be able to tell me that that is now in place.
I should perhaps add that there are already substantial powers to deal with terrorism. Indeed the Supreme Court, in R v Gul in 2013, emphasised that while there is no internationally agreed definition of terrorism in international law, in British law terrorism is very widely defined. My amendment is therefore neither needed nor intended to deal with terrorism per se; it is intended to control actions which, according to the heads of our intelligence services, could lead to people becoming terrorists. It is therefore a preventative measure, and one with sufficient sanction to deter those who might be led into terrorism by military adventure overseas.
Finally, it is because the jihadist threat is a new threat that I believe this is necessary. There was in days past a tradition of British citizens going to fight in other people’s battles with which they identify—the Spanish civil war is an obvious example—but this is quite different. In any case, the opportunity as well as the need, in effect, to get consent from HMG before becoming an overseas combatant, would ensure that no one need fear victimisation for their political or religious convictions. I believe I would have the support of the great majority of the British people in raising this issue today. I beg to move.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Taylor of Holbeach) (Con)
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Marlesford for tabling this amendment, not least because it provides your Lordships with an opportunity to consider the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870—not something that we do every day, or night. The Act prohibits British nationals from fighting in the armed forces of another state, against friendly states. The new clause would go further by creating a new offence of participation in armed conflict against any foreign state at peace with Her Majesty. My noble friend’s amendment raises an important and topical issue: that of people from the United Kingdom seeking to engage in combat abroad in so-called “theatres of jihad”, such as the civil war in Syria, to which my noble friend referred.
Although the issue of British nationals fighting abroad is not a new one, or one specific only to Syria, it is something that the Government take very seriously. Syria is now the number one destination for jihadists anywhere in the world, and there are currently thousands of foreign fighters in Syria, including a large number of Europeans. We judge that more than 200 UK-linked individuals have travelled to Syria to join the fighting. Of course, not all individuals who travel to Syria are extremists. Many simply want to support humanitarian efforts. However, those who do travel there are putting themselves and innocent Syrians in danger, and we know that a number of Europeans have already been killed in the conflict. Moreover, we know that some individuals travel to Syria—or other places such as Yemen or Somalia—to engage in fighting with terrorist groups.
The Government are working with the police and security services to disrupt travel by individuals of concern. Your Lordships will understand why I am unable to provide specific details of all of the actions that are being taken to this end—but rest assured, we support the use of the full range of available measures. In particular, where there is evidence that individuals are planning, promoting, funding, facilitating or participating in terrorist activities overseas—including terrorist fighting—the police and Crown Prosecution Service will look to prosecute them, before they go or on their return. A very wide range of offences already exists on the statute books to capture such activity, not least in the Terrorism Acts 2000 and 2006, which provide extraterritorial jurisdiction in relation to certain activities. Although my noble friend’s amendment seeks to add a further offence to the disruptive arsenal, I fear that this amendment, as drafted, entails a number of drawbacks that would undermine its effectiveness.
Firstly, the amendment recognises that, while the 1870 Act already deals with fighting for another state’s armed forces, many modern conflicts involve an array of non-state actors and irregular militias. However, like the 1870 Act, this amendment deals only with,
“armed conflict against a foreign state at peace with Her Majesty”.
Hard distinctions of war and peace made sense in 1870; Tolstoy’s masterpiece had been published just the year before. But the bases for modern conflicts are no longer so binary. The UK has not been in a declared condition of war since the defeat of the Axis forces in 1945. Today we are at peace with all states, at least in the classical sense of international law.
Secondly, the defence of notification to the proposed new offence has the potential to severely undermine the disruptive utility. Whether it was my noble friend’s intention I do not know, but the amendment as drafted gives the Secretary of State no additional power to prohibit a person who gives notice of their intention to fight overseas from going. A number of existing powers might be used to prevent such a person from travelling—and, of course, the Bill augments these by providing powers to seize passports cancelled on public interest grounds. But the amendment adds nothing to these powers. Indeed, the proposed offence bites only when a fighter who previously failed to notify returns to the UK. Anyone who does notify the Secretary of State would be completely free from the sanctions which this amendment seeks to put in place.
Thirdly, any offence that hinges on such a notification regime is likely to raise significant difficulties in enforcement. A committed jihadist is unlikely to inform the authorities of his travel plans for fear of disruption, either before or after the fact. Evidence that a person has engaged in fighting abroad would be extremely difficult to obtain, so the evidential difficulties in securing a prosecution may be no less than for the other relevant offences available.
Fourthly, although self-defence has a well understood meaning in relation to ordinary offences against the person, how it would apply in the context of overseas conflicts is unclear. Many jurisdictions have laws to deal with the use of defensive force in situations of immediate danger, and we expect British nationals to comply with local laws wherever they are. But the idea of participating in armed conflict as an act of self-defence is a difficult matter. We must take care not to legitimise the wrong-headed extremist narrative that paints so-called jihadists as fighting a war of self-defence on behalf of Muslims internationally.
Finally, the amendment proposes sentences for the new offence that could include forfeiture of a passport and deprivation of British citizenship. As noble Lords will recall from our discussion in Committee of what is now Clause 138, passports are issued under the royal prerogative. The Home Secretary already has the power to refuse or withdraw passports where she believes that a person’s activities—past, present or proposed—are so undesirable that the grant or continued enjoyment of passport facilities is contrary to the public interest. The British Nationality Act gives the Home Secretary powers to deprive persons of their British citizenship when she is satisfied that deprivation is conducive to the public good, provided that the person is not left stateless as a result. As such, these sentencing options would not be necessary.
I thank my noble friend Lord Marlesford for raising the issue of British nationals fighting overseas. I assure your Lordships that this is something that the Government take extremely seriously. Nevertheless, for the reasons that I have set out, I do not believe that the amendment would be the right way to proceed and I ask my noble friend to withdraw it.
Lord Marlesford
My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for having raised so many points so clearly and in such detail. I hope very much that there will be action under the present provisions of the law to ensure that, wherever possible, British citizens who have engaged in jihadism overseas, will be prosecuted on their return to this country—as he said that they already can be under the existing law. I hope very much that the removal of passports—and, if appropriate, of British citizenship—will take place.
