Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Wednesday 20th October 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Paddick]

12: Before Clause 3, insert the following new Clause—
“Meaning of special constables
In all legislation in force applying to England and Wales (including legislation enacted after the coming into force of this section)— (a) the term “members of police forces” shall be deemed to include special constables, and(b) the term “constable” shall be deemed to include a special constable.”Member’s explanatory statement
The aim of this amendment is to ensure that special constables are considered to be members of the police service, as they are in Scotland.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, Clause 3 enables special constables to be represented by the Police Federation, which is an important and welcome acknowledgment of the role played by specials in police forces—but it does not go far enough. I have been surprised at the lack of knowledge among those I have discussed the amendment with surrounding the role of special constables, who are sworn servants of the Crown with all the powers and responsibilities of a regular police officer. The only difference is that special constables are unpaid volunteers whose only recompense is to be paid expenses. I have also been surprised to learn how widely special constables are now used across a range of policing duties.

When I was a serving police officer, specials were generally treated quite badly by regular officers, who referred to them as “hobby bobbies”. It was almost seen as a punishment for a regular officer to be paired with a special constable on patrol—a liability rather than an asset. Such attitudes were unfair and, in most cases, unjustified. As the devastating cuts to policing continued at the end of the coalition Government, special constables came to be increasingly relied on to perform an extensive range of duties, including being trained in public order to be used in the front line on potentially violent demonstrations. Special constables carry warrant cards, handcuffs and CS spray, can exercise force and make arrests, unlike police community support officers, who are unable to do any of those things. Their uniforms have evolved over time so that today they are barely distinguishable from a regular police officer.

To all intents and purposes, and as far as the law and the public are concerned, special constables are in every way the same as regular police officers, except they are unpaid volunteers. That equivalence has been recognised in Scotland, where they are considered to be members of the police force, but it is not the case in England and Wales. While I welcome the recognition that this Bill proposes to give special constables in allowing them to be represented by the Police Federation, I am at a loss to understand why they are not also to be considered members of police forces to which they belong in England and Wales, as they are in Scotland.

Special constables have a vital and increasingly important role to play. In many places, the visible policing presence on our streets has all but disappeared; specials could help to fill that gap. The nature of policing is changing, with increasingly complex and technical crime being committed, such as online fraud. While police forces cannot compete with tech giants in terms of salaries for those technically qualified and experienced, there are opportunities for those with technical expertise to devote some of their spare time to serving their fellow citizens by becoming special constables dedicated to cybercrime, for example.

If I recall correctly, the Labour Party would seek to recruit significant numbers of special constables, were it to be in government—but that requires more than a statement of intent. Being a special constable has to be an attractive proposition to potential recruits, and recognising them as full members of police forces would send a clear message as to how important and valued they are. Can the Minister explain to the Committee why special constables cannot be members of police forces in England and Wales when they are in Scotland? I beg to move.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, this amendment, proposed by my noble friend Lord Paddick, is one that I wholeheartedly support. Many years ago, when I was a magistrate, it was one of my happiest duties to swear in the new special constables. It was fascinating to hear their reasons for wanting to serve their communities voluntarily and to learn about their day jobs. Whatever motivated them, whatever their background, they shared the same driving commitment to help to keep us safe. They put themselves in as much danger as a full-time officer, and they do it voluntarily.

For many years, as my noble friend Lord Paddick, has said, full-time officers derided them. Fortunately, they began to see their worth and special constables are now, almost, fully integrated into the workforce and finally treated properly. I am delighted that my noble friend has brought forward this amendment and I support it totally.

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[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for explaining his amendment. Before I get on to dealing with this amendment, I want to say that I was very moved by the noble Lord’s earlier comments. In the interests of full disclosure, I should declare that I was an inspector in the Royal Hong Kong Police. That is where I started out; I can confirm that one never forgets the smell of a mortuary.

