UK-Rwanda Asylum Partnership Arrangement

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, this provision has been in place since 1999. I do not know if it has been challenged before, but it is certainly a long-standing provision that we think meets our international obligations.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, the Government have clauses in the Nationality and Borders Bill to enable offshoring, which this House continues to oppose. If this legislation is necessary, why have the Government signed a memorandum with Rwanda before Parliament has approved it? If it is not necessary, why did the Government put it in the Bill in the first place?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I think I have explained the provisions in the Bill. They are underpinned by legislation going back over 20 years but, as I explained to the House during the passage of the Bill, it is the certification process that is now in play in the Bill.

Town and Country Planning (Napier Barracks) Special Development Order 2021

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Thursday 7th April 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Paddick]

That this House regrets that the Town and Country Planning (Napier Barracks) Special Development Order 2021 (SI 2021/962) extends the planning permission for the Napier Barracks to continue to be used as asylum accommodation despite (1) a High Court judgment on 3 June 2021, which found standards and operational systems at the barracks to be unlawful, (2) concerns being raised over the unsanitary and crowded conditions, and (3) reports of intimidation and mistreatment of residents; and that, despite the current expiration date on planning permission being known for 12 months, the Order was laid when the House was not sitting.

Relevant document: 13th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument).

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I start by suggesting that there may be a form of discrimination going on in this House. It seems that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, the Minister, always seems to get last business on the day before Recess. I know she is far too diligent and industrious to complain herself, so I thought I would put that on the record.

I move that this House regrets this order, which permits continued use of Napier barracks despite a High Court judgment which found standards and operating systems at the barracks to be unlawful, with concerns being raised about unsanitary and crowded conditions and reports of intimidation and mistreatment of residents.

The 13th report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee of this House drew the House’s special attention to this order. The fact that Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration and the High Court had concluded that Napier barracks was unsuitable for long-term use, should have been disclosed to Parliament, yet there was nothing in the order nor in the Explanatory Memorandum about those things. It criticised the Explanatory Memorandum for lacking detail about proposed improvements to the living accommodation and amenities on site and said that better arrangements for physical and mental health care were a matter of urgency. The committee also criticised laying what was in effect an emergency provision, when the date of the current planning permission had been known for 12 months in advance, reporting

“we found this reason for laying a potentially controversial instrument when Parliament was not sitting unconvincing.”

This House recently discussed Napier barracks being used to house asylum seekers in our debates on the Nationality and Borders Bill. On 3 February, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, who regrets she cannot be in her place today, told the Committee that the APPG on Immigration Detention had received evidence, all of which was “overwhelmingly negative”,

“from stakeholder organisations and from those with experience of living in Napier”—[Official Report, 3/2/22; col. 1014.]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, whose contribution to that debate I am relying on heavily today.

Placing large numbers of asylum seekers into one location is not good for integration or good relations with local people, providing a focus for anti-immigrant protest, including harassment of asylum seekers. The larger the centres, the less the residents feel that their humanity is recognised and the more likely the centres are to attract hostile attention, working against social cohesion and integration.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I probably should not have brought this aspect up. As I am going on to say, these centres are not detention centres; people are not detained in them. Therefore, it may be something to do with the pandemic, but if I am wrong in my assessment of why people might be inside, I will clarify that. I am assuming that they may have been self-isolating, when the restrictions were quite severe on absolutely everybody in this country.

Going back to the continued use of Napier, following the outcome of NB and others’ litigation in June 2021, the Home Office progressed work to ensure that the department could continue to use the barracks and avoid any potential breach of planning control given under permitted development rights. These were due to expire in September of last year. Given the urgency to ensure that there was additional capacity in the system and the statutory obligation on the Home Office to provide support to destitute asylum seekers, the only viable option was to proceed with a special development order. I should add that the tenancy agreement with the MoD confirms that the site will be handed back in March 2025—in three years’ time—to support the full decommissioning of the site.

On the conditions of the site, I note comments by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, about Napier. Maybe I just listened to what I want to hear, but the right reverend Prelate seemed to confirm that things had significantly improved; although they were not absolutely perfect, things had improved significantly at the site. As I have said, the site is used to provide temporary accommodation for around 300 otherwise destitute adult men for up to 90 days. The average length of stay is about 70 days. Service users staying at Napier are free to come and go as they please—they are not detained at Napier. The accommodation at Napier meets our statutory obligations. It is safe, warm, dry and it provides a choice of good hot meals, as well as proper laundry and cleaning facilities.

Turning to the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, a significant amount of work has been carried out to make improvements to the conditions at Napier barracks—hence, possibly, the right reverend Prelate’s comments about it. There is a prescribing nurse; dental care is provided on site, and there is access to local GP services. There is also a prayer room and a multifaith room. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham confirmed, sports and recreational activities have been re-introduced. Additional furniture, table-tennis tables and a library have been installed, and CCTV and night-time courtesy patrols have also been put in place. The Home Office has significantly improved the management and oversight at the site, with an emphasis on identifying issues early and ensuring that the accommodation is safe and well maintained. The frequency of inspections and visits has also increased.

Finally, all residents of Napier have been offered Covid-19 vaccinations. There is Covid-related signage in multiple languages, and residents have been provided with personal cleaning kits. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, who asked about isolation if Covid is detected. Given that the general regulations have changed for the wider population, I imagine that it is in line with that, but I will provide more information to him if I can.

We have engaged with community stakeholders, including charities and NGOs, in relation to the site. There are regular meetings at which matters relating to the site’s operation are discussed and issues can be raised. These meetings are attended by Home Office officials, alongside representatives of the NHS, the UK Health Security Agency, the police, Folkstone and Hythe District Council and Kent County Council. In addition, several NGOs sit on the Home Office strategic engagement group and the National Asylum Stakeholder Forum, where they can raise concerns and receive updates on the site.

We have recently welcomed the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration to Napier to conduct a follow-up inspection at the site. We look forward to the publication of his report, which may identify further ways in which we can improve the service provided there. We remain fully and firmly committed to delivering an asylum system that is fair and effective and works in the interests of both the people of this country and those in need of refuge and sanctuary.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Baronesses who have spoken in this debate, and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede. I thank them for raising other important issues and for their support for this Motion. I also thank the Minister for her response.

Whatever the pressure on the asylum system, and whatever the problem, Napier barracks is clearly not the answer. The Minister kept talking about destitute asylum seekers. Most asylum seekers are destitute—for example, those fleeing the war in Ukraine. She appeared to choose to ignore the findings of the report from the APPG on Immigration Detention, published today, which I summarised. Both the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and I asked about further centres similar to Napier— whether they were being planned, developed or brought into use. These plans appear to be surrounded in secrecy. The lack of an answer from the noble Baroness today unfortunately adds to that. I think she is going to intervene on me now.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I am, because there is no conspiracy here. I completely neglected to answer both noble Lords on that point. Obviously, we keep our asylum accommodation estate under constant review and I will update the House with any developments if new centres are considered.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

I am not sure whether that was an undertaking by the noble Baroness to write to us with any details of plans in the pipeline. She is nodding, so that is helpful.

It is regrettable that Napier continues to be used to house asylum seekers but bearing in mind that we are at the end of a very long Session, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.

Ukraine: Refugees

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Wednesday 6th April 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, for securing this debate and for her powerful opening. I wish the Minister well with his maiden speech. He has had a few dry runs, so expectations are high.

Can the Minister confirm that, as of Sunday, only 1.6% of the 32,000 who have applied to come to the UK from Ukraine had actually arrived? The Government have apparently assumed that refugees are not wanting to move too far away from Ukraine, but it looks increasingly likely that other factors may be the cause. The Telegraph reports cases of permission to travel letters being sent by the Home Office but not being received by the intended recipients. A government spokesperson said that they were aware of a “technical issue”. What is that issue, how many families are affected and has it been resolved?

On Twitter this morning it was alleged that only one member of each family was being granted a visa, meaning that the family, wanting to stay together, was unable to travel to the UK. This was responded to by someone else who said that only two out of three visas for his family had been issued. Is this conspiracy or cock-up? Is this a deliberate move by the Home Office to keep refugees out of the UK or are applications from the same family not being cross-referenced and dealt with together? It appears that, whether by accident or design, the actions of the Home Office are preventing even those granted visas from travelling to the UK. The Home Office estimated on 18 March, when the refugee schemes opened, that it would be able to process 10,000 visas in that first week, but it actually achieved less than one-tenth of that. Can the Minster confirm that he has set a target of 15,000 a week and say when he expects to achieve it?

In the Telegraph today, it is alleged that the Foreign Office is refusing to provide staff to help to process visa applications, saying that it is the Home Office’s problem. It has also been suggested that, despite being offered bonuses to work overtime and rest days, processing is likely to be impacted by staff taking time off over the Easter holidays. Are these factors going to impact on the Minister’s ambitions and are, as has been suggested, things going to get worse before they get better? Can he also confirm that he has set a target of 48 hours to process an application for a mother and child, but that it is currently taking on average a week, and that phase two, whereby organisations and businesses can offer accommodation to Ukrainian refugees, has been delayed until after Easter?

The Minister is quoted as saying:

“We did not have, and we’ve never had, a proper system of administering the mass flow of people from abroad.”


This House passed amendments to the Nationality and Borders Bill to ensure that the Government set up and maintain the necessary systems, processes and support to local authorities to be able to cope with the sort of influx of refugees that we are currently seeing from Ukraine. If the Minister is correct, this would appear to be desperately needed. These delays are causing distress and costs that people cannot afford. Families here in the UK are desperate to offer a home to Ukrainian refugees, and Ukrainian refugees are stuck abroad with no money and nowhere to live.

According to the Telegraph, British families are paying thousands of pounds to keep refugees in hotels in places such as Warsaw, which they can ill afford, when they have spare rooms that the refugees could move into today. Sponsoring families are being left out of pocket and emotionally drained. Families who were linked up two weeks ago under the Homes for Ukraine scheme are still waiting for their visa applications to be processed and are not being given any information about progress.

Delays are being blamed on decades-old technology, with security checks being undertaken on a limited number of specialist terminals in secure parts of designated Home Office buildings, identity documents being processed through a second system and decisions being taken on a third, where data from the other two systems is entered manually. Can the Minister confirm that?