This is a very serious subject. The evidence given by the security chiefs to Parliament was chilling. I had no idea what a serious situation we face, and I am delighted that the Government have stated that they are well aware of it and are dealing with it. I therefore beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill
Lord Marlesford Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Marlesford (Con)
There was a campaign for a long time—much too long—to remove the most unsatisfactory arrangement under which certain individual protestors hogged the space in Parliament Square, to which the noble Lord, Lord Martin, has just referred. It was eventually ended and the square is infinitely better from every point of view. We were all strongly in favour of having protests, but not permanent protests. I am not absolutely clear where the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is suggesting his hut should be. I believe that the area, as the noble Lord, Lord Martin, said, is very much a world heritage site, and it would be difficult to accommodate a permanent building in any of those spaces without intruding on the area. I strongly support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Deben.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
I support the notion, if not necessarily the detail of finding a way of using what is at the heart of our democracy and an area that has Parliament, Westminster Abbey and the Supreme Court, around it, and which is indeed a world heritage site—I shall not get into the issue of whether traffic should be using it—to provide a means of public expression. I mean expression by the public, not those of us who are in the buildings. That is something in which the Hansard Society is interested as well.
My noble friend’s speech was about the amplification of noise and his amendment would extend the prohibitions to the other prohibited activities, which are about putting up tents, having what is called sleeping equipment, and so on. The noble Lord, Lord Martin, may have referred to this, but other noble Lords have focused on noise. If there is to be an extension—I agree that the fewest extensions or prohibitions the better—I wonder whether it is necessary to deal with both aspects.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I thank the noble Lord for elaborating on what he is thinking. I thank him, genuinely, for trying to think positively about how to handle the rightful expression and the disruption to which Members, staff and officers of this House are currently subject because of the excessive noise.
Of course, there are further provisions. The Public Order Act 1986 allows the police to place conditions on static protests or demonstrations. The Environmental Protection Act 1990 allows the police to deal with noise issues. But enforcement lies at the bottom of all these measures at present, and the police need to balance the management of disruption caused by any protest against people’s right to protest—I think we would all accept that.
The police have sufficient powers under the Public Order Act, and the police and Westminster City Council can enforce by-laws that cater for noise issues around the Palace of Westminster. The issue, therefore, is how the existing by-laws are enforced. One would have to say that this is an operational matter for the police and Westminster City Council. That said, I fully recognise the degree of distress caused by the repeated use of musical instruments, loud-hailers and amplifiers in the areas adjoining your Lordships’ House and the disruptive effect that can have. I have been told—and we have heard today—of Peers evacuating their offices to work elsewhere, and of another who has been made to feel physically ill as a result of the noise. This cannot be tolerated.
I propose to my noble friend that he and I meet the Metropolitan Police and Westminster City Council to discuss this issue ahead of Report to examine a way forward in dealing with this problem. I suggest that we also include the Dean of Westminster Abbey. As my noble friend has pointed out, the abbey is also subject to the gross disturbance that amplified sound is now bringing to some demonstrations.
Lord Marlesford
Before my noble friend leaves this point, I remind him—the trouble is, he was not particularly involved in it—of when we were campaigning against what was happening in Parliament Square, which brought such discredit to the whole area and did not add to the credit of Parliament. I had a Private Member’s Bill on this and the argument that was always used was, “Oh, there are lots of powers”, and they quoted quite a number of the Acts of Parliament that my noble friend has just been quoting. It did not work. It was much too complicated for the individual authorities—whether it was the Met, Westminster City Council or the health and safety people—to do anything about it. The Act which was introduced to deal with Parliament Square appears to have been very successful. I suggest to the Minister that, much better than trying to play around with existing legislation which might be relevant to dealing with the problem, let us build on what has dealt with the problem in Parliament Square.
Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill
Lord Marlesford Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Marlesford
“Part 1ALittering from vehiclesCivil penalty for littering from vehicles
(1) A littering contravention in relation to a vehicle occurs when a person inside the vehicle acts in contravention of section 87 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (offence of leaving litter).
(2) A civil enforcement officer may impose a civil penalty if a littering contravention under subsection (1) has taken place.
(3) The registered keeper of the vehicle shall for the purposes of section 87 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 be treated as knowingly causing the littering contravention whether or not he gave any instructions for this to be done and shall be the recipient for a civil penalty under subsection (2).
(4) A civil penalty is not payable under this section by the owner of a vehicle if that vehicle is—
(a) a public service vehicle, within the meaning of the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981;(b) a hackney carriage licensed under the Town Police Clauses Act 1847 or the Metropolitan Public Carriage Act 1869;(c) a vehicle licensed under section 48 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 (licensing of private hire vehicles);and the person acting in contravention under this section is a passenger in that vehicle.(5) The amount of a civil penalty under subsection (2) is to be specified in regulations.
(6) The procedure for imposing a civil penalty on a person and for recovery of costs is to be set out in regulations.
(7) The regulations must, in particular, require the responsible authority to give the person written notice specifying—
(a) the amount of the penalty, (b) the reasons for imposing it, and(c) the date by which and manner in which it is to be paid.(8) Regulations may—
(a) give a person on whom a civil penalty is imposed a right to appeal against the decision to an adjudicator;(b) specify the grounds on which a person may request an appeal;(c) specify the time within which a person must request an appeal;(d) make provision for and in connection with the appointment of adjudicators;(e) make further provision about appeals (including provision as to the powers available on an appeal).(9) The registered keeper of the vehicle for the purposes of this section shall be taken to be the person in whose name the vehicle was registered under the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994 at the time of the contravention.
(10) A civil enforcement officer under this section must be—
(a) an individual employed by the responsible authority, or(b) where the authority has made arrangements with any person for the purposes of this section, an individual employed by that person to act as a civil enforcement officer.(11) A vehicle for the purposes of this section is a motor vehicle as defined in section 185(1) of the Road Traffic Act 1988.”
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, in proposing the new clause in Amendment 22 to provide a new civil penalty for littering from vehicles I seek to insert part of my Private Member’s Bill, which was extraordinarily enthusiastically endorsed by the House, excluding the Minister from Defra, at Second Reading on 19 July. Eight speakers from all sides of the House were good enough to come in on that summer Friday to support it. Since then I have received two placebo letters from Ministers, one from my noble friend Lord De Mauley and the other from my noble friend Lord Taylor. In a sense, they both said the same thing. They both say—this is more or less a quotation—that the Government share my frustration with the problems of roadside litter. I suggest that Governments are not elected to share the frustration of electors. They are elected in the hope that they will deal with the cause of the frustration. We want action rather than words, and I am offering a rather simple form of action to help them.
I wish to replace the criminal offence of littering from vehicles, which does not work, with a civil offence, which would work. The criminal offence does not work because it is necessary to prove who threw the litter from the vehicle. My civil offence would make responsible the keeper of the vehicle from which litter is thrown. It would impose a small fine, which he or she could pass on to whichever person in the vehicle threw the litter, in exactly the same way as if somebody borrows my car and parks it where they should not I get the parking fine. That is not a criminal offence, and it is the right way to do it.