Amendment 12 effectively seeks to dispense with the need for Clause 3 by ensuring that, for all purposes, special constables are treated in law as members of a police force. Our professional and dedicated special constables increasingly carry out a range of specialised and front-line roles in their mission to keep us and our communities safe, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, noted. He also made some very relevant points about the technical skills that they can bring. They often face the same risks as regular officers while on duty; they deserve the same protection and support as regular officers where appropriate. That is why, through the Bill, we are enabling special constables to become members of the Police Federation, should they wish to do so.

Having been subject to long-standing separate regulation in England and Wales, the distinct nature of special constables is recognised in law with clearly defined benefits that result directly from this separate status. In contrast, legislation in Scotland has long included special constables as “members of police forces” and has been drafted to take this into account. It would not be appropriate for special constables to have access to the same conditions of service, or indeed face the same restrictions, that legislation confers on regular officers. Including special constables in the existing definition of “members of police forces” would have that effect. Legislation on the pay and pensions of “members of police forces”, for example, is not relevant to special constables, who are unpaid volunteers, choosing to give up their free time to help strengthen our police forces. As warranted officers, special constables in England and Wales hold the office of constable and are therefore already included in the term “constable”. This means that, where legislation confers powers on a constable, they will also be exercisable by a special constable.

The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, mentioned how we value special constables, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Harris. I will digress briefly to set out what the Home Office is doing to recognise and support the special constabulary. The Home Office has raised the profile and status of the annual Lord Ferrers Awards, which recognise the outstanding contribution of volunteers in policing. We have consulted on proposals to extend the eligibility of the Queen’s Police Medal to special constables, along with proposals to lower the service threshold for bars to the Special Constabulary Long Service Medal from 10 to five years. Those proposals could support the retention of highly committed volunteers who may, for example, be incentivised by an award that recognises more realistically the length of service volunteers are able to provide and their ongoing commitment to public service. I hope that this also answers something of the question from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, about recruitment.

The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, referred to John Apter, chair of the Police Federation. I note that he started out as a special constable, which I suppose, by implication, suggests that that is a route into becoming a regular police officer.

For those reasons, we consider that this amendment is not necessary and could cause confusion to the status of special constables, which the law recognises as distinct from regular officers. Further, this amendment could have unwelcome, unintended consequences, for example by applying pay provisions to volunteers. I hope that, in light of my explanation and assurance, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, will be content to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Harris of Richmond for her support and the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for his inquisitiveness and his recognition of the value of specials. I warmly welcome the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, to the Dispatch Box. I am not sure whether this was his first outing, but it was a very, very good one. As he will find out, we work collaboratively in this House and it is good to work with such a wonderful Home Office spokesman—if that is not too over-the-top.

However, I did not actually hear—or if I did, I did not understand—why special constables are included as members of police forces in Scotland, and how all the objections the Minister raised, in terms of why they could not be members in England and Wales, have been got around in Scotland. As this is the Minister’s first outing, I would not press him to give me an answer now if he would prefer to write. But something tells me he may have the answer in his hands, in which case I shall allow him to respond.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I will try. The noble Lord is asking why specials are treated as members of the police force in Scotland but not in England and Wales. Special constables in England and Wales have been subject to long-standing separate regulation for members of police forces, and their distinct nature is recognised in law, with clearly defined benefits that result from this separate status. By contrast, legislation in Scotland has long included special constables as members of police forces, and it has been drafted to take that into account. I hope that goes some way to answering the noble Lord’s question.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

It was a good try, but it quite clearly does not answer the question at all. Specials in Scotland have always been considered to be members of police forces; they are not paid, but if that happened in England and Wales, they would have to be paid like regular officers. I would like, if possible, for the noble Lord to write to me with a fuller explanation, rather than just stating what the facts are; an explanation of why the facts are as they are would be extremely helpful. But at this stage, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 12 withdrawn.