If these delays are inevitable, as the Minister apparently thinks they are, why do the Government not process refugees here in the UK, rather than before they travel? Why is it that almost every other European country is able to provide visa-free entry, but the UK is not? The Home Office is blaming No. 10 for insisting on a separate bespoke system for Ukrainian refugees. Others are blaming MI5 for insisting on security checks, while others say that the security services have no security concerns. Others are quoted as saying that the Home Office is insisting on putting security checks above everything else. On the one hand, we are hearing that Priti Patel was in favour of a much more open scheme to allow Ukrainian refugees to come to the UK, but her plans were vetoed by Steve Barclay, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, but on the other hand we are hearing that MI5 had strong views on the need for checks, so not doing so was never really considered by the Home Office. Can the Minister please explain where the truth lies?

Another reported excuse is that the Home Office wants to avoid “Windrush on steroids”, where thousands of people would be left without the necessary documentation to claim welfare, education, jobs and healthcare. But refugees with permission to travel letters are being told that when they present themselves at the UK border they will be given an entry stamp in their passport and that they can then use the stamp in their passport to access jobs and services. I ask again: why can they not be processed on arrival?

When the refugees arrive, local authorities are asking for a clear framework for housing checks, guidance on safeguarding beyond the initial DBS check and a clear steer on what to do when placements break down and require rematching. They are having serious issues with data quality, including access, duplication and missing information. Families are arriving under the family visa route with nowhere to live and children are getting visas under the Homes for Ukraine scheme and arriving without an accompanying adult. Some councils are being told that the £10,500 is only for the first year and it is only available under the Homes for Ukraine scheme in any event, although those coming via the family route also need access to council services. Third-party support services, such as translation services, ESOL and healthcare, particularly mental health care, are receiving no additional funding. Can the Minister explain what additional support will be made available for those services?

Finally, can the Minister confirm that work on other visas, such as work, study and Afghan visas, has been stopped, as all staff are diverted to deal with the Ukrainian crisis? What will the implications be on other visa applications?

We are here to hold the Government to account. We need clear answers, if the Minister can provide them, or does he, like us, see a good deal of willingness surrounded by a great deal of confusion, inefficiency and ineffectiveness?

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 4th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Motion T1, which refers to the electronic travel authorisations to which the Minister referred. The amendment would make anyone who was legally resident in the Republic of Ireland able to travel to Northern Ireland without such an ETA. This issue was discussed both in Committee and on Report. The House agreed with those of us who argued that this was wrong, but of course the House of Commons has not. The arguments remain the same. I was hopeful that the Minister, who I am sure will have spoken to her colleagues at the Northern Ireland Office, would make some concessions on this matter. However, the dead hand of the Home Office is there again.

This troubles me for a number of reasons. First, it jeopardises strand 2 of the Good Friday agreement, which refers to north/south co-operation between the two parts of the island, which was vital when the agreement was negotiated. It affects tourism, as the Minister referred to. She said that tourism was a good thing. We all agree with that, as do all the stakeholders, but the Government have to do something to ensure that it remains a good thing. If we charge €14 for an ETA—with the bulk of American tourists, for example, coming from Dublin to go to the north of Ireland to enjoy the great pleasures of tourism there—that is going to be a question of jeopardy as well.

In addition to that, and perhaps more significantly for those who live in both the north and the south of the island, there is the issue of health. Many people in Northern Ireland and in the Republic travel the border to go to the best place for the particular ailment or disease from which they are suffering. Particularly up in the north-west of Ireland, the co-operation between the two Governments is immense. I would be troubled if someone who was not necessarily an Irish or British citizen but was legally resident in the Republic was not able to take advantage of those co-operation decisions by both Governments.

The other issue here is work. It is quite possible that someone could work in the Republic and live in the north, or vice versa, who was not an Irish or British citizen but was legally in the Republic because of their membership of the European Union .

Secondly, there is an issue with regard to the spirit of the Good Friday agreement, which in my view has been jeopardised by this government decision. The border is different in Ireland; it is not like any other border in the European Union. Although I do not normally read tweets, I read one the other day from the noble Lord, Lord Frost, who had got worked up about this issue and was talking about the fact that the Irish Government did not seem to think this was an international border between two countries. What does he think we were doing for year after year when we negotiated the Good Friday agreement and the St Andrews agreement? We were dealing with the border as part of the peace process. There are 300 crossings along that border with no apparatus to check people, yet now we get a completely different way in which people must apply to the bureaucrats in order to cross it.

The border is a great symbol on both sides of the community in Northern Ireland, which is why the border being put down east/west has caused such a fuss. But the reason why this proposal by the Government is simply daft is that it is unenforceable. The Minister has told us what the Marshalled List states and says the reason why these ETAs are essential is to stop people of interest or people who are risky, whether they be spies, terrorists, criminals or other ne’er-do-wells, from crossing the border. Does she really think that those people are likely to pay €14, fill in an ETA form and then cross the border? Of course not. It is nonsense because it cannot be enforced. If the border had apparatus at all 300 crossings then that might be possible, but it does not.

Some of your Lordships who are as old as me will remember Gilbert Harding. He once had to fill in a form to apply for a visa to go to America, and on the visa form was the question: “Is it your intention to undermine the Government of the United States?” His answer was “Sole purpose of my journey”. That is in a way similar to this. At the end of the day, it is unenforceable, impractical and unnecessary, and it jeopardises the relationship between two countries. Ireland and the United Kingdom are the joint guarantors in international law with regard to the Good Friday agreement. The noble Baroness knows that the Irish Government are very upset about this for all sorts of reasons; there have been discussions between Ministers even at the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference, set up by the Good Friday agreement. Is it really worth jeopardising our relationship—which has been bad enough as it is over the last number of years—with this petty and silly proposal by the Government? I would like the Government to change their mind, but I am not hopeful.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I have Motion M1, Amendment 20B, in this group but I will speak to the other Motions in order so that I speak only once.

As we have heard, this group deals with Chagos Islanders, stripping a person of their citizenship without notice, criminalising anyone arriving in the UK who claims asylum other than through a safe and legal route, criminalising those who rescue migrants from the sea, electronic travel authorisations in relation to the border on the island of Ireland and pushbacks in the Channel. We support Motion A in relation to the Chagos Islanders, but we are disappointed that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, has said, a fee will still be charged before their right to British Overseas Territories citizenship or British Dependent Territories citizenship is officially recognised. Is that wrong?

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

I thought I had said it, but in the Commons, it is on the record that no fee will be charged, nor will there be a character test. It will be done through the fees order; that is why it is not in the Bill.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. It is a shame that it is not in the Bill but, if that undertaking has been given, we can perhaps trust the Government on this occasion.

We are pleased that the Government have adopted the safeguards proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, before someone can be deprived of British citizenship without notice; we believe this will reverse the recent increase in the number of cases and, hopefully, reduce it to almost zero. We agree with Motion B1, Amendment 4G, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, to remove the validation of previous deprivations of citizenship without notice, which the courts have held to be unlawful. As the Government acknowledge, the “Anderson safeguards” are necessary, so the Home Office should go back over existing cases of deprivation of citizenship without notice, applying these safeguards to ensure that they are lawful.

We agree with Motion L1 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, as a mechanism for preventing those arriving in but not entering the UK, and then claiming asylum, from being criminalised. For the Government to say that only egregious cases would be prosecuted is not sufficient, as the fact that arriving in the UK and then claiming asylum could be a criminal offence would have a chilling effect on those legitimately seeking refuge in the UK; this is, of course, exactly what the Government intend by their Motion L.

I ask the House to support my Motion M1. The Government want to criminalise those who facilitate those entering the UK without the correct prior authority, even if those doing so are not people smugglers and not acting for their own gain. The perhaps unintended consequence is that those rescuing drowning migrants in the English Channel, for example, commit an offence unless the rescue is co-ordinated by HM Coastguard or an equivalent organisation. The Government propose a defence, once charged, if the rescuers are genuine good Samaritans, and again claim that only the most egregious cases would be prosecuted. This, again, is not sufficient, as it could have a chilling effect on would-be rescuers who knew that they would be committing an offence if they attempted rescue without prior coastguard authority were the House to agree with Motion M. How many might drown before the rescuers were able to contact HM Coastguard and enable them to co-ordinate the rescue?

Instead of a defence once charged, Motion M1 proposes that the offence is committed only if a person facilitates entry to the UK without reasonable excuse. Rescuers would then know that, provided they are acting in good faith, they would not be prosecuted, but people smugglers would not have a reasonable excuse and could be prosecuted. The Government’s suggestion that people smugglers might pretend to be genuine rescuers is, quite frankly, ridiculous, as there are likely to be many witnesses, in the form of the migrants who have paid large sums to the people smugglers, that this is not the case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in the interests of time I will forbear from commenting on the geographical and climatic differences between the UK and Canada.

I offer Green support for all the amendments from Motion E1 onwards; my noble friend has already spoken on Motions C1 and D1—that is, on all the non-government amendments. On Motion E1, I will simply say that I wish to strongly applaud everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, said. It was plain common sense about the best outcome for asylum seekers and for the UK, and I commend her bravery in working on this issue.

I find Motions F1 and G1 the most difficult. I entirely understand and sympathise with the desire to make the Bill less bad in this area, but they still condone third-country processing. About the Australian third-country processing that this was modelled on, Human Rights Watch commented that the

“abusive offshore processing policy has caused immeasurable suffering for thousands of vulnerable asylum seekers”.

It noted that

“seven people have committed suicide”

in this process and said that

“children have been terribly traumatized”.

If we even pass a law that allows third-country processing, whether or not it is ever actually implemented, this will be a stain on Britain’s international reputation, as the practice has been a huge stain on Australia’s international reputation. The Government talk about global Britain; the globe will look at Britain and say that Britain is doing something utterly unconscionable if we even move to allow it, let alone actually implement it.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, in Motion C the Government claim that the provisions in Part 2 are compliant with the UN refugee convention—in which case, they should have no objection to Motion C1 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, which puts such an assertion on the face of the Bill to ensure that the courts are able to test Part 2 against the UN refugee convention. In accordance with the Government’s claim in Motion C, the Government must surely agree with Motion D1 that, whether the Government categorise a refugee as falling into group 1 or group 2, as set out in the Bill, none the less, both groups must be given all the rights under the UN refugee convention. If not, Part 2, contrary to the Government’s claim in Motion C, would not be compliant with the UN refugee convention.