My noble friend Lord De Mauley, in his letter to me dated 16 September, rather surprisingly suggested that:
“Such an approach clearly raises questions of proportionality and civil liberties”.
I would have thought that it did the reverse. He goes on to say:
“Littering is an unnecessary and antisocial behaviour … Littering from vehicles, particularly moving vehicles, is a dangerous form of littering”.
He gets quite excited, because he goes on to say:
“The maximum fine which can be imposed on an individual convicted for littering is £2,500, which is clearly large enough to have an immediate effect on the financial situation of many individuals. Moreover, criminal convictions can result in higher insurance premiums or, in some cases, refusal of insurance. Unspent criminal convictions, including those for littering, also of course show up on any criminal record check carried out by a prospective employer, and must also be declared when applying for visas for travel to certain countries”.
That is a bit of a sledgehammer; I believe that my rather modest little proposal would be effective. The point about the sledgehammer is that not only is it not actually used, but it really is virtually impossible to use it. I hope that the Government, after this long period that we have waited—we have been discussing this for some while—could take some action.
My noble friend Lord Taylor wrote a very nice letter to me, in which he says:
“I recognise that it can be difficult for local authority enforcement officers to identify the offender when littering takes place from a vehicle, but providing for a civil penalty to be issued to the registered keeper … would … risk sending a message to the public that littering from vehicles is less serious compared to other littering”.
Yes, of course it is less serious. My noble friend Lord Goschen is about to introduce an amendment about the much more serious matter of fly-tipping. There is no comparison.
All these things are a matter of degree. We are fortunate in having several noble and learned former Law Lords in the House; I hesitate to say anything about the law because one knows nothing about it compared to everybody else here, but surely, proportionality and all that is very important. That is why I am hoping that the Government will recognise that something should be done about this problem.
Recently, my honourable friend Mr Dan Rogerson was given a new responsibility for the waste portfolio in the Government. He wrote to the waste sector saying that the Government was going to focus on,
“the essentials that only Government can and must do”.
He is putting forward,
“a limited programme of work on waste prevention, focusing our attention on the areas where action is clearly for Government”.
That fits in rather well with what I am proposing.
Since I have taken an interest in these matters, I have been on the close look-out when I have travelled. Certainly, in three countries in Europe this summer, in Arizona in the USA and last week in Hong Kong, I was very struck by how astonishingly clean they all were compared to Britain. It is really rather shocking that not only are we the way we are, but the Government are not enthusiastically supporting the measure I am suggesting or—which I would be perfectly happy with—proposing something better. I hope it will happen. I beg to move.
Viscount Goschen (Con)
My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Marlesford’s amendment, which largely reflects a Private Member’s Bill that the House discussed a while ago. It seems an eminently sensible measure and I look forward to a similarly positive and supportive reply from the Minister. My Amendment 22AA, which is grouped with that of my noble friend, deals with a different issue at the other end of the waste scale: it is to do with fly-tipping.
Fly-tipping is the deliberate, planned commission of a criminal act by the illegal dumping of waste. This is a crime which blights rural areas, including the one in which I live; if I therefore have an interest, I am more than happy to declare it. The scale of the situation is scarcely credible. In 2012-13, according to statistics produced by Defra, there were 711,000 incidents, or crimes, at approximately 2,000 per day. I do not believe—and perhaps my noble friends can correct me if I am wrong—that that includes fly-tipping on private land, and private farmland in particular, which is an increasing phenomenon. That is a great deal of criminal activity but, in the same statistics pamphlet that the department has produced, there is an equally startling statistic. In the same period, only 2,200 prosecutions were undertaken. Another way of looking at it is that only crimes committed approximately on the equivalent of one day per year were brought before the courts. The odds are nowhere near sufficient to deter either the one-off or the serial offender.
Lord Marlesford
My Lords, it really is not good enough to say, as my noble friend has said, “We can’t do everything, so we should do nothing.” If we took what he said literally, absolutely nothing would happen this side of the election. That is not an impressive record for any Government to stand on. I wish one of the legal experts would intervene, but I do not believe that it would be seen as disproportionate or unfair for the keeper of a vehicle to face a small and moderate civil penalty fine of about £80 for having a vehicle from which litter is thrown if that would act as a deterrent.
My noble friend said that nothing is happening in the London area at the moment, but I understand that two London boroughs, Wandsworth and Redbridge, have agreed to pilot the new legislation. One of the problems is that only the Government can ensure that legislation is effective, and they clearly have the responsibility to resolve one particular legislative anomaly: local authorities can contact the DVLA for information on a registered keeper only when it is suspected that a criminal offence has occurred. There is no reason why the amendment could not be redrafted so that, even for a civil offence, local authorities could get the details of the keeper if rubbish had been seen to be thrown from a vehicle. There is nothing undemocratic, unfair or disproportionate about that.
In fact, I would say that my proposal is a great deal more proportionate and effective, because if it were accepted, something would be happening. At the moment nothing is happening and the Minister is saying that absolutely nothing will happen. If the public listened to what is said in the privacy of your Lordships’ Chamber, I am not sure that they might not go out with joy. They would not, perhaps, do as my noble friend Lord James suggested, but they might feel, “Well, this is the moment when we can throw out any bits of paper, because we’ve not only been told that nothing can be done about it—because it can’t be proved that it was us—but we’ve also been told that the Government have absolutely no intention of doing anything about it”. The message seems to be that if we cannot be the cleanest country in Europe, let us ensure that we are the dirtiest. I reject that. I shall, of course, withdraw the amendment, but I shall expect to have talks with my noble friend and I hope that something will be brought back on Report. I may well then test the opinion of the House. I seek leave to withdraw the amendment.
Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill
Lord Marlesford Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, I thank and congratulate the Minister on the illuminating tour he took us on of the Christmas tree that this Bill is, shining his torch on the various baubles hanging on it. Some of them were pretty, some less so. Many of us would agree, frankly, that there is much too much legislation. The Home Office plays its part in that. Very often, of course, these are pieces of legislation brought in to correct defects in previous legislation.
I always remember that when I first arrived here in the days of the John Major Government, the Home Office had persuaded the Government to bring in a Bill, which became a law, saying that judges were no longer allowed to take account of previous offences for which people had served a sentence. This astonishing idea actually got through. It did not last very long. Of course, it was removed. Now we have had the devastating dissection of the drafting defects of this Bill from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. We have a Bill that could be argued as having at least 10 separate Bills contained in it. I am not very good at arithmetic, but to be told that we have five hours for Second Reading will mean, it seems to me, not much more than a half hour Second Reading per Bill.