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[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I have Amendments 14 and 17 in this group. I hope—in fact I am confident—that my noble friend the Minister will give a full explanation of the purpose of these clauses in the Bill, in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. My concern is the inclusion of staff members in these new tests of dangerous and careless driving. I can understand the need to include civilian police driving instructors, but what I do not understand is the inclusion of other staff members. I hope that the Minister can explain why they need to be included.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, this is a difficult and contentious part of the Bill. There has been much debate for decades about the police approach to vehicle pursuit in particular, and the ability of emergency service drivers to disregard traffic signs and speed limits in an emergency. There have been tragedies where emergency vehicles on their way to serious and urgent incidents have ignored traffic lights or give way signs, or driven on the wrong side of the road, often in an attempt to save or protect lives, and tragically they have been involved in collisions with innocent members of the public, causing serious injury and sometimes loss of life, as my noble friend Lady Randerson has so graphically illustrated from her own personal experience.

This is perhaps the less contentious of the two areas. But even here, for police control room staff—I am sure the same happens with the fire brigade and the ambulance service—calls are graded as follows: emergencies, with arrival as soon as possible; immediate, with arrival within an hour; or routine. This is to ensure that police vehicles are not driven at speed unnecessarily.

I declare an interest as a former police officer who, although in possession of a full driving licence, attended a six-week, full-time police driving course just to become a standard police driver. I was not authorised to drive high-powered cars designed for use in responding to emergency calls and I was not allowed to become involved in vehicle pursuit of criminals, but simply to be a police driver answering routine calls. Of course, it is possible to become inadvertently involved in a chase, when a car that is asked to pull over refuses to stop, as happened to me on occasion, but as soon as a qualified driver was behind, I dropped out of the pursuit. Being an advanced trained driver involved many more weeks of intensive training; from memory, two six-week courses, with a very high failure rate. The courses were highly sought after and awarded to only the most experienced officers. Police drivers are trained to some of the highest driver standards in the world.

In addition, police control room staff have the authority to direct police vehicles to withdraw from pursuits where the driver of the police vehicle involved is not suitable to conduct the pursuit, where the seriousness of the offence alleged does not justify the risks associated with a high-speed chase, or where the driving conditions —the type of road, the time of the day or any other factor; my noble friend mentioned the presence of pedestrians, for example—present an unreasonable risk to the public and the officers who are involved in the pursuit.

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[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I undertake to write to my noble friend.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, with my 30 years’ experience in the police service, I am having some difficulty in understanding some of the Minister’s explanations, for example about when surveillance becomes a pursuit. We are talking about a situation where an officer is potentially facing a prosecution for careless or dangerous driving. In the ordinary course of surveillance, the people who are being followed will not know that they are being followed. That is what surveillance is. It becomes a chase when the people being surveilled recognise that they have a police vehicle behind them and try to escape. It then becomes a pursuit. So, with the greatest respect, I think that the Government need to sharpen their reasoning for dismissing amendments which, if my noble friend Lady Randerson does not pursue them on Report, I am very likely to.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that intervention. I think I gave some other examples, though, of things that do not necessarily qualify as police pursuit but are still none the less covered by this: emergency response, armed vehicle interventions and so on. I thought those would cover most of the noble Lord’s points. I take his point, obviously, that if you are under surveillance, you do not necessarily know that anybody is there—that is the whole point. At some point, that could turn into a pursuit; I suppose it depends on the specific circumstances. But I do take his point.

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Moved by

[Lord Paddick]

19: After Clause 5, insert the following new Clause—
“National standards of competent and careful constable
For the purposes of sections 4 and 5 the Secretary of State shall, after consultation with such persons as they consider appropriate, publish national standards expected of designated persons.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to publish national standards of what would be expected of a competent and careful constable under sections 4 and 5, against which their driving should be judged.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 19 is supported by my noble friend Lady Randerson and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. Amendment 20 is supported by the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham. I asked for these two amendments to be degrouped from the group we have just debated because that group was about the principle of police officers being given dispensation from the usual tests applied in cases of dangerous and careless driving. These amendments are about a separate issue—the consistency of the likelihood of police officers being prosecuted on not.