My noble friend Lady Hamwee has dealt with Motion E1 on the right to work, and Motion H1 on family reunion, which we also support. We hesitate to support Motion G1 in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, because it leaves offshoring on the face of the Bill. We totally, absolutely and completely disagree with offshoring but my understanding is that we are running out of options other than double insisting on the removal of the provisions from the Bill, which, I am told, would have serious consequences. Therefore, we will vote for Motion G1 to force the Government to secure the approval of both Houses for each country they propose to use for offshoring, by means of the affirmative resolution procedure once they have laid before Parliament the estimated first two-year costs for operating such a system for each country. Once Parliament has seen the countries that the Government propose to use for such an abhorrent practice, and the costs involved, we hope that no Parliament would approve such a practice.

The Ukrainian refugee crisis and the lamentable shambles created by insisting that those fleeing Putin’s war must have a visa to enter the UK, with the Home Office being unable to cope with the numbers of applications, clearly demonstrates the need for there to be appropriate resourcing, infrastructure and support for local authorities permanently in place to cope with such crises before they arise. Before Ukraine it was Afghanistan, before Afghanistan it was Syria; we need systems and processes in place to deal with these crises. The Motion in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham seeks to achieve this without the previous set annual numerical target, instead allowing the Secretary of State to set the target and to put in place such measures as are necessary to achieve that target. Of course, we also support the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, in his Motion K1 in relation to those fleeing genocide.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, that less than 20% of immigration to the UK in recent years has been asylum seekers, and the Bill deals only with that 20%. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Horam: where are the provisions that specifically target people smugglers in the Bill? These policies target what he himself described as victims, and only the victims.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, I will attempt to be brief, as I am sure the House would now like to hear the Government’s response rather than listen to me at any great length. On Motion C1, proposed by my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti, as has just been said, if the Government are convinced that Part 2 is compliant with the convention and indeed agree with the principles that it should be so compliant, why should they be opposed to nailing their colours to the mast on this crucial issue and making this clear in the Bill by accepting this amendment?

On Motion D1 on differential treatment, to which the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, spoke, as well as a number of other noble Lords, this new version of the previous Lords amendment disagreed to by the Commons deletes the subsections which provide for differential treatment of refugees. Instead, it provides that the Secretary of State must guarantee both group 1 and group 2 refugees all their rights under the convention and ensure that family unity can be maintained. I only make the point—I do not want to repeat all the points that have already been made—that under the Government’s plans for the Bill, a person who had fled Ukraine and travelled across Europe to get here could not be a group 1 refugee because they would have passed through other countries rather than “coming here” directly. At best, they would be group 2 refugees and could be treated as having committed a criminal offence for having reached this country without prior authority or a pre-approved claim. That is the reality of what differential treatment of refugees, which the Government are so determined to implement, can actually mean in all its harshness in respect to people currently fleeing for their lives from a war happening now in Europe.

On Motion E1 on the right to work, the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud and indeed other noble Lords have more than covered all the arguments in favour. It is just interesting that the Government have always argued in other situations that people should be in employment rather than requiring benefits, even though a considerable percentage of those in work also qualify for benefits because of low pay. The Government have reversed their stance with asylum seekers since the Government deny them the ability to work for 12 months and then only in specific circumstances, even though many asylum seekers want to work, have the skills to work and would be contributing further through paying taxes and not claiming more than minimal benefits. Reducing the qualifying period for being able to work for six months would also encourage the Government to work harder at providing the necessary resources to determine a much higher percentage of asylum applications within a six-month period.

I need to speak a little longer on Motion F1. I have put down a new version of our Amendment 8 that still provides that the Government may not commence their inadmissibility provisions until they have safe, formal returns agreements with third states. This time, though, our amendment has a sunset provision, since we have to put down a different amendment, which means that it delays the commencement of Clause 15 to allow time for international agreements to be put in place, but after five years that protection will lapse so it does not block the plans indefinitely. However, frankly, if the Government have not managed to negotiate any international agreements over the span of five years, one would hope they would take a hard look at the plausibility of their plans in the first place—clearly, they intend to use Clause 15 and its provision on a significant scale, or at least one must assume so.

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Moved by

[Lord Paddick]

At end insert, “and do propose Amendment 20B to the words so restored to the Bill—

20B: Page 41, line 40, leave out “omit “and for gain”” and insert “for “for gain” substitute “without reasonable excuse””

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Thursday 31st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to a couple of the other Motions before I speak to Motion C1 in my name. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Rooker on securing the government amendment and moving the Government away from their position and coming forward with an amendment. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Rooker’s work: he has been an example to us all about how to change legislation. But, to be fair to the Government as well, it was good to see them responding sensibly to the points that my noble friend made; they deserve some credit for seeing sense.

On the important work that the noble Lord, Lord Russell, has done with the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, and many others on misogyny and other associated issues, I say that he is another example to us all of how to give bring about change. The Minister’s comments at the Dispatch Box today show real progress with respect to that. All of us will want to see the progress that is made, and I was particularly struck by the way that the Minister said that she would keep the House updated. That is particularly important, and I thank her for that.

This is a hugely important issue. Many promises have been made over a number of years and perhaps now, given the horror of some of the things that have happened over recent times, maybe this is a sea-change moment when we will see real progress made—so I again pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and many others.

We support Motion D1, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. It is crucial in opposing the Government’s noise provisions as it removes the proposed noise trigger for public assemblies. On the wider question of police powers to put conditions on static protests, this new version of the clause proposed by the noble Lord responds to the concerns raised by Ministers and proposes a compromise in line with the JCHR—but I will leave the noble Lord to say more about his own Motion D1 and I look forward to hearing it.

My Motion C1 maintains our previous position that the noise trigger should be removed in full. Our Amendments 73 and 87 remove the Government’s proposed noise trigger, which would allow the police to put conditions on marches or one-person protests which get not “noisy” but “too noisy”. The Government have still not made the case that the power is proportionate, and the more we ask, the less they seem to know about how it could possibly work in practice. For example, the government Amendments 73C and 87H on “serious unease” show that the Government are still in a hole and still digging in recognising that there are problems with the definition of what “too noisy” means.

To indulge noble Lords for just a few minutes, the new subsection inserted by Clause 56(5) has the wording that

“it may cause such persons to suffer serious unease, alarm or distress.”

The Government propose to take out “serious unease”: that is the compromise. We welcome the word “unease” going, but, of course the Government have also taken out “serious”, so we now have a situation where they have lowered the threshold as a compromise—which is a ridiculous point to arrive at and just the shows the confusion.

As noble Lords know, it is really important to read the background notes to all of this. I thought that I must be reading an old version, but it is dated 28 February 2022, so it is updated. The policy paper is entitled Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill 2021: Protest Powers Factsheet. The Minister in the other place said that it did not matter that “serious” was missed out, because actually everyone knows that it still means serious, even though it has been taken out of the Bill. So I refer to the background. The policy paper was published by the Government on 28 February. I will use it as an example of the hole that the Government are in in trying to define “too noisy”. They cannot do it. There are breaches of the peace as it stands already—but anyway, let me read this:

“This power can only be used when the police reasonably believe that the noise from the protest may cause serious disruption to the activities of an organisation or cause a significant impact on people in the vicinity of the protest. ‘Impact’ is defined as intimidation, harassment, serious unease”—


which will be taken out, which is fine, but the Government’s own background paper says

“serious alarm, or serious distress with the police then having to consider whether the impact is significant.”

So the background policy paper published by the Home Office is now out of step with the amendment that the Government propose to the Bill. “Serious” is no longer there, so, instead of having “serious unease” and in the same sentence “alarm or distress”—in other words, “serious unease, serious alarm or serious distress”—that has been taken out.

Now I am not an expert on these things, but I would say to noble Lords that I would expect in court that serious distress would be more serious than just distress. Now I am not a genius, but I am also sure that if I were in a court and said that it is serious alarm, that would be a higher threshold than alarm. I may be wrong: I leave that to others to judge. But that is the compromise that the Government have come forward with.

In other words, to come forward with me saying all the things that I will come on to in a minute about other things, they are saying, “We’ve got to say something else, Coaker will be off again”. Well, I am, because it does not make sense. I am using humour to demonstrate a really serious point. By legislating in this way the Government show that they do not know what they are doing on “too noisy”. Instead of retreating in a managed, orderly way, they are panicking—“What do we do? How do we do something? We’ve got to say something”—and they come up with this in such haste that they do not think it through properly and they take the word “serious” out, as well as “unease”. I just say to noble Lords, “It just goes on”.

Of course, we then had the famous double-glazing incident, which many noble Lords said to me afterwards could not be true. I just referred them to the guidance. They went away and read it and said, “Goodness me, it does say double-glazing.” I thought the Government might retreat on double-glazing. For those noble Lords who were not here, for it to be too noisy, there are certain thresholds the Government have laid out, so we can understand what “too noisy” may be. So, for example, it says

“A noisy protest outside an office with double glazing may not meet the threshold”.


So, I posed the question that, therefore, what you would need to do if you were having a demonstration and were going to make a lot of noise would be to look at the street, or the area you were going to be in, and look for double-glazing. You could make sure, because if you were demonstrating in a street with double-glazing, you would be fine, even if you made too much noise. However, if you went down an older street that did not have double-glazing, then you would be in trouble.

I had to read it a few times. I actually read it to my wife and said, “Have I misread this?” She said no. But it is such a serious point: this is what we are asking the police to use. In demonstrations in future, the police will be asked to consider whether a demonstration is too noisy on the basis of the number of houses that have double-glazing. Unbelievable.

I thought the Government would retreat, and then it somehow got into the Times, and it must have been a great headline for the Government—they must have been really pleased—

“Police and crime bill: Noisy protests to be silenced by double glazing inspections.”


That was the headline in the Times of 25 March, if noble Lords missed it. That must have made interesting reading in the Home Office. I would have liked to have been the Minister going to report to the Home Secretary on that. “Who signed it off?” was the question I always asked. I thought the Home Office would retreat, but no. So that is the headline for the article: the double- glazing.

I stress again that I am trying, through humour, to make a really serious point about how noisy is too noisy. So, here we go again. I do not know about noble Lords, but I would have retreated. I am sure the Minister would have retreated as well, had it been up to her—I will leave her to answer that—but instead, listen to this, from the Times.

“The Home Office defended the guidance, insisting that it was one of many considerations that the police may have to take into account … ‘It is perfectly reasonable to suggest the type and construction of a building targeted would impact on the level of outside noise that penetrates through’.”