That may have been agreed between the usual channels. I hope that the usual channels will be more realistic when it comes to Committee stage. We must start to scrutinise these Bills carefully and properly. We cannot go on like this. The House of Commons has no hope of doing so, as was pointed out by my noble friend Lord Hodgson, with the combination of the guillotine and a standing committee which is appointed and cannot bring in particular experts. All these subjects in this Bill are much too important to be sloshed through in such a sloppy manner, as is inclined to happen.
I propose to talk a little about Part 1 and to make a suggestion which I hope will help the Government, and which I hope that my noble friend might look kindly upon, regarding anti-social behaviour. I noticed with interest that in the useful publication which we were given, Reform of Anti-Social Behaviour Powers: Draft Guidance for Frontline Professionals—I was rather flattered to be given a copy of that—the first example of this behaviour was littering. It happens that I introduced to your Lordships a Bill on litter, the Littering from Vehicles Bill, which is still with us. It had its Second Reading on 19 July, when 10 Members of your Lordships’ House took part. All supported it, except the Minister. As a matter of interest, I wonder whether littering came into my noble friend’s 2.2 million anti-social behaviour incidents. I do not think that it can have done because you would have to multiply that figure by about 100. At any rate, the Bill clearly covers litter.
I suggest that the main point in my Bill should be incorporated into this Bill. That point was to introduce,
“a civil penalty for littering from vehicles”,
to make,
“the registered keeper of the vehicle”,
from which the litter was thrown the automatic recipient of the penalty. That would be a change in two respects. First, it moves it from being a criminal offence to a civil offence and, secondly, it greatly simplifies something which in the past has proved unworkable. I was therefore rather disappointed to have a very long letter from my noble friend Lord de Mauley, giving me all the reasons which the civil servants had put forward as to why my Bill was not acceptable. Unfortunately, different people had obviously put different reasons and although those reasons were self-contradictory, they appeared in the same letter.
First, the letter says that the change clearly raises questions of proportionality and civil liberties in its suggestion to make littering something where the keeper is responsible, as he is for parking a vehicle. That is apparently seen as an infringement of civil liberties and proportionality, and was therefore regarded as being much too drastic. Then we have a great thing, which I rather agree with, regarding anti-social behaviour,
“which demonstrates a basic disrespect for the community and the local environment”.
There is one other wonderful bit of it. Regarding keeping the charges as criminal, the letter points out that,
“unspent criminal convictions, including those for littering, will also of course show up on any criminal record check carried out by a prospective employer and must be declared when applying for a visa to travel to certain countries”.
I am not sure that littering is necessarily dealt with by such severity.
The example and the lesson in all this is that when you have something that needs doing, you do it as simply as possible and at as low a level as possible. You do not make things criminal when they do not need to be. The system of criminal offences does not actually work—it is a great pity—because the criminal law requires you to know who has thrown the litter from the vehicle, which people are not prepared to own up to. Nothing can therefore be done and there are no convictions. This is an example where, in a very small way, I would add one little bauble to the Christmas tree, which I hope might be well received.
I do not want to go on very long but I must say one word about the police, because this is so serious. I wonder whether the leaders of the police, particularly the Police Federation, realise just what damage is done by the lack of integrity illustrated by some of the recent incidents. It is about not just public confidence but, I suspect, the willingness of juries to convict on police evidence. I am not a lawyer, but there are plenty here who will say whether I am right. I am glad to say that we had an excellent maiden speech from my noble friend Lord Paddick, who clearly also feels that the present arrangements are unsatisfactory.
I was appalled that the Commissioner of the Met should have agreed, let alone proposed, that the Met should itself investigate the plebgate affair. The public will ask, “What hope have I, if the police can stitch up a Cabinet Minister?”. I am a great supporter of the police and crime commissioners, and I hope that they will take on board, as one of their most important duties, the need to do what they can to improve the integrity of police forces.
Identity Cards
Lord Marlesford Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Taylor of Holbeach
Noble Lords other than me have already pointed out that there is a large number of documents by which people’s identity can be recognised.
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that identity cards are dangerous things because they can be forged but the state does have the right and the need to be able to identify its own citizens? What is needed is at least a unique number. The national insurance number would be an obvious one but you do not get it until you are a certain age; probably the national health number, which you get at birth, would be the sensible one. Would he consider the possibility of amalgamating those two numbers to a number given at birth which could then link citizens to the state?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I am sure within your Lordships’ House there are plenty of people who can recite their national service number. I am not entirely sure that I agree with my noble friend on this. However, the Government are well aware of the importance of being able to satisfy identities in the modern age. The noble Lord, Lord West, referred to the modern age in his question. The Home Office is well aware of this and is looking at ways in which this can be done.
Immigration and Security
Lord Marlesford Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Lord Marlesford
That this House takes note of the relationship between effective immigration controls and the interests of the security of the United Kingdom.
Lord Marlesford
My Lords, the balance between the protection of our national borders and our openness to the world is an area of policy in which the demands of the citizen can arouse the suspicions of a libertarian. This is one of the perpetual and challenging problems of protecting democracy. Any solutions must emerge from the reflections of the philosopher and the imperatives of the elected politician. As a mere observer and commentator on the political process, I seek only to identify some issues, explore the options that are available in our chaotic world and suggest practical decisions that need to be taken.
At no time since 1945 has this country been as threatened by terrorism as it is today. The threat is likely to continue and even grow during the lifetimes of many of us in this Chamber today. During the Cold War, the danger of conflict was both checked and mitigated by the nuclear stalemate. Three decades of Irish terrorism were for us a local difficulty, although certainly not a little one. Today, the world is threatened by a conflict between the theocratic factions of Islam—Sunni and Shia—and their complex and varied subdivisions, such as the Alawites.
Religious struggles can and do last for centuries, during which they wax and wane. This one started more than 1,000 years ago with divided claims to the leadership of the Muslim world. The lack of a pan-Islamic secular leadership is one key to the problem that we face. The man-made borders of today demonstrate fragility, with maps taking on the instability of a kaleidoscope. A cruel civil war is spreading through much of the Muslim world, putting several nations in danger of descending into the anarchy and agony of the failed state. The factional terrorists of Islam seem to unite only in the overriding mission of Islamist jihadists to install a worldwide caliphate under Sharia law. An uneasy concordat between Muslims and Christians is now fragmenting, with mounting aggression against Christians, who are irrationally perceived as representatives of western interests.