The changes proposed by the Government in Clauses 4 and 5 are problematic in that they define the threshold for prosecution or conviction for dangerous or careless driving, set against,

“what would be expected of a competent and careful constable who has undertaken the prescribed training.”

The Police Federation, which provided a draft of this amendment, has reminded me that, while groups of forces tend to pool their resources in police driver training, none the less, there is no national standard. What would be expected of a competent and careful constable who has undertaken the prescribed training can vary from police force to police force. A tactic, such as physical contact by a police vehicle with a stolen motorbike, or a motorbike being driven by a suspect involved in an armed robbery, causing the driver of the motorcycle to crash, might be trained for and practised in some police forces but not in others. To be clear about what I mean, the police driver knocks the criminal off the motorbike by colliding with it—a tactic used by the Metropolitan Police Service.

This could result in a police driver, who was driving in exactly the same way as another police driver in a different police force, being prosecuted and potentially convicted; while the other officer in almost identical circumstances would not face any sanction, if that police driver had been trained in that technique and it was part of the policy of that officer’s police force. Amendment 19 proposes that a national standard be established to ensure consistency in the application of the law, and certainty for police drivers.

Amendment 20, proposed by the Police Federation and based on its wealth of experience in this area, offers an alternative approach by providing a reasonable excuse defence to an allegation of dangerous or careless driving. Instead of adhering to the standard of a careful and competent driver, a police driver could avoid prosecution or conviction, provided the departure from the standard was necessary, proportionate and reasonable in all the circumstances. This would take account of the relevant driver policy and training, the split-second decisions faced in real time by the driver and the honestly held belief of the driver at the time. This is similar to the dispensation allowed to armed officers who have to make split-second decisions to use their firearms.

I am not a lawyer and I cannot elaborate on whether such a reasonable cause defence is accepted in other similar scenarios. I beg to move Amendment 19.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, we are extraordinarily lucky to have the expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. I have just one anxiety about a national standard: conditions in the Metropolitan Police area are different from those facing, say, Devon and Cornwall Police. Devon and Cornwall Police might not have to dismount someone riding a motorbike illegally very often, whereas I suspect it is something the Metropolitan Police has to do quite often. On the one hand, I can see the benefit of national police standards, but I have an anxiety that they might not meet the different needs of different types of police force.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

I am grateful to the noble Earl for his intervention. I think national standards would say that the tactic of colliding with a stolen motorbike was an acceptable tactic that officers could be compared against whether or not it was actually used by particular forces, bearing in mind the circumstances faced by different forces. So, legally, officers in Devon and Cornwall could use that tactic according to the national standard, but it would be very rare for them to use it—if ever at all.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My noble friend has raised the issue of national standards. I want to approach this issue in a slightly different way. I have added my name to the amendment because I have concerns about clarity. The existing standards are set out in the 1988 Act, and we as drivers are all familiar with them. We passed our driving tests however long ago, but on an almost daily basis we practise following those standards—fairly rigorously, I hope.

According to this legislation, we are now moving to a set of standards based on a format for training of which we, with the exception of my noble friend, have no real concept. We do not understand exactly what is involved in this training and what is expected of police drivers. Indeed, I am sure this debate has been very instructive for us all in finding out a bit more about it.

Add that issue to the fact that standards are different from one part of the country to another and we have a difficult situation for the Government in applying this new approach. Good law has to be easily understandable. Publicising the details of these standards—making sure that the public, as well as police officers, understand them—is essential for acceptance by the general public. That will be essential if cases brought under this legislation are to succeed in court.

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I hope that I have been able to go some way to persuading the noble Lord that the issue of national standards has already been addressed through the Bill and elsewhere, and that a reasonableness defence would not be appropriate. I therefore ask him to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. To my noble friend Lady Randerson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, I say that I have just started cycling in London again and it is terrifying; we need more traffic police.