So we are now getting into the thickness of walls—old buildings, sound-proofed or not—and so it goes on. We have gone from double-glazing to the thickness of walls as to where we can demonstrate.

I highlight again that definition bedevils legislation—I accept that—but we have to be really careful with “too noisy”. Where will it apply? This is something that needs proper investigation. Other hypothetical situations where the “too noisy” provisions would not apply, as well as where there is a lot of double-glazing, would be where a protest

“only lasts a short amount of time”.

You can make as much noise as you want as long as it only lasts a short amount of time. The guidance says that

“the same amount of noise over several days”

might be an issue. So, if you do it for six days, you are all right, but if you do it for several days, you have a problem.

Then listen to this:

“A noisy protest in a town centre may not meet the threshold”.


So the towns are going to be excluded from the “too noisy” provisions. Again, how are the police going to decide what a town centre is? It does not include London, presumably, because that is a city, but does it include a suburb of a city? If it goes into the suburbs of London, is that a town centre? In Nottingham, we call lots of the suburbs “towns”. What is a town centre? It does not apply there. Somebody said to me, “I thought the Government’s levelling-up agenda was about including towns”, but a noisy protest in a town centre may not meet the threshold.

I have given those examples of the guidance the Minister has had to show that the Government are in real trouble on “too noisy”. What the Government are asking us to do is to pass a piece of legislation that has a provision in it that is unworkable, ill-defined, illogical and will not work. That is not the job of legislators. There is controversy, there is difficulty, there is difference of opinion, but silliness and ridiculous legislation is not acceptable.

I just say to finish, before I move to Motion C1, that I know and accept that the Government do not want to ban protest—it is ridiculous to suggest that the Government are against any protest; I do not believe that. Nor do I believe that the Government really want to undermine the ability of people to protest, but I do say this: we should erode that right, even with the application of certain conditions, only with very serious care.

Many people, including me, have protested time and time again, and conditions have been put on those marches. A number of noble Lords have been in Governments that have been the victims of massive demonstrations—I am talking about legal ones. No Government in the past have ever sought to restrict demonstrations on the basis that they make too much noise. Margaret Thatcher did not do it; John Major did not do it; David Cameron did not do it; Theresa May did not do it; why on earth are we doing it now? It will not work; this condition is anti-democratic and it sends a signal to people that is unacceptable. It is an infringement of people’s democratic right to protest and we should reject it again.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, Motion D1 is in my name, but I shall take the Motions in order. On Motion A, we are pleased the Government have decided to give the Food Standards Agency the Police and Criminal Evidence Act powers that it is seeking.

On Motion B, we do not see the Government’s amendments in lieu, Amendments 72C and 72D, to be any kind of concession, in that the Government are duty-bound to respond to the Law Commission report on hate crimes in any event. We support the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, in his Motion B1, Amendments 72E and 72F, that police forces should be forced to record or flag offences aggravated by sex or gender by means of primary legislation set out in the Bill as this is the only practical way to ensure 43 autonomous chief constables comply.

I am not quite sure about the Minister’s arguments about the complexity around sex and gender: in relation to hate crime, it matters not whether the victim is somebody born a woman or is a trans woman, only whether the assailant believed that the victim was a woman and was motivated by hatred of women. I fear the Government are just looking for excuses. Having said that, misogyny is a problem in the police and in society as a whole, and we do need urgent action. With the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, and Stella Creasy MP on the case, progress may be slow, but it is inevitable.

On Motion C, the so-called noise trigger in relation to processions, it is very difficult to follow the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, on that issue, but we agree with his Motion C1 that the noise trigger should not be part of the Bill in relation to processions or static protests, as I will come to in a moment in relation to Motion D. As the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said when we last considered it, these measures are not sensible or practical. I may be incorrect, but it seems to me that the larger the protest, the more popular the cause, the more likely the protest is to be noisy and therefore the more likely it is to be banned. Only a very unpopular cause, which is not going to be as noisy, will go ahead, if we are not careful.

As Liberty has pointed out in its useful briefing, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, the body whose report is relied on by the Government to justify the measures in Part 3, did not examine or support the establishment of a noise trigger. In evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for public order did not reference or advocate for a new power based on the noise that protests generate. I repeat, outside London—where the chief police officer and her deputy are appointed by the Home Secretary—the majority of police forces said police officer numbers were the limiting factor in effectively policing protests, not a lack of legislation.

On my Motion D1, Amendments 80J and 80G, we continue to be concerned about what the then Conservative Home Secretary said about the difference between processions and assemblies when the original public order legislation was debated in the other place. He believed that giving the police the power to ban an assembly would be an excessive limit on the human rights of assembly and freedom of speech.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Paddick]

Leave out from “House” and insert “do insist on its Amendment 80 and on its disagreement with the Commons in their Amendments 80A, 80B, 80C, 80D, 80E and 80F, do disagree with the Commons in their Amendment 80H, and do not insist on its Amendment 80G but do propose Amendment 80J instead of the words left out of the Bill by Amendment 80—

80J: After Clause 55, insert the following new Clause—
“Imposing conditions on public assemblies
(1) Section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 (imposing conditions on public assemblies) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1), after the third “held,” insert “the time at which (but not the date on which) it is to start and conclude,”.
(3) After subsection (2) insert—
“(2A) For the purposes of subsection (1)(a), the cases in which a public assembly in England and Wales may result in serious disruption to the life of the community include, in particular, where—
(a) it may result in a significant delay to the supply of a time- sensitive product to consumers of that product, or
(b) it may result in a prolonged disruption of access to any essential goods or any essential service, including, in particular, access to—
(i) the supply of money, food, water, energy or fuel,
(ii) a system of communication,
(iii) a place of worship,
(iv) a transport facility,
(v) an educational institution, or
(vi) a service relating to health.
(2B) In subsection (2A)(a) “time-sensitive product” means a product whose value or use to its consumers may be significantly reduced by a delay in the supply of the product to them.”
(4) After subsection (10A) (as inserted by section 57(11)) insert—
“(11) The Secretary of State may by regulations amend subsection (2A) or (2B) for the purposes of making provision about the meaning for the purposes of this section of serious disruption to the life of the community.
(12) Regulations under subsection (11) may, in particular, amend either of those subsections for the purposes of—
(a) defining any aspect of that expression for the purposes of this section;
(b) giving examples of cases in which a public assembly is or is not to be treated as resulting in serious disruption to the life of the community.
(13) Regulations under subsection (11)—
(a) are to be made by statutory instrument;
(b) may apply only in relation to public assemblies in England and Wales;
(c) may make incidental, supplementary, consequential, transitional, transitory or saving provision, including provision which makes consequential amendments to this Part.
(14) A statutory instrument containing regulations under subsection
(11) may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.””

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

I wish to test the opinion of the House.

Homes for Ukraine Scheme

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

It should not be my job always to agree with the questions that are asked but, in this case, I totally believe in the sentiment that the right reverend Prelate expressed. I am looking at every aspect of the visa process to speed it up. The Home Secretary and I have personally spent hours with officials, including at weekends, looking at ways that we can speed this up because, if the security checks are put in place—which they are—it seems to me that there is no reason why people applying on the internet, or indeed at a visa centre in the countries adjacent to Ukraine, should not be able to get a response really quickly to allow them to come here. I cannot stand here for a long time using the excuse that I am new to the job, but I promise the right reverend Prelate and noble Lords that this is an absolute top priority.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, whatever their advice, the security services advise Ministers, but it is Ministers who decide. Why is almost every other European country—Ireland, for example—content to allow Ukrainian refugees to enter visa-free while the UK is demanding a visa before entry? Do our security services not liaise with our allies? Instead of security, is it because such an approach would contradict the proposed inhumane treatment of refugees in the Nationality and Borders Bill?

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

I cannot comment to the noble Lord about the security services, except to say that I have not seen the advice that they have given to the Prime Minister. However, my instructions are to speed up this process as quickly as possible to move an uncapped number of people here in a humanitarian and decent way. It is my intention to deliver that promise.

Police and Crime Commissioners: Budget

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, his membership of the Conservative Party is clearly a matter for the Conservative Party. Whether he should continue as PCC, as I said earlier to the noble Lord, Lord Bach, is entirely a matter for the electorate.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, what power does the Home Secretary have to overrule police and crime commissioners—for example, if they refused to increase police numbers to achieve the Government’s planned 20,000 uplift, or when the Mayor of London forced the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis to resign? If the Home Secretary did not agree that Dame Cressida Dick should go, why did she not intervene at the time, rather than commission an inquiry after the event?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Clearly, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service has given notice of the end of her tenure. It appeared to be quite short notice, although she has yet to depart. I understand she will be departing in April and I join the Home Secretary in paying tribute to her work. I say to the noble Lord that the police are operationally independent and the PCC sets the direction for the local area. If the public in that area are not happy, they have the remedy at the ballot box.

Daniel Morgan Independent Panel Report

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

In July last year, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary was asked by the Home Secretary not to reinvestigate the Daniel Morgan murder but to consider opportunities for organisational learning from all the Daniel Morgan investigations and reviews, and to assess how the Metropolitan Police Service responded to them. In other words, the investigation set out to establish what the force had learned from its failings and whether they could occur again.

This discussion on the Statement will perhaps inevitably tend to concentrate on the serious adverse findings of the HMICFRS investigation. However, the investigation comments favourably that the Met Police force

“solves the vast majority of homicides it investigates … The force’s capability to investigate the most serious corruption allegations is particularly impressive … Other forces regularly call on the Metropolitan Police’s expertise. The force’s confidential reporting line also works well. The force has even introduced a dedicated team to support ‘whistle-blowers’ … the Metropolitan Police has … greatly reduced the number of its personnel who have not been security vetted.”

The Daniel Morgan panel concluded that the Metropolitan Police Service was “institutionally corrupt” but the HMICFRS investigation

“found no evidence of any deliberate or co-ordinated campaign to intentionally frustrate the Panel’s work”

and concluded that the Metropolitan Police Service was not institutionally corrupt, based on the evidence that it had seen.

The investigation report contains five causes of concern, 20 recommendations for change and two areas for improvement. The five causes of concern are in addition to other relevant causes of concern raised in previous inspections. I am not going to go through all the recommendations, but the investigation report concluded that there were

“serious areas of concern which have been, and continue to be, present in the MPS. It is essential that the MPS should be more open to criticism and prepared to change where necessary, including by implementing our recommendations. A further failure to do so (without good reason) may well justify the label of institutional corruption in due course.”