A virtue of democracy is its vulnerability to authoritarianism, which is why it must be protected from the inhumanity of theocracy. We in the UK, along with other western nations, are menaced by jihadists, both imported and home-grown. Many people arriving in Britain, including some of those seeking asylum from persecution, bring with them their own political, religious and cultural agendas. My premise is that if a nation cannot defend its own border security, everything is at risk. It is in that context that I suggest that where the survival of democracy is at stake, the human rights of the ideal democratic state must be subordinate, at least temporarily, to national security. The absolutes of death are not part of life and never can be. Nor can our democratically elected politicians put responsibility for our national security in the hands of unelected bodies in Brussels, Strasbourg or anywhere else. That is the road to tyranny.
The proposals that I shall make are neither dramatic nor threatening to our cherished British liberties. They are, in sum, based merely on using the possibilities offered by effective management, combined with technology, to help identify and forestall threats of serious crime and terrorism. I believe that the British people support our security and intelligence services having the powers and facilities that they need to protect us. Our deep-rooted sense of independent justice, and our ancient system of parliamentary democracy, hold the ring against abuse, either from inside or outside, by those powers. I have been to GCHQ and was impressed in particular by the priority given to countering the threat of cyberattack, which is a form of terrorism.
The coalition Government have, rightly, abandoned the proposals for a national identity card. To begin with, it could never be a secure or even reliable means of immediate identification. Secondly, it has historical overtones that are unacceptable. Identification numbers, and passports for travel, are another matter. They have existed in various forms for a very long time. Today’s technology offers far greater efficiency. It goes without saying that the issuing of passports must be protected by the highest security. Some years ago, my noble friend Lady Anelay and I visited the Passport Agency. We were able to identify serious and obvious weaknesses in the system. Recently, as the Identity and Passport Service, I understand that it has been better—but how much better?
It is absurd that the British passport authorities are unaware of what other passports those with a British passport hold. I was warned by security sources five years ago of the danger of terrorists and other criminals concealing their activities through the use of multiple passports. Risk areas include Pakistan, Somalia and Algeria. I am not against people having more than one passport, or multiple nationalities. However, for years I have urged the Government to take steps to establish details of what other passports UK passport holders have. There should be a strict obligation to divulge full details to the British passport authorities, including a photocopy of any other passports held. One response I have had in the past from the Government was that people would not necessarily disclose the fact that they had a second passport. The answer to that is simple: anyone found to have concealed their non-British passport would be liable to have their British passport cancelled. As a British passport is issued under the royal prerogative, there should be no administrative problem in doing that, although a judge could have a part in endorsing the decision.
There are many aspects to the visa question. However, as with nationality, it is absurd that we should be inhibited from discriminating in favour of certain categories of persons who should be given British nationality or visas to come to Britain. We already do so, with some nationalities requiring visas and others not. One of the silliest things I heard recently was the Chancellor, when announcing that Mark Carney, his nominee for Governor of the Bank of England, would take British citizenship, emphasising that Mr Carney would of course not have any preference or priority in his application.
Of course there have to be fast tracks and priorities for those we want, for example genuine businesspeople, as well as bars and vetoes on those we do not want in our country. To deny this is egalitarianism gone mad. Genuine students must be encouraged. They are the future trade links for the UK. I welcome the Government’s new proposals to limit health tourism in the NHS by non-EU nationals. We must also examine the vulnerability of our borders to those arriving from and through Europe. Our national interest must be paramount in formulating immigration policies. This does not, of course, exclude us from continuing to act as a haven for the persecuted, who are, incidentally, often obliged to use false passports to escape from where they are coming.
However, it is crucial that the processing staff who issue both passports and visas should be of the highest integrity, and this has certainly not been the case. The hub-and-spoke system of issuing visas from regional centres can facilitate corruption and sacrifice quality to economy. The staff of the border agency have not only been of inadequate calibre but have proved to be seriously and systemically corrupt. In five years, some 30 members of Home Office staff have received heavy prison sentences—up to nine years in one case and three, four and five years in several others—for misconduct in public office, and the great majority of these were from the border agency. This is so serious that I hope the Minister can tell us that a plan has been made to root out the corruption in an organisation in which these convictions may well be only the tip of the iceberg.
On 25 March, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary announced that the border agency, which is still not fit for purpose, is yet again to be reorganised. I suggest that a Green Paper is needed to say what is to be done, with particular reference to staffing. If we are going to have legislation on this, it should probably be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny. There have been so many disastrous failures, and this time we really must get it right.
I believe that the UK Border Force should be subject to similar standards of discipline and nationality qualification as the Armed Forces; they are, after all, part of the defence of the realm. We now have a new commander of the Border Force, Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Montgomery, who was Second Sea Lord. He faces a great challenge to get a grip of the show. He should be up to it, but time will tell. Meanwhile, I would like to see some of the very able military officers and non-commissioned officers, who are prematurely leaving our Armed Forces because of defence cuts, recruited into the Border Force in positions of command and control. Clearly, members of the Border Force cannot be allowed to continue to take industrial action, as they are at present. They should instead, I suggest, be part of the military covenant.
I come now to the e-Borders system. We are probably one of the least efficient advanced countries in the electronic protection of our borders. I believe that three of the most efficient are Hong Kong, Israel and the United States. It is lamentable that, after enormous expenditure on our e-Borders system, it is still not in sight of completion. When there are so many people who may be intent on harming our society and our nation, it is absurd that we do not know even whether they are in the country. What is the point of laying down conditions for entry that include requirements for departure, as most visas do, when we have no way of knowing whether people who should have left our shores have actually done so? The system will be complete only when every entry and departure is electronically linked to an up-to-date warning list, with records kept for as long as the security forces think necessary. In my view, that is no threat to privacy. I have three questions for the Minister. First, how much has so far been spent on the e-Borders project? Secondly, how much more is budgeted to be spent? Thirdly, when will it be completed?
Finally, I come back to the controversial area of human rights and our national sovereignty. In the debate on human rights on 20 June, my noble friend Lord Faulks referred to the £1.7 million cost of litigation in the Abu Qatada extradition case and the lack of any limit, apparently, to what the taxpayer is expected to fund. Those who our courts have declared a risk to our national security can at present twist and turn at huge financial cost to the taxpayer to avoid or postpone deportation. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, commented in that debate on the “totally disproportionate” cost of British advocates appearing in front of the European Court of Human Rights, who are, apparently, “10 times more expensive” than advocates from other jurisdictions. Resources are limited. Such costs cannot be justified in the face of spending cuts in so many other areas. If extradition is to continue to be subject to the European court, there should be a fast track to that court, so that there is not endless messing around before a case gets there. The European court should itself have a fast track to deal with deportation cases. That could save much time and money, I suspect.