I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, particularly for the way he absolutely hit the nail on the head with his example of a police van driver who is not an advanced driver who is told by a member of the public that, 100 yards down the road, somebody is being murdered, but who has not received the level of training that they will be judged against. In the debate on the previous group, the Minister said that if they have not had the training, they will be judged like an ordinary driver; he also said that the legislation provides the protection that they need. But the example from the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, shows how they will not get protection under the law as proposed and drafted by the Government in the Bill.

The Minister said that these changes have been made in consultation. Dare I suggest that they were not made in consultation with the Police Federation? They have not been made in consultation with the officers who will be directly affected by the legislation, because it was the Police Federation that asked me to propose these amendments to the Bill. Again, I am afraid I must suggest that the Minister has been rather let down by his brief in not being able to address the very real concerns that noble Lords around the House have expressed. We will clearly come back to this on Report, but at this stage, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 19 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I agree very much with the concerns that have been expressed this evening, and I would because I have an interest which I should declare as a trustee of Safer London whose work is directed to deterring young people from becoming involved in crime. Giving young people the tools they need to resist being pulled into crime is a very wide agenda. As is obvious from the name, the work is confined to London, but it is needed all over.

As well as that, I remember the debates during the passage of the Modern Slavery Bill on what is meant by “exploitation”. I take the point about people—it is not just children—who may be perceived as criminals but who are actually victims, so I understand the calls for much better understanding of child criminal exploitation. I hope that what I am about to say is understood to be support for, not opposition to, the thrust of what is being proposed.

Amendment 52, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, on training is absolutely to the point. If all agencies and authorities were trained to recognise what they are seeing but not recognising, in a way that would answer all the other points that have been made. If the prevention and reduction of crime, which is what these clauses are about, means anything, surely it must include safeguarding. That is prevention. Safeguarding is not defined, which does not surprise me because it is comprised of an awful lot of component parts and is different in different circumstances. I would be interested to know whether the Minister call tell us what is already on the statute book in this area. Are we talking about bringing together provisions that should be brought together that are scattered, as can be the case, or are we talking about something new in statutory terms?

I do not think that we can leave the issue without referring to resources. If there were the resources to extend the excellent work being done by various organisations far more widely, both in the voluntary sector and to statutory authorities, I do not think we would be talking about all this. But I am quite convinced that it comes back to training to recognise what should really be in front of people’s eyes. I know it is easy for us, standing up in the Chamber, to say that, and I would not like to do the job that some police officers, teachers, health workers and so on do. But the training should support the achievement of everything that noble Lords are seeking this evening.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, there are a number of general points I need to make about the new legal duties to support a multiagency approach to preventing and tackling serious violence. I will try to make them in the appropriate group of amendments, but I hope the Committee will accept that there is a great deal of overlap.

The overwhelming response of the non-governmental organisations I have met with which have concerns about this part of the Bill is that, as drafted, it is actually about forcing agencies to support a police-led enforcement approach to serious violence—not a public health approach, or even a multiagency approach, to preventing and tackling serious violence. The Government’s own consultation on this issue gave three options: a new legal duty on specific organisations to effectively share information with the police; a new legal duty to revise community safety partnerships, the existing and well-established mechanism where local authorities and police forces work together to prevent and tackle crime, and where the local police chief and local authority chief executive are equal partners in doing whatever each partner and others can do to reduce crime and disorder; and a voluntary non-legislative approach. There was more support for a legislative approach than a voluntary one, but more respondents favoured enhancing community safety partnerships—40%—compared with a new legal duty to provide information to the police—37%—and, tellingly, the police supported equally options one and two.

Even the police, the sector most likely to benefit from a police-led enforcement approach, were ambivalent as to whether it should be a truly multiagency approach by enhancing community safety partnerships or a police-led enforcement approach. So why did the Government opt for the latter and not the former? A police-led enforcement approach was the Government’s preferred option from the beginning. These amendments, which we support, are the first manifestation of challenging that police-led enforcement approach, in that the legal duty does not sufficiently recognise that many young people, particularly those involved in county lines, are victims of criminal exploitation rather than free-acting criminals. Henry Blake is a former youth worker who draws on his personal experiences of working with at-risk young people in his powerful film, “County Lines”—a drama about one young man who is drawn into county lines drug dealing. I would highly recommend this film to any noble Lord who is unaware of the realities of county lines.