The foreword to the investigation report states:

“In too many respects, the findings from our inspection paint a depressing picture. The force has sometimes behaved in ways that make it appear arrogant, secretive and lethargic. Its apparent tolerance of the shortcomings we describe in this report suggests a degree of indifference to the risk of corruption … If public confidence in the Metropolitan Police is to be improved, they”—


that is a reference to the 20 recommendations for change—

“should be among the Commissioner’s highest priorities.”

Our thoughts remain in particular with Daniel Morgan’s family, for whom this report will surely be deeply upsetting—I congratulate them, however, on their doggedness in pursuing justice.

I shall make a few points. First, the Met Police Service should accept all the recommendations included in the report and implement them in full. We need an overhaul of police standards, including reviews of vetting, training, misconduct proceedings and the use of social media. The forthcoming appointments to head the inspectorate and the Met Police will be crucial to restoring trust in the police to the level we should all wish to see.

Running down police numbers year on year, totalling some 20,000, and then trying to build up the number again, all over the past decade, will, frankly, not have helped and will have played its part in creating uncertainty, not least in relation to resources, for those who lead our police forces. In that connection, the inspectorate has identified problems with policing on a national basis.

Much needs to be done. Perhaps we now need to look with greater clarity at the role and responsibility of PCCs in relation to the way their police forces are run and function. At present, this appears to be rather too grey an area. We seem, too, to have had and still have a lot of inquiries and investigations under way into the Met Police and the police on a national basis—perhaps too many.

Leadership and action are needed, and to provide that nationally, the Home Secretary is the key player. As the current crisis around the police nationally, not least in London, is so concerning, that action is required now, not after a further delay of many months or years awaiting the outcome of endless further reports and investigations. It is time for political leadership, which is what Ministers nationally are meant to provide. So what specific action does the Home Secretary intend to take now?

I conclude by saying that, despite this largely adverse investigation report, I place on record again our support for the crucial work that the vast majority of police officers do on behalf of all of us, every day of the year, up and down the country. We all need to work together to restore widespread confidence in the unique relationship between the public and police, and in policing by consent.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I associate myself with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in relation to the Daniel Morgan family, and remind the House that I was a Metropolitan Police officer for more than 30 years, holding the equivalent of deputy chief constable rank when I was forced out of the police service for being open and transparent about what was going on inside the Metropolitan Police Service—which I will refer to as the MPS.

Honest, decent police officers are being let down by the corrupt few, and by senior officers who do not take corruption seriously enough. As the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, said, some positive claims are made in the HMICFRS report about the MPS supporting whistleblowers and its capability to investigate the “most serious corruption”. Can the Minister give an example of the result of an investigation where a whistleblower has been supported, and an example of the successful prosecution of a case of the “most serious corruption”? It is one thing to point to systems and capabilities; it is quite another to prove that they are effective.

The rest of the report is devastating. In response to the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel report, the MPS claimed:

“The Met is working hard to root out corruption.”


Instead, HMICFRS says:

“We set out to establish what the force has learned from its failings and whether they could recur. We looked for evidence that someone, somewhere … had adopted the view that ‘this must never happen again’”—


but it could not find anyone.

In a catalogue of failings—I have time to mention only a few of them—HMICFRS found that: the MPS does not know whether all its sensitive posts, such as those for child protection, major investigation and informant handling, are filled by people who have been security cleared; 2,000 warrant cards of police officers who have left the MPS are unaccounted for, which these former officers could use to masquerade as serving police officers, with the potential for another Sarah Everard-type tragedy; and hundreds of items including cash, jewellery and drugs could not be accounted for, meaning that vital evidence could have been disposed of by corrupt officers. It also found that officers could be pocketing money and valuables and, potentially, dealing in illegal drugs that had been seized from criminals. This has happened before and could very easily, apparently, be happening again. I could go on, but there is no time.

HMICFRS concluded:

“Since 2016, we have repeatedly raised concerns with the Metropolitan Police about certain aspects of its counter-corruption work, including … its failure to adopt … approved counter-corruption recording methods … Our advice largely went unheeded.”


If this was a local authority department, the Minister responsible would have placed it in special measures and sent a team in to take over the running of it. Instead, the Minister in the other place tries to blame the Mayor of London.

The Metropolitan Police has national responsibility for such important issues as the security of the Royal Family and protection of government Ministers, and for terrorism. That is why the Commissioner and the Deputy Commissioner are in law appointed by the Home Secretary, having regard to the views of the Mayor of London. Even if the Government insist that responsibility lies with the Mayor of London, their inability to take direct action is the result of the system of police and crime commissioners, which includes elected mayors, that the Conservative Government introduced. So which is it? If the Government can directly intervene, why will they not, and if they cannot, when are they going to change the system of police and crime commissioners so that they can?

The security of this country is at stake, let alone the trust and confidence of Londoners, and the Government wash their hands of it. When are the Government going to take some responsibility and take action to deal with this totally unacceptable situation?

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

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for the points that they have made. I join them in conveying our thoughts to the Daniel Morgan family, some 35 years after their trauma and heartache began.

On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, about the reply to the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel, the Home Secretary will do so once she has received responses from the Metropolitan Police Service and others. It will be done as soon as she possibly can after that. He also made a point about whether the Metropolitan Police Service is institutionally corrupt. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, pointed to the fact, which I would agree with, that most police officers are honest and very hard-working people. They are trying every day to keep the British public safe and we should not tar them all with the same brush, because that would be demoralising and not true, although I recognise what the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel said.

It is also interesting to read in the report that some of the processes that the Metropolitan Police Service is not following are actually evident in good practice across the country. Nevertheless, the Home Secretary has commissioned ongoing work for police forces across England and Wales.

On the points about arrogance, secrecy and confidence in the police, I have stood too many times at this Dispatch Box and heard those words quoted back at me. It is evident that although this report provides a really important start in trying to improve things within the Metropolitan Police Service, there is an enormously long way to go. I totally agree with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, about forthcoming appointments for the Met commissioner and the head of HMICFRS; I expect both appointments to be made shortly.

In answer to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, about what the Home Secretary is doing now, he will know about the work she commissioned from Dame Elish Angiolini, which addresses several points mentioned today, including culture and corruption, and the work that is ongoing with the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. As I said, the Home Secretary has also commissioned ongoing work with HMICFRS in these areas.

Moving on to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, the question about examples of whistleblowers being supported is very interesting. I suspect that, by the very nature of the investigations that take place, we would not necessarily publicly hear about whistleblowers. However, this area will probably be touched upon in the work that Dame Elish Angiolini and the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, are doing. I wholeheartedly support his dismay at the comment made in the HMICFRS report that nobody said that this must never happen again; that is depressing.

On the point the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, made about sensitive posts and vetting, the report clearly commented on sensitive posts and said that vetting needs to be looked at across those posts because the parameters are not clear. I also support his point about money and gifts, because the position is by no means clear in the Metropolitan Police Service. I know it is a matter for them, but police forces will want to look at that because, again, the approach is by no means consistent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My noble friend makes a very good point because in reading this report I observed that the Metropolitan Police is very good at doing the big things and that some of the important details, such as vetting, internal corruption, gifts, evidence and the things my noble friend talks about, were less focused on. That is something that the Metropolitan Police will have to answer through its action plans in the short and long term. On training, I expect to see it much more consistent throughout the force, but I think that perhaps in focusing on the big things the Metropolitan Police has neglected important details of the job.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

With the leave of the House, I shall ask a question for clarification. I thought I heard the Minister say that the Home Secretary would respond once the Metropolitan Police had given its response to the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel report. My understanding was that the Metropolitan Police gave its response last week, which was then largely contradicted by the HMICFRS report. If I am right, can the Minister tell us when the Home Secretary is likely to respond to both reports?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I was responding to the response to the findings of the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel report. I understand that the Home Secretary will be returning to the House to update on progress once she has received responses from the MPS and others.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Motion A1. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, on his introduction and support his amendment. Organised food crime costs billions and the police have far more urgent priorities to deal with. Food-borne illnesses cost money in lost earnings and even in some cases result in death. In the current food shortage scenario, it is open season for the unscrupulous to take advantage and exploit the public by producing and selling adulterated food that is not fit for human consumption. They avoid prosecution while the police are completely overstretched. This amendment would assist the FSA to act to prevent future food scandals. I fully support the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and urge the Government to accept this very sensible amendment.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, we support Motion A1 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. Compared with other important issues that the House is considering today, it is a relatively minor one. None the less, it will save no time if we abstain, so if the noble Lord divides the House, we will support him.

On Motion J, although the repeal of the Vagrancy Act is very welcome and something for which Liberal Democrats have been campaigning for many years, it is unfortunate that the Government are still insisting on delaying the repeal of the outdated and unnecessary Act until replacement legislation is in place, as we believe that existing alternative legislation is sufficient. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, I heard the Minister say that the Government will commence, not conclude, repeal in 18 months—I wrote it down. If I am right and the noble Lord is wrong, can the Minister tell us how long it will take to repeal the Act in its entirety?

On Motion L, serious violence reduction orders will allow the police to stop and search people without any suspicion that those targeted have anything on them at the time they are stopped and searched that they should not have in their possession. It is another form of stop and search without suspicion, which is notorious for being ineffective. It is even less effective at finding weapons than stop and search based on suspicion and it is disproportionately focused on black people, even compared with stop and search based on suspicion. As a consequence, it is notorious for the damage that it causes to the relationships between the police and the communities they are supposed to help. The Government’s own impact assessment shows that these measures will disproportionately impact black communities and fly in the face of the Government’s response to the report by the independent Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities.

The police need to work together with communities suffering serious violence to build trust and confidence and to demonstrate that they are on the side of the community—not using powers disproportionately against it, as these new powers, by the Government’s own admission, will continue to do. Even Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services says that the disproportionate use of powers against certain communities is “undermining police legitimacy”.

Like the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, we have concerns. We believe that serious violence reduction orders are likely to make serious violence worse, as they further alienate the very communities the police need to co-operate with to identify the perpetrators. However, we have reluctantly agreed to see how SVROs, arguably a manifesto commitment, work in practice in a limited number of pilot areas. We supported an amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, on Report that would have strengthened the proposed pilot evaluation and prevented SVROs from being introduced beyond the pilot phase until a report on the pilot had been laid before Parliament and both Houses had agreed to the rollout.