As my noble friend Lord McNally said in that debate, human rights are,
“deep in the political DNA of the British people and of our history”.—[Official Report, 20/6/13; col. 460.]
If, as the old cliche has it, politics is the art of the possible, then the effective control of immigration and the protection of our borders is an equal challenge to all our political parties and leaders, and they should surely be able to agree a policy on a cross-party basis. Such a policy should never—indeed need never—undermine our proud traditions of parliamentary protection of liberty.
Lord Spicer
Before my noble friend sits down, I will make one quick comment, which I think can fit in within the time allocated to him. He mentioned in his brilliant speech that the passport office is getting better. I had the experience recently of trying the fast track. I spent nine hours in the passport office. The main reason it gave me was that it could not communicate between London and Liverpool. That might perhaps prompt my noble friend to think again a little about how efficient it really is.
Lord Marlesford
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for contributing to an important debate on a big and important subject. It represents a huge problem and a huge challenge. I point out to the Minister that this Government have been in power for three years and it is about time that we started getting more results. The situation is still very unsatisfactory. Otherwise, we would not have had only in March the dissolution of the whole border agency.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, condemned accurately and in detail a lot of the symptoms, but I hope that he agrees that a lot of them are a legacy of the policies that his Government left behind and that we have been too slow to change. I am not convinced that they have yet been given sufficiently radical treatment. The committee of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and my noble friend Lord Hodgson could contribute usefully in arriving at a good solution. Putting the admiral in charge of the Border Force is very sensible, but the rest of it seems still very amorphous. I suggest that the Government produce a Green Paper to describe how the border agency, which has been taken back into the Home Office, will be organised. It will probably need some legislation—he has not said that—and this must be closely looked at by Parliament before it is done, otherwise the same mistakes will be made.
My noble friend Lady Hamwee made a very important point about the new era of electronic communications, which has given a different dimension to some of the problems of ensuring our national security through the borders and elsewhere. It is not surprising. Everyone now makes a tremendous issue of the scale at which Governments intercept communications. It is not surprising that they do so, and it would be quite wrong if they did not because the scale of communications has gone up so much. Everybody now can communicate in very sophisticated ways, which enables those who are inclined to crime or terrorism to do things that previously they could not do. The technological revolution in communications has greatly increased the danger from terrorism. The problem is enormous. There is a lot more work to be done, and I hope that the Government will, after three years of cogitation, consult Parliament quite closely on what they propose to do before they do it.
Motion agreed.
Queen’s Speech
Lord Marlesford Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Marlesford
My Lords, I shall start by saying how very much I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, in everything she has said. It is a lacuna in government thinking. There has been so little in terms of imagination about drug policy. If eventually it is possible to decriminalise almost everything to do with drugs, while that would result in perhaps a few more deaths from their abuse, it would certainly result in far fewer deaths from criminal activities related to them. It is a very important subject.
There are many reasons why one week ago the electorate expressed such dissatisfaction with the coalition Government. I do not intend to speak on the most obvious issue, that of the survival of our national sovereignty within the EU at a time when economic pressures are driving 17 of the 27 member states into a political federation. I must mention another factor, and that is the perceived infirmity of purpose. By this I mean the failure to tackle the issues which the people do mind about, and instead diverting Parliament to support the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister in legislating for their passionately and sincerely held personal agendas. They should concentrate on their real responsibilities of defining and delivering national priorities. Indeed, the Prime Minister’s decision to renew the deplorable practice introduced by Mr Blair of cutting short debate by guillotining all legislation in the House of Commons has played a part in devaluing Parliament in the public eye and thus making it less effective. That does not help with good governance.
There is a third factor which is sapping the success of the Government—that of perceived incompetence, especially that of those Ministers who fail to get a grip of their departments and instead allow the Civil Service to drive government at a time when the effectiveness and, sadly, in some cases the integrity of the Civil Service has fallen far below what I remember from my own service in Whitehall during the 1970s. It is a level of incompetence in government which is the more inexcusable since there have been such great advances in the technology of administration and management. To illustrate this, I shall focus on one narrow but crucial issue, that of the guarding of our national borders. This is part of the defence of the realm and there can be few higher priorities, especially for a Conservative-led Administration. On this I have specific proposals to put to the government Front Bench.
Let me first illustrate why it is so urgent. This country is in mortal danger of further terrorist attacks. It is only thanks to the excellent work of the Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service, GCHQ and the police anti-terrorist forces that we have not recently suffered attacks. It is clear that the main threat today comes from Islamist jihadists from both overseas and within the UK whose overall mission is to install a worldwide caliphate with Sharia law. We are all aware of the threat presented to us by Pakistan, which is rapidly turning into a failed state. But I would quote another example, which is that of Egypt. The Egyptian elections were won by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is now regarded as a moderate Islamic—not Islamist—party ready to preside over a basically secular Government, yet 25% of the vote was won by the extreme Salafi movement, which is headed by Mohammed al-Zawahiri, the brother of the new head of al-Qaeda and successor to Osama bin Laden. He has declared that he will accept no element of secular government in Egypt and is quoted as saying that the next world war will be westerners against Muslims.
There can be few areas where the failure of competence has been greater than in the management of the UK Border Agency. There have been periods of inadequate leadership, normally rewarded with promotion, interrupted by gaps without anyone being appointed to the leadership role. After all, it was in May 2006 that the then Home Secretary, now the noble Lord, Lord Reid of Cardowan, denounced the Home Office immigration department as “not fit for purpose”. It was over a year ago that the report by John Vine, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, concluded that the UK Border Agency had,
“poor communication, poor management oversight and a lack of clarity about roles and responsibilities”.
You cannot get much more damning than that.
I was impressed when I met the chief executive of the UK Border Agency, Mr Rob Whiteman, who was appointed about a year ago. He faced a huge challenge. The problem with the staff of the border agency was not just that it was of low calibre but that it had been shown to be seriously and systemically corrupt. As the Minister knows, because he gave the Written Answers, some 30 members of Home Office staff have received heavy prison sentences—I am talking about five, six, seven and, in one case, a term of nine years—for misconduct in public office; the great majority of them came from the border agency.