Many young people lacking family support and living in poverty find themselves groomed by adults who appear to show them the love and concern they desperately seek, and who treat them to meals in burger restaurants and buy them new trainers—something their often lone parent cannot afford. They promise them money, not just so they can afford the latest designer clothing that they need if they are not to be bullied by gangs, who see those who do not wear designer labels—even Nike and Adidas—as targets. It is not just so they can go to McDonald’s whenever they want, but so that they can help their mum put food on the table and make sure their younger sister has decent clothes to wear. I hope noble Lords can see how easily vulnerable young people are drawn into criminality, not just for pecuniary advantage but for the sense of belonging and the sense that someone is at last paying them some attention. For many, it is as much an emotional need as a financial one.

Of course, the reality is very different. The adults exploiting these young people take the vast majority of the profits of the drug dealing in which they are involving these young people whom they have groomed, and the youngsters take all the risks, often ending in violence from rival drug dealers. These young people are victims of criminal exploitation, and each one of us is to blame—not them. It is our fault that their single mothers have to do three minimum wage jobs to pay the rent and put food on the table and so, through no fault of their own, can rarely be there for their kids as most wish they could be. It is our fault that too many people do not have a decent place to live, because they cannot afford private rents for an appropriately sized home in a good state of repair, and that there is a shocking shortage of social housing and much of what exists is in an appalling state of repair. It is our fault that, as the cost of living spirals upwards, we take away £20 a week in universal credit from those most in need. The Government’s response is to force other agencies to divulge information that makes it easier for them to prosecute these victims of criminal exploitation.

That is why the Bill needs to radically change from a police-led enforcement approach to preventing and tackling serious violence to a truly public health and multiagency approach, starting with—although this is only the beginning of the changes needed—putting the safeguarding of children involved in serious violence in the Bill. That must include, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, suggests in his Amendment 50, and as both Barnardo’s and the Children’s Society have suggested, including a statutory definition of child criminal exploitation in the meaning of exploitation in Section 3 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, suggests in her Amendment 52, training for police officers in particular, to ensure that they are aware of child criminal exploitation and actively seeking evidence of such exploitation.

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

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for setting out the case for these amendments. I wholeheartedly agree that nothing is more important than safeguarding children at risk of harm. That is why we introduced reforms to safeguarding in 2017, which led to the establishment of multiagency safeguarding arrangements in 2019. The statutory safeguarding partners responsible for safeguarding—that is, local authorities, clinical commissioning groups and chief officers of police—are also named as specified authorities under the serious violence duty, so I would argue that it is truly a multiagency approach. This demonstrates the importance of safeguarding in protecting children and young people from involvement in serious violence. We expect that existing work to safeguard vulnerable children will link very closely with local efforts to prevent and reduce serious violence. Therefore, we do not believe that it is necessary to include a separate safeguarding requirement in this part of the Bill, and it would not be possible to do so without duplicating existing safeguarding legislation.

On Amendment 25, which would require specified authorities to prepare and implement an early help strategy, the noble Lord is absolutely right to highlight the importance of prevention and early intervention and this, of course, is the key aim of the serious violence duty. We recognise that early intervention and prevention are essential to reducing serious violence. The duty requires partners to work collaboratively to develop a strategy to reduce serious violence in their local area. We expect partners to work with upstream organisations, such as education providers and children’s social care, when developing this strategy to ensure that it covers actions that relate to early help and considers risks that occur before a young person becomes involved in serious violence. This ensures that any strategy will include early help for this cohort. We believe that it would be less effective to separate this out into an additional strategy.