The Minister has given assurances that the pilot will be independently evaluated and that the Government will not continue with the scheme if it proves, as we suspect, to be ineffective or counterproductive. The evaluation must include crime reduction outcomes and community impact assessments. Given those reassurances and the Government’s strengthening of the pilot evaluation, we have agreed with the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, not to insist on her amendments, but we will be watching the pilots very carefully and listening to the communities affected, whose trust and confidence in the police is essential if knife crime is to be tackled effectively.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

There are three issues in this group and I wish to say something about all of them. Starting with Motion A1, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, for sending me a copy of his letter of 22 February to my noble friend Lord Rooker on Lords Amendment 58, which relates to the Food Standards Agency. As the letter says, the amendment gives powers available to the police under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 to the National Food Crime Unit of the Food Standards Agency. However, the Commons disagreed with the amendment, giving this reason:

“Because it is premature to confer new search and seizure powers on the Food Standards Agency until the accompanying accountability arrangements, including in respect of the handling of complaints about the exercise of such powers, have been determined.”


Yet Lords Amendment 58 does not lay down a specific date or timescale by which powers available to the police under PACE have to be given to the National Food Crime Unit. It simply says:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations apply any provisions of this Act to investigation of offences conducted by officers of the National Food Crime Unit in respect of search and seizure.”


If I am right, the Commons reason suggests that the Commons and the Government never actually read the terms of Lords Amendment 58. That is surprising, since the letter from the Minister to my noble friend Lord Rooker states that

“the Government agrees in principle that these powers should be conferred upon NFCU officers in order to support their vital work tackling food crime.”

There is no argument about whether the powers should be given, but simply over when they should be given. Lords Amendment 58 would give the statutory authority to the Secretary of State to give those powers but leaves it up to the Secretary of State to decide when the time is right. So what is the problem with the amendment?

The letter from the Minister goes on to say:

“Food crime is a very serious issue and empowering the NFCU to investigate these offences independently will ensure that their specialist knowledge is put to best use and that the burden on police forces is reduced”.


Yet the Commons and the Government have disagreed the amendment. The Minister goes on to say that

“further work is required to fully work through the implications of these proposals to ensure that any exercise of police powers by a non-police body is necessary, proportionate and legitimate and that suitable governance and accountability arrangements will be in place”,

and:

“For these reasons we have tabled a motion to disagree with Lords amendment 58”.


But Lords Amendment 58 does not say that the Secretary of State has to do it; it would simply give the Secretary of State the necessary statutory power to do it if and when the Secretary of State so wishes, which is the point being made by my noble friend Lord Rooker. Frankly, the Government really are struggling to think of a credible argument why Lords Amendment 58 should not be accepted.

The powers currently available to the Food Standards Agency under food law relate to the enforcement of regulatory matters. The NFCU investigates cases of serious crime, often involving offences such as fraud. However, the FSA’s existing powers do not sufficiently equip the NFCU to investigate these crimes fully and lawfully, and to collect evidence to the higher standard needed to prove criminal intent, without the support of partners in the hard-pressed environments of policing or local authorities.

As part of the FSA, the NFCU already has access to sensitive law enforcement powers around directed surveillance, securing communications data and the management of convert human intelligence sources. But NFCU officers have not yet been given essential investigatory powers, including the power to apply to courts for warrants to search premises and seize evidence, or to interview suspects without police officers present. The unit has to rely on the support of partners, including the police forces, to carry out these activities. This means that the courts are not hearing from the experts familiar with the cases, which can increase the likelihood that warrants are not authorised.

As I understand it, competing demands on police time have led to delays in several NFCU investigations. At present, the NFCU needs the police to go to court and swear warrants on its behalf, so investigations are delayed if the police decline or take time to do so, or if the court refuses to authorise the warrant, which is more likely if the person swearing it cannot answer questions about the case. The NFCU also needs the police to be present when warrants are executed, which can lead to delays in the unit being able to carry out searches or seize critical evidence if the police have other priorities. As I understand it, the evidence seized then needs to be taken into police custody before it can be transferred to the NFCU. These issues can and do create delay, which is a problem in running a live investigation and trying to gather evidence before it is moved or destroyed.

I understand that NFCU investigations have been impacted by all the issues to which I have referred. I am also advised that the FSA’s view is that these additional powers are essential to enable the National Food Crime Unit to properly investigate and pursue complex food crime cases. As has been said, this was also identified as a gap in its systems to keep food safe in the independent review by Professor Elliott in I think 2014 following the horsemeat scandal.

In the Commons debate on this Lords amendment, the Minister said that the chairman of the Food Standards Agency had written to the Minister for Crime and Policing on 11 August 2021, expressing concern that the existing powers of the National Food Crime Unit were insufficient for their purpose. The Minister responded in October by expressing support for the request and indicating the Home Office’s intent to work with the NFCU to find a suitable legislative vehicle.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for his comments and to all noble Lords who participated in this short debate. I will try to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, that we fully recognise the need to make quick progress with the consultation on extending Police and Criminal Evidence Act powers to the Food Standards Agency and then to introduce the necessary legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows.

The noble Lord very properly pushed me on a credible argument for this. I refer back to one of the paragraphs in my opening remarks: we specifically need to work with the National Food Crime Unit, the Independent Office for Police Conduct and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services on establishing a formal independent oversight framework for the NFCU’s exercise of these powers and the potential for the NFCU to be brought under their respective jurisdictions. The noble Lord referred to gangmasters; that is what happened with the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority. That is likely to require other legislative changes in addition to those provided for in Amendment 58. The issue is one of linked legislation. I have no doubt that the noble Lord will monitor this closely and I will ensure that he is kept informed of all developments. I hope that, on that basis, he will not press his Motion A1.

My noble friend Lord Young of Cookham asked about our commitment to commencing the repeal of the Vagrancy Act just as soon as we have consulted on and legislated for replacement legislation. The noble Lords, Lord Paddick and Lord Rosser, asked me precisely when. Perhaps it would help to clarify this if I read out what the Minister said in the Commons:

“On the undertaking that I was asked to give about the Vagrancy Act, let me say that 18 months is a maximum. If we can act faster, we will, but intensive work will obviously be required to get us there.”—[Official Report, Commons, 28/2/22; col. 855.]


My noble friend Lord Young asked about the consultation. All I can say is that it will take place this spring.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, quite rightly asked why the House will not necessarily have a debate on the SVRO pilot. We have done this because, subject to the Bill receiving Royal Assent, we expect the pilot to take two years, having started in early 2023. It will then take some two or three months to complete the evaluation. That timetable firmly takes us beyond the life of this Parliament. I hope that the noble Lord understands that it would not be right for me to commit a future Government or Chief Whip to provide parliamentary time to a debate on the report of the pilot. That is not within my gift or anyone’s gift. But we have said that in principle we endorse the case that has been made for such a debate and we understand the concerns. Therefore, we commit to sending all noble Lords the terms of reference for the independent evaluation of the pilot once they have been finalised and to lay a copy of those in the Library of the House.

In conclusion, I hope that, in the light of the Commons amendments in lieu providing clarity in the Bill on the matters to be addressed through the pilot and the observations about affording this House the opportunity to debate the pilot report, the noble Lord, and indeed the whole House, will support Motion L when we come to it.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

I am still confused, despite what the noble Lord read from Commons Hansard. There will be consultation and replacement legislation, but will the repeal start in 18 months’ time or will the Vagrancy Act in its entirety be repealed in a maximum of 18 months? I am still not sure.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I go back to the statement that I just read: 18 months is a maximum for this issue to be resolved.

--- Later in debate ---

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

My Lords, in moving Motion B, with the leave of the House, I will also speak to Motion M. Amendment 70, originally tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, and passed by this House on Report, would require the Secretary of State to

“establish a review into the prevalence of, and the response of the criminal justice system to, the offence of administering a substance with intent under section 61 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003”.

As I have made clear previously, the Government share that concern about spiking, whether it is spiking of drinks or by needles, which has prompted this amendment and we are taking the issue very seriously.

In September last year, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary asked the National Police Chiefs’ Council to review urgently the extent and scale of the issue of needle spiking. We still have much to learn, as the noble Lord acknowledged at the time, but it is clear from what the police have told us that the behaviour is not exclusively carried out with the intention of perpetrating a sexual assault. Sometimes, financial crime might be a motivation. Indeed, many reported incidents do not appear to be linked to any secondary offending at all. It seems that sometimes the act might be an end in itself, yet all examples of this behaviour are serious in their impact on the victim and in the fear and anxiety felt more widely by those seeking simply to enjoy a night out.

It is also clear that we need a response that goes beyond the criminal justice system and encompasses health, education and the night-time economy. In the Commons, therefore, the Government tabled Amendment 70A in lieu, which is drafted more broadly. It requires the Home Secretary to prepare a report on the nature and prevalence of “spiking”—which, for these purposes, we are defining as

“intentionally administering a substance to someone without their consent and with the intention of causing them harm.”

The report will also set out the steps that the Government have taken or intend to take to address it. The Home Secretary will be required to publish the report, and lay it before Parliament, within 12 months of Royal Assent.

I hope that this addresses the concerns that underpinned the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, but in a way that enables the Government to consider the issue in the round. In addition, the Government are looking at whether creating a new offence specifically of spiking would help the police and courts to tackle the issue. If we need to take action to do this, we will not hesitate to do so.

Amendments 141 and 142 provide for bespoke new offences to tackle so-called sex for rent. We are very clear that exploitation through sex for rent has no place in society and we understand the motivation behind the amendments. However, as I previously explained, there are two existing offences in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 that can be, and have been, used to successfully prosecute this practice, including the Section 52 offence of causing or inciting prostitution for gain. We recognise the need to stamp out this terrible practice and support those at risk of exploitation. Again, on Report I set out some of the actions that we have already taken, including producing updated guidance for prosecutors and measures in the forthcoming online safety Bill to tackle harmful content on the internet.

We recognise that we need to go further. We are determined to act on the concerns that have been raised on this issue, both in your Lordships’ House and in the other place. Accordingly, we will launch a public consultation before the summer to invite views on the issue of sex for rent and, as part of this, we will look at the effectiveness of existing legislation and whether there is a case for a bespoke criminal offence. Following our commitment to undertake a consultation on this issue, the Commons disagreed with the Lords amendment by a majority of over 100.