Last year, the Government split the UK Border Force from the UKBA. On 25 March this year, the Home Secretary announced that the UKBA was to be abolished and its functions absorbed into the Home Office. That is cold comfort in the light of the Home Office performance to date, but we shall see. I myself suspect that the staff of the UK Border Force are still not of the quality that we should expect. The command of it should not have been the temporary appointment of a retired chief constable. Now we have a new commander of the UK Border Force, Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Montgomery, who until recently was the Second Sea Lord. He has a tough challenge and I wish him well. The border force should be reformed as a highly trained and tightly disciplined uniformed force which is not allowed to take industrial action. It should have a clear command and control hierarchy, as do the military and the police. Members should be closely vetted and should have British nationality and only British nationality. It should be under the close control of Ministers, who represent the elected Government. The link between the commander of the border force and Ministers should have the same characteristics as those that Ministers have with the service chiefs. At this time, when Britain’s Armed Forces are being reduced, it should be possible to recruit some really first-class retired officers.
Who is responsible for the endlessly delayed e-Borders system, which is supposed to monitor and record electronically every person coming into or leaving the UK? It cannot, surely, be the Home Secretary and the Home Office board, who have far too much to do, as was announced by the Home Secretary on 25 March. When will it be complete? I would prefer even to see Ken Livingstone in charge. He at least introduced, without glitch, a highly successful electronic congestion charging system for London.
Finally, I turn to the question of passports. The UK Identity and Passport Service has, I believe, done a decent job in recent years in improving the administration of the routine issue and renewal of British passports in peacetime. However, we do not face peace; we face peril. I was warned by security sources five years ago of the danger of terrorists and, indeed, other criminals concealing their activities with the use of multiple passports. I am not against people having more than one passport or, indeed, dual nationality. However, I have for years urged that the Government should take steps to establish details of what other passports UK passport holders hold. There should be a strict obligation to divulge full details to the British passport authorities, including photocopies et cetera, of any other passports held. One response I have had from the Government is that people would not necessarily disclose that they had a second passport. The answer is quite simple: anyone found to have concealed their non-British passport would be liable to have their British passport cancelled.
If the Government do not include some such provision in the legislation for further reforms of Britain’s immigration system announced in the gracious Speech, I shall seek to introduce amendments to do so. I repeat: we are talking about national security at a time of peril and I, at any rate, am not going to let it go.
UK Border Agency
Lord Marlesford Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Lord Marlesford
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Avebury for giving us the chance to talk about the border agency. I pay tribute to the things he said about asylum and to what the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said about immigration policy and the philosophy that should underline it. However, I do not intend to deal with those subjects at all. I wish to put my contribution on the UK Border Agency in a wider political context. There was a time when there were two criteria that decided which political party won an election in Britain: political ideology and competence. The divisions caused by political ideology have virtually vanished, along with the philosophical struggle between socialism and capitalism. However, competence remains a deciding factor. In that, the opinion polls tell us that at the moment the Government are not doing well enough to stay in power, let alone win an election.
There can be few areas where the failure of competence has been greater than in the management of the UK Border Agency. There has been inadequate progress over the 26 months that the coalition has had responsibility for the conduct of our affairs. We now have a state of crisis, which needs emergency action to put it right. The United States took emergency action after 9/11. I had the opportunity to observe the homeland security force that protects America’s borders—and the US has a far greater problem with its long southern border. I also know Hong Kong rather well. It is another place that can teach us lessons in the efficiency of protecting borders.
I say at once that guarding our borders is part of the defence of the realm and therefore of the highest priority, especially for a Conservative-led Government. I will make some specific proposals to remedy the defects and will illustrate the defects by referring to two highly critical reports on the border agency. The first is the report of 7 February 2012 by John Vine, the independent chief inspector of the border agency. The second is the 26 June 2012 response of the Government to the 17 January 2012 report of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee. I shall refer also to some Written Answers that I have received on the matter over recent years.
The first question must be: why did it take 14 months for the Government to set Mr Vine to work? We all knew well before the election that the thing was a shambles. It was, after all, in May 2006 that the then Home Secretary, the noble Lord, Lord Reid, denounced the Home Office immigration department as “not fit for purpose”. What was the reaction of the Civil Service? The head of that department was promoted to head the whole of the Ministry of Defence, which he later left with an even more tattered reputation. Mr Vine concluded that the border agency had,
“poor communication, poor management oversight and a lack of clarity about roles and responsibilities”.
You cannot get more damning than that.
A point highlighted by the Commons committee was the failure to use available modern technology to protect our borders. I will give only two examples. Mr Vine pointed out that there had been no attempt to incorporate the verification of fingerprint systems—on which considerable public money has been spent—to identify any passengers trying to enter the UK using a false identity. The Commons committee complained that the iris recognition system, on which £9 million had been spent, had provided only 12 iris gates. I should emphasise that in the US iris recognition and other advanced biometric systems are widely and efficiently used.
The response of the Government to the report was breathtaking. They merely said that the iris gate was now “planned for closure” because,
“the system is close to the end of its useful life”.
My God! In fact, the failure of the UK iris system was largely due to the ill disciplined, heavily unionised border force being reluctant to use it. Meanwhile, the new facial recognition system also seems to be failing.
I was impressed with the new chief executive of the border agency, Mr Rob Whiteman, with whom I had a long chat. However, he has a huge challenge. The problem with the staff of the border agency is not just that they are of indifferent calibre; they have been shown to be seriously and systemically corrupt. As the Minister knows, because he gave me the Written Answers, some 30 Home Office staff members have received heavy prison sentences for misconduct in public office. The great majority were from the border agency. It was a disgrace.
There needs to be a much tougher recruitment policy, focused primarily on employing those most suited to the crucial role of protecting our borders. I have looked at the application forms for jobs in the agency. They seem more concerned with social engineering, for example ensuring that staff reflect diversity of sexual orientation, than with ensuring that those recruited have the necessary integrity, motivation and discipline. I believe that border force staff, who are not of the integrity that we should demand, should remain state employees. In my view there must be no question of hiving off this crucial role to the private sector; we have already seen enough disasters on that side.
I am prepared to believe for the moment that the Government were right to split the border force from the rest of the border agency, but it is a pity that command should have been given as a temporary appointment to a retired chief constable who is due to leave the job in September. The border force should be reformed as a highly trained, tightly disciplined uniformed force that is not allowed to take industrial action. It should have a clear command and control hierarchy, as do the military and the police. Its staff should be closely vetted and in general should have only British nationality. It should be under the close control of Ministers who represent the elected democratic Government.