All sides of the House share the heartfelt desire of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, to do more to tackle spiking and sex for rent. We are fully committed to doing so. We will publish a report on the nature and prevalence of spiking and the actions that we are taking in response, including consideration of the case for a bespoke offence, and we will be consulting before the summer on the issue of sex for rent. In the light of these clear commitments, I invite the House to agree Motions B and M. I beg to move.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group were introduced by the Official Opposition and we supported them. We welcome the Government’s undertakings in Amendment 70A in Motion B to prepare and publish a report on spiking, for example of drinks, intentionally and without a person’s consent and with the intention of causing harm, so as to establish the extent of the problem and therefore to inform what measures need to be taken to address it.

We also welcome the Government’s commitment to undertake a consultation on whether the existing law in respect of requiring or arranging sexual relations as a condition of accommodation—so-called sex for rent—needs to be strengthened. The prevalence of the phenomenon and the lack of prosecutions under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which the Government believe covers these scenarios, indicate that such action is likely to be necessary. We are grateful to the Official Opposition, particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, for raising these important issues and securing government action to address them.

--- Later in debate ---

I respectfully commend the noble Lord, Lord German, for raising this issue and ensuring that it was fully debated by both Houses. I am particularly grateful to him and the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames. He is not in his place, but I thank both noble Lords for their sustained engagement with me and my officials on the issue, which I and my officials have found extremely helpful. However, for the reasons set out, I respectfully invite the House not to insist on Amendment 107 and invite the House to agree Motion C and, in due course, Motion K. I beg to move.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, in relation to Motion C, one of the main recommendations of the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel, led by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, was for the police to be subject to a statutory duty of candour, as has been introduced into the National Health Service, and Lords Amendment 71 sought to establish that. The Government with their Amendment 71A, in Motion C, claim that police officers are already under a duty to co-operate during investigations, inquiries and formal proceedings and that it would be premature to add such a provision pending further consideration by the Government.

The provision to which the Minister referred makes a lack of candour a matter for police misconduct proceedings, except in the most serious cases where a complaint is made by someone who is not a member of a police force and who is directly affected by the conduct. Whether a police misconduct investigation is held, or misconduct proceedings are brought, is a matter for the relevant chief constable of the police force concerned.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services has today published a report in which it describes the Metropolitan Police’s approach to tackling corruption as “not fit for purpose”. Publishing the report, Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary, Matt Parr, said:

“It is unacceptable that 35 years after Daniel Morgan’s murder, the Metropolitan Police has not done enough to ensure its failings from that investigation cannot be repeated. In fact, we found no evidence that someone, somewhere, had adopted the view that this must never happen again.”


That is why we need a statutory duty of candour. In the case of the issues covered by the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel, there was systemic and institutional withholding of information by the police sanctioned at the highest level. Arguably, the current Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, who as an assistant commissioner decided to withhold essential information from the panel, would have had to order an investigation into herself under the provisions that the Minister is relying on.

The provision that the Government are relying on is not fit for purpose in the circumstances of police cover-ups, even when there is a member of a police force who is a whistleblower, because the whistleblower is a member of the police force and cannot bring a complaint against his or her own force. However, work is ongoing by the families of the victims of the Hillsborough disaster and the family of Daniel Morgan to ensure that a comprehensive, effective and legally binding duty of candour is imposed on all public institutions. Therefore, we have reluctantly decided not to insist on Lords Amendment 71.

In relation to Motion K, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, for clarifying that there is no legal barrier to local authorities setting up and running academies and for the Government’s acknowledgement of the important role that local authorities have played in the past in running secure accommodation for young offenders.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

There are, as has been said, two issues here, the duty of candour and secure academies. I note what the Minister said on the duty of candour and must say that our views are rather more in line with those just expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. One might think it rather odd, particularly at the present time when trust in the police appears to be at such a low level, that the Government and the Commons decided to disagree with such an amendment, but it is their prerogative to do so.

As the Minister said, this issue is not going to be dropped. There are people within Parliament, including ourselves, and people outside Parliament, to whom reference has been made, who intend to pursue the issue of a duty of candour. I think I am right in saying that the Minister referred to the fact that the Government would further consider the position—indeed, that is given as a reason for disagreeing—and that they would come up with conclusions later this year. While indicating that we intend to pursue the issue, we will, with some reluctance, leave this in that context. It is certainly not going to be pushed to one side now. It will be pursued and we will wait to see what conclusions the Government come up with later this year. The issue of trust in the police is a serious matter and I know the Government agree. We need to make sure that the mechanism is in place to improve the levels of trust that currently seem to exist.

On secure academies, the Government and the Commons have disagreed the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord German, which would put explicitly in the Bill that local authorities can establish and maintain secure academies. The aim of the amendment was to put beyond doubt that applications from local authorities to run secure academies would be welcomed and would be considered on their merit, on a level playing field with other providers.

The Government’s response has been that there is no legal barrier to local authorities setting up an entity that could enter into an academy arrangement with the Secretary of State, so there is not a legal barrier to them establishing a secure academy. The Government said that the Ministry of Justice

“will assess in detail the potential role of local authorities in running this new form of provision, before we invite applications to run any future secure schools.”—[Official Report, Commons, 28/2/22; col. 803.]

The Minister also made that point.

Our response in the Commons was that this does not go far enough. We argued that local authorities have the expertise needed to run services and provide care for vulnerable children with a high level of need in a secure environment and that the Government should widen the pool of expertise that providers bring and ensure that local authorities are explicitly brought into the fold when planning for secure academies.

We recognise that the Government have committed to look at the involvement of local authorities in providing secure academies before any new applications are invited, so we will now deal with and pursue this issue outside of the Bill. However, we strongly support the noble Lord, Lord German, in saying that what is needed, and what we will keep calling on Ministers to deliver, is, frankly, not vague statements that a local authority could provide a secure academy but a proactive change to bring the expertise that local authorities have into that pool of providers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bertin (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment and thank the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, for all his support on this issue. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws: “What a powerful speech”.

I particularly want to reiterate the points made about police recording. I am really quite depressed that this amendment has had to be laid—depressed as a Conservative Peer, because I have been so heartened by the commitment that this Government have shown on the issue of violence against women and girls. But at the moment, on the issue of misogyny—it exists, it is there and is corrosive; it is huge, if you ask me—there is a lack of grip. There has also been a lack of leadership and accountability, in particular on the issue of recording, and that really matters.

It matters because we should not make promises at the Dispatch Box and not keep them. That picks away at the faith and trust we have in our democracy. I do not wish to make too big a point out of this, but it is important and we do notice it. It also matters because it helps victims to have much more faith in the system; it gives them confidence. We have heard that from chief constables who have voluntarily taken this approach on board. It matters because it helps them do their job as well. It helps them target their resources, understand where the repeat perpetrators are, and target the culture within their own police forces—which, as we know, is a huge problem.

I hope that noble Lords will support the amendment, as I will. It really matters. Misogyny exists, it is corrosive and it needs to be tackled, and this is a very thoughtful and reasonable approach.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I rise with some trepidation as the first man to speak in the debate—sorry, after the noble Lord, Lord Russell, of course, the proposer of the Motion. Something seriously needs to be done about misogyny in society, as the noble Baronesses said. I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, who said that misogyny is not hatred of women. My understanding is that it is hatred of women who are not subservient to men and who do not allow men to do what they want because they can, because they are stronger or because they think they can get away with it.

I have to say that I do not understand the Law Commission’s assessment that having misogyny as an aggravating factor would undermine the investigation and prosecution of things such as domestic abuse and sexual violence. Racism is treated as an aggravating factor by the courts, yet black victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence are not disadvantaged by having racism as an aggravating factor. So why should women be disadvantaged were misogyny to be an aggravating factor? Perhaps the Minister can answer that question.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, that we must deal with misogyny in terms of the actions that have a detrimental impact on women—not the thought but the deed, not the prejudice but the discrimination against women.

Amendment 72B in Motion D1 would create a new offence of harassment or intimidation aggravated by hostility towards sex or gender, where the maximum penalty for the new offence is the same as the offence, under Section 4 of the Public Order Act 1986, of intentional harassment, alarm or distress without any aggravating factor. So there is an issue there.

There is a crisis of misogyny in society in general and in the police service in particular. Urgent, decisive action needs to be taken, notwithstanding the Law Commission’s findings. Creating a new offence, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, in the form and with the penalties suggested might not be the right answer, but it is a vehicle to allow the Government to come forward with a better alternative using the Bill. We do not know when the next legislative opportunity will arise and we need to force the Government to take action now.

This urgency is reinforced by the fact that, as the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, said, the undertakings given by the Government when we last debated this issue during the passage of the Domestic Abuse Bill—now an Act—to ensure that all police forces flag offences aggravated by hostility towards sex or gender do not appear to be happening. Even if the Government are not convinced that legislative change is needed, surely they must deliver on their commitment to ensure that the nature and extent of the problem of misogyny in society is measured by the recording of such offences by the police. Surely the Government must understand why police forces might be reluctant to record misogyny as a hate crime when there is clear evidence of a culture of misogyny in police forces. That is why they should be compelled to do so by the Government.

I am concerned that the Government, encouraged by the Law Commission, are going into reverse on the issue of misogyny, betraying women who suffer every day from male violence. If for no other reason, we should support Motion D1 and Amendment 72B.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an extraordinary debate in many ways. It has really gone to the heart of the issue. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Russell, in the way he moved his amendment.

I will start by addressing a specific point that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, made about the way sentencing is done in courts. I speak as a magistrate who sits in London. When I sentence on a matter where there is racism as part of the sentence, I explicitly have to say in court what the uplift is because of the racist element. However, when there are other aggravating factors, be they misogyny or any other factor, such as the fact that the victim works in a public-facing way, I am not required to do that, but I can if I wish to. That is a very specific example of the difference in the way sentences deal with particular different types of aggravating factors.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Lords Hansard - Part 2
Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Motion F2 and the other amendments in this group. I start by joining the Minister in paying tribute to the selfless actions of PC Keith Palmer, who tragically died five years ago today.

I apologise for the length of my remarks, but there are numerous important issues contained in this group. I promise not to spend an average of more than two minutes on each Motion. There are few subjects on which I am an expert, but the policing of public order is one. I was one of a small cadre of advanced trained public order senior officers, and I have extensive experience of policing events. I remind the House that the majority of police forces outside London told HMICFRS that they did not need new public order legislation, and that the limiting factor in policing protests was the number of public-order-trained police officers they had to police protests. A whistleblower who worked for HMICFRS said that the conclusions in its review of public order policing did not reflect the evidence that the inspectorate had gathered. Having read the report in full, I agree. There is no justification for more public order legislation.

In relation to Motion E, the police already have powers to impose any conditions necessary—including an outright ban—on public processions, if a senior police officer reasonably believes that it will result in serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of the community, or if the purpose is to intimidate others. Adding a noise trigger to those powers will do more harm than good. As I said in Committee, from my experience, the more conditions you impose on a procession, the more likely those conditions are to be resisted and, therefore, the more police officers you will need to enforce them. As I have said, police forces already say that they do not have enough public-order-trained police officers.

A peaceful protest with no anticipated violent infiltrators and an agreed route—however large—can be policed with a minimum number of police officers and a lot of traffic cones and miles of white tape. Imposing conditions which the organisers are resisting is likely to require between double and five times the number of police officers. This is because confrontation must be anticipated, and the conditions may have to be imposed by force—such as a march wanting to take a different route. An outright ban on a protest, as well as being unlikely to be successful—as we saw with the Sarah Everard vigil on Clapham Common—requires about 10 times as many police officers as are required for a compliant, peaceful demonstration. How many police officers would it have taken to police the Sarah Everard vigil, in the middle of a common, if there had been agreement between the police and the organisers? The more conditions which can be imposed, and the more draconian those conditions, the bigger the drain will be on already overstretched police resources.

The second issue is the impact on trust and confidence in the police, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, has just said. The impact of the policing of the Sarah Everard vigil was hugely negative, and the government proposals will simply increase the potential for, and frequency of, such scenes. By banning some demonstrations on the basis of anticipated noise, and not others, the police will be subjected to accusations that they are being political rather than practical. They will be accused of being selective about which protests can take place for political reasons—such as banning demonstrations against war, as they are likely to be enormous and noisy, but allowing demonstrations in favour of war to go ahead, as they are not likely to be very well supported, to take a Russian example. Such a change in the law is likely to draw the police reputation into even more disrepute. In addition, I ask how many times the business of this House or the other place has been disrupted because of noise by protestors. I suggest none —and I do not believe that the House has double glazing. In any event, the police can always divert disruptive demonstrations away from sensitive areas. This change—the noise trigger—is unnecessary and damaging, and we will be voting to support the Labour amendments.

Motion F is about maintaining the current position, where the police can impose conditions on those holding an assembly, a static protest or a meeting but cannot ban it altogether. The Government argue that their proposals simply bring assemblies into line with the powers that the police have in relation to processions, but there are very good reasons why the two should be treated differently.

As I said in Committee, on 13 January 1986 in the House of Commons, the then Conservative Home Secretary, later Lord Hurd of Westwell, explained why processions were being treated differently from assemblies:

“We stopped short of a power to ban”


assemblies

“because we believed that that would be an excessive limit on the right of assembly and freedom of speech. For this reason, clause 14 does not permit the police to impose conditions changing the date and time of an assembly.”—[Official Report, Commons, 13/1/1986; col. 797.]

We agree, and the effect of my amendment is to achieve the same result.

Already, if a senior police officer reasonably believes that an assembly may result in serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of a community, or that the purpose of the assembly is to intimidate others, he or she can, under existing legislation, impose conditions on where the assembly takes place; tell an existing assembly to move somewhere else; limit how long it goes on for; and/or limit the numbers attending. The wording of my Amendment 80G in Motion F2 is different from simply insisting on the amendment we made to remove the new provision proposed by the Government on Report —as Motion F1 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, does—but the effect is the same.

The only thing the police cannot do under existing legislation is to ban a static protest altogether. The police already have all the tools they need to deal with unlawful assemblies, but to give the police the power to stop people protesting at all smacks of Putin’s Russia, not the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I will seek the opinion of the House on Amendment 80G in Motion F2.

On Motion G, we share the concerns of others that all large demonstrations that have the potential to spill over into the road and, either by accident or design, impede vehicular access to Parliament could be banned even when Parliament is not sitting. We believe that this is legislative overreach, relying as it does on the discretion of the police to enforce it or not. However, we do not agree that the police should be able to give permission to allow entrances to Parliament to be blocked when Parliament is in session, so we do not insist on Lords Amendment 82.

On Motion H, we share the concerns of others that those who engage in peaceful sit-down protests, however short the duration, should face the potential penalty of imprisonment for highway obstruction where previously they could have been only fined. As we saw with the Insulate Britain protests, existing legislation, including the application for and enforcement of injunctions, can be successfully used to deal with persistent offenders, including imprisonment for those who breach injunctions. However, with the undertaking given by the Minister at the Dispatch Box that imprisonment is intended to be used only in the most egregious cases, we hope that this increased penalty does not have the chilling effect it may otherwise have done on peaceful protest.

On Motion N, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for raising the issue and for the Government’s response.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I regret that we heard the Home Secretary and now the Minister accept the principle of the Opposition’s fast-track public space protection orders in relation to Motion H and use that to justify broader anti-protest amendments as a balance in protecting non-protesters. I regret it but I am not surprised. The danger of advocating any measures that strengthen anti-protest measures is that it sets a tone that suggests that some protesters are good and some are bad, which politicises a general and universal right that I think we should defend. Putting that to one side, I want to oppose the Government’s doubling-down on a noise trigger and follow on particularly from the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and others who have expressed their opposition so well.

I want to nod to the democratic dilemma of this ping-pong and whether we are actually blocking democracy. When summing up the rejection of the second tranche of anti-protest amendments on Report, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, chided all of us who opposed them for ignoring the public’s demand that authorities deal with new forms of protest activities such as those we have seen used by Extinction Rebellion and its offspring, such as Insulate Britain.

I disagreed that those amendments would have dealt with those new forms of protest. I thought they were so broad as to sweep up all and any protests, including anyone who might have wanted to protest against net zero, to take an example of a different political side. The state also already has huge powers, whether the Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Act or the Public Order Act, as we have heard, that could have been used to deal with these forms of protest which are a particular nuisance, as the public would have it. Despite that, I felt the Government were at least responding to a particular form of protest about which there has been some public agitation and concern. Therefore, that chiding was listened to.

But now, here we are with government amendments on protest that bear absolutely no relation to the Home Office’s motivation on new forms of protest. I do not think the Government have a democratic mandate for these amendments. Fundamental and foundational democratic rights, such as the right to assemble or protest or the right to free speech, should be protected by an iron curtain. If there is any attempt to undermine them, the presumption must rest with the Government to justify in absolutely clear terms, with a sense of the absolutely exceptional reasons for the proposed changes, any more draconian measures being brought in.

It just does not add up. As I have noticed before, even these new types of protest that apparently upset the public are often silent, so the noise trigger does not apply to them in any way whatever. The authorities should consider proposing accruing further power when limiting the right to assembly, and ultimately the right to free speech, only ever in exceptional circumstances. In this instance, those exceptional circumstances are just not there.

Even more galling is the smoke and mirrors of posing these proposals as protecting the public from the consequences of protest. The public are described as “non-protesters”; as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, pointed out, this turns the public into two different groups of people, but actually the public are the people who go on protests. They might not go on all of them all the time, but it is their right as the public that we are talking about. There is an Alice in Wonderland approach here that gets the issues upside-down and implies that the Government are far removed from the reality that free protests have been crucial for the public over centuries. The denial of that right, whether in Putin’s Russia or China’s Hong Kong, should be a visceral reminder to us here of why protest —warts and all—matters.

Of course not all protests are popular. Many of the modern protests I have mentioned, such as those by Extinction Rebellion, I do not support and they irritate me but, as with all fundamental democratic rights—free speech, free association and so on—it does not matter whether they are annoying, unpleasant or objectionable, or even if those demonstrations are directed in a hostile way against what you believe to be true.

We cannot pick and choose which speech or which protest we agree with and then endorse only the ones that we like. We have to make sure that we do not let those kinds of political prejudices get in the way. We are bound to feel uncomfortable at times when people protest for things that we disagree with, but that is freedom for you. It has never been claimed that living in a free society is safe and cosy. It is designed to make you, on occasion, feel uncomfortable. But there are principles here. As the Court of Appeal notes:

“The right to protest becomes effectively worthless if the protesters’ choice of ‘when and where’ to protest is not respected as far as possible”,


and I stand by that.

--- Later in debate ---

Motion F2 (as an amendment to Motion F)

[Lord Paddick]

Moved by

Leave out from “House” and insert “do insist on its Amendment 80, do disagree with the Commons in their Amendments 80A, 80B, 80C, 80D, 80E and 80F, and do propose Amendment 80G instead of the words so left out of the Bill—

80G: After Clause 55, insert the following new Clause—


“Imposing conditions on public assemblies

(1) Section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 (imposing conditions on public assemblies) is amended as follows.


(2) After subsection (2) insert—


“(2A) For the purposes of subsection (1)(a), the cases in which a public assembly in England and Wales may result in serious disruption to the life of the community include, in particular, where—


(a) it may result in a significant delay to the supply of a time-sensitive product to consumers of that product, or


(b) it may result in a prolonged disruption of access to any essential goods or any essential service, including, in particular, access to—


(i) the supply of money, food, water, energy or fuel,


(ii) a system of communication,


(iii) a place of worship,


(iv) a transport facility,


(v) an educational institution, or


(vi) a service relating to health.


(2B) In subsection (2A)(a) “time-sensitive product” means a product whose value or use to its consumers may be significantly reduced by a delay in the supply of the product to them.”


(3) After subsection (10A) (as inserted by section 57(11)) insert—


“(11) The Secretary of State may by regulations amend subsection (2A) or (2B) for the purposes of making provision about the meaning for the purposes of this section of serious disruption to the life of the community.


(12) Regulations under subsection (11) may, in particular, amend either of those subsections for the purposes of—


(a) defining any aspect of that expression for the purposes of this section;


(b) giving examples of cases in which a public assembly is or is not to be treated as resulting in serious disruption to the life of the community.


(13) Regulations under subsection (11)—


(a) are to be made by statutory instrument;

(b) may apply only in relation to public assemblies in England and Wales;


(c) may make incidental, supplementary, consequential, transitional, transitory or saving provision, including provision which makes consequential amendments to this Part.


(14) A statutory instrument containing regulations under subsection (11) may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.””

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, because the police will otherwise have the powers to ban assemblies, I beg to move Motion F2.