At the moment I feel that far too much is left to the control and guidance of Home Office officials. The commander of the border force should have the same link with Ministers that service chiefs have with Ministers in the Ministry of Defence. At this time, when Britain’s Armed Forces are being reduced, it should be possible to recruit some first-class officers who are experts in administration, logistics, planning and management to fill some of these key roles. Whenever there is criticism, Ministers claim—I hope that the Minister will not do so this time—“Oh, it takes time to get it right”. The Government have had over two years, and time is now running out.
I turn to the question of passports. For years I have urged that the Government should always know what other passports UK passport holders have. There should be a strict obligation to divulge full details to the British passport authorities, probably including a photocopy of any other passport held. One response that I had from the Government was, “Oh well, people wouldn’t necessarily disclose the fact that they had a second passport”. The answer to that is simple: anyone found deliberately to have concealed their non-British passport would be liable to have their British passport cancelled.
That leads to the question of e-Borders, on which some £400 million has already been spent. This, too, has been a shambles. I quote the Commons Home Affairs Committee again:
“As of July 2011, the e-Borders system was collecting details of about 55% of passengers and crew on airlines, with no coverage of ferries or trains. The original target to collect 95% of passenger and crew details by December 2010 was missed, as were all other previously timetabled deadlines”.
To this deplorable situation the Government’s response was:
“We believe that the technical ability to collect data from the rail and maritime sector can be delivered by December 2014 … Clearly our preference is to have 100% coverage of e-borders on all routes”.
However, the Government concluded:
“Some benefits of the system do need a higher level of coverage to be valid but not necessarily 100%”.
I hope that the Minister will tell us that the Government expect to get at least 95% coverage on all routes—and by when. If you do not know who left the country, you have not the slightest idea who should or should not be here. It is clear that so far the Government have got their priorities wrong. They need to get a grip on this crucial aspect of our national security.
Queen’s Speech
Lord Marlesford Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Marlesford
My Lords, I rather agree with the noble Lord who has just spoken: it is a little curious that we should have had to use two days of precious parliamentary time to point out to the Government the folly of introducing such an ill thought-out piece of legislation to replace your Lordships’ House. I am going to use my brief moments on another commitment in the gracious Speech—that to,
“establish the National Crime Agency to tackle the most serious and organised crime and strengthen border security”.
That at least is something about which the entire electorate mind a great deal.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, in questioning whether we really need to reorganise the Serious Organised Crime Agency, SOCA, which only started work in 2006. I had the opportunity on 28 March of visiting SOCA with EU Sub-Committee F, which does home affairs, and I was pretty impressed with what I found there. I noticed that the committee’s report on the ELMER money-laundering database had had quite a considerable influence on the practices and what SOCA was actually doing about that, but I do not have time to cover that now.
What I really want is to focus on “strengthen border security”, and to talk about the UK Border Agency. Border security is a crucial element in the defence of the realm and therefore of the highest importance. Every year some 80 million people come in and out by air, 11 million by sea and about 16 million by the Channel Tunnel. However, border security is actually one of Whitehall’s biggest failures, not just under the present Government but going way back—at least to June 2006 when the now noble Lord, Lord Reid, with all the authority of the Home Secretary, publicly denounced the immigration department of the Home Office as “not fit for purpose”. Since then, things have got worse, much worse. The civil servant in charge at the time was of course promoted to be Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Defence.
Over a period of years, I have documented, through Written PQs, the failures of the UK Border Agency. Let me make it clear that the UKBA is not underresourced. It employs over 20,000 people. The problem is in the management of those resources. I have met Mr Rob Whiteman, the new chief executive, and I think that given a free hand and political support he could be quite effective.
I have four criticisms of the UK Border Agency. First, it has proved grossly incompetent. We have all seen the recent shambles of the queues at our airports. The much vaunted e-Borders system has cost £357 million in the four and a half years to October 2011 and is still only partly operational now: only just over half the people who go in and out of the country are covered by it, and it is not expected to be fully operational until 2015. The Home Office could learn a thing or two from Mr Ken Livingstone. Whatever else you think about him, he introduced his e-congestion charge system and it worked extremely well from the word go, and that must have been every bit as big.
The previous Government also scrapped exit checks, which it is said cannot be reintroduced until 2015. Well, if you do not have exit checks, you do not know who is meant to have gone out of the country, so it is a shambles. There are huge gaps in the monitoring of passports.
Secondly, the border force is undisciplined. Others may have seen a report in the press of an incident during the shambles. Angry crowds had gathered and eventually a posse of immigration officers walked in to fill empty desks. Not surprisingly, people who had been waiting for more than an hour gave them a slow handclap. What happened? They walked out again. What arrogance. What insensitivity.
Thirdly, the border force is luddite. The much vaunted iris recognition system has been seen as a threat to immigration officer jobs and is now largely abandoned. Hong Kong has had a superb e-border agency system for more than 15 years. The United States, which I visit quite often, also has a system which works very well.
Fourthly, and most serious, the UK Border Agency is deeply and systemically corrupt. The British government machine has always had a well deserved reputation for integrity, yet in the past six years more than 25 members of the UK Border Agency have been sent to prison for the serious offence of misconduct in public office. They were not minor offences. I will give just half a dozen examples: in March 2008, a Mr Uzoma John-Ayo was sentenced to nine years; in September 2009, a Mr Ali was sentenced to five years; in March 2010, a Mr Quarco was sentenced to nine years; in April 2010, a Ms Eworth was sentenced to six years; in November 2011, a Mr Shoyeju was sentenced to seven years; and in December 2011, a Mr Rammakrishnan was sentenced to eight years. Those are big sentences; they were not sent to prison for little things. If that has happened in one agency, it is appalling.
What should be done? I would be delighted to give the Minister my detailed ideas, but here are one or two for starters. The UK Border Force, which was in March separated from the UKBA, should be put under the operational command of a senior, three-star, retired military commander. I saw Mr Brian Moore, currently in charge of the border force, being interviewed on television recently and I am afraid that I was not impressed. That is probably unfair, but it is necessary to have in command somebody who is really good.
Secondly, the profile and screening of those recruited to the UKBA and the border force should be reviewed urgently. I suggest an emergency review of the integrity of existing staff. Next, the staff should be subject to the same disciplinary system as the police and should not be allowed to take the sort of industrial action which they have taken and which they quite often threaten. Finally, a fresh management team should take a grip on the e-Borders system, integrating it fully with the passport system to secure our borders. I am glad that the Home Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons is looking at the borders system. I hope that we will co-operate closely with it and that the Government will do something serious about it pretty soon.