Metal Theft

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

We talked about cash payments being outlawed some years ago, and in fact they have been. Some of the innovations like marking and tracing are now in place to make theft of things like railway tracks much more difficult. It is in working together through the various agencies that the various industries will help to beat this type of crime.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I am glad that the Minister mentioned marking. From over 30 years’ experience in the police service, I can tell the House that longer prison sentences rarely deter criminals, whereas the higher chance of being caught does. Why do the Government not invest in technologies such as SmartWater, rather than building more prisons?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The British Transport Police has plans whereby SmartWater would cover any shortfall in the funding required to stamp out this theft. There are a number of different innovations that are helping, and clearly the overall driving-down of theft is very helpful.

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

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Tuesday 12th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness D’Souza (CB)]

My Lords, I am very grateful that some noble Lords are still here. That is very nice. I make no apologies for returning to the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act 2021, which was so thoroughly debated and amended in this House earlier this year. As I said while the Bill was passing through this House, I am truly happy that a previously secret process has been put on a statutory footing. That said, I also wish to have it on record that there remain serious gaps which would allow authorised agents to commit serious crimes with impunity. These gaps have not been adequately addressed in this regulation of investigatory powers statutory instrument and for this reason I have tabled this Motion.

The statutory instrument concerns requirements on the level of seniority for MI5 officers and those of other bodies who are authorised to sanction CHIS participation in crime and to record the criminal conduct authorised. The SI includes the crucial phrase

“including any parameters of the conduct authorised.”

I understand that these parameters will reflect only the conduct being authorised and will not include substantive limits on the crimes which may be committed. This, theoretically at least, enables involvement in serious abuses such as murder and/or torture.

The Government claim that, by introducing the requirement of recording any criminal authorisations, limits are effectively set on the crimes in which the CHIS Act may be involved. However, without hard limits there is nothing to ensure that the criminal conduct authorised does not itself involve abuses. As such, the SI is to my mind incomplete.

The point was argued at several stages during the passage of the CHIS Bill. Despite earnest pleas to tighten up the named crimes, as happens in countries such as Canada and the USA, the Government declined to do so. The argument put forward by the Government that defining more closely forbidden criminal actions, including murder and torture, would represent a risk of exposure to those working under deep cover is one that many other countries have rejected.

The Government are therefore asked once again to reconsider this SI and to include within it express statutory limits on the kind of criminal action that can be authorised. It is of course accepted that the mandatory application of finer points of the law in the potential context of immediate and present danger is a step too far. However, murder and torture are extremely serious crimes and as such need to be expressly forbidden. Furthermore, the fact that the phrase in question in this statutory instrument is left open, without express limits in the main Act, surely conveys the message that both murder and torture are, under certain circumstances, acceptable.

I welcomed the CHIS Act in so far as it placed the process of authorising criminal conduct on a statutory footing, as I said. However, a clearly stated prohibition under any circumstances of murder and/or torture would further assist in clarifying the operational environment and ensure that the UK upholds human rights laws. I beg to move.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, we support the Motion to Regret moved by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, to the extent that we too believe that this statutory instrument does not provide adequate safeguards on the actions of covert agents. However, we believe that the reason given by the noble Baroness in her Motion is not within the scope of the order. However, we feel that this House should regret the order because the authority level for authorising criminal conduct by covert human intelligence sources is not sufficiently high. Indeed, as was made clear in the Explanatory Memorandum, it is only at the same level as it would be if the CHIS were not participating in crime.

As we made clear during the passage of the Bill—now the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act 2021, which made the main part of this order necessary—we agree completely that there should be stronger safeguards surrounding the deployment of agents or informants in circumstances where they are permitted to commit crime. Agreeing with the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, we argued that there should be limitations on the crimes that covert agents can commit beyond the implicit Human Rights Act limitations. However, that issue was debated and decided on when this House considered the primary legislation. We did not win the argument. This statutory instrument does not impact on the types of criminal activity that an agent or informant can commit. We therefore consider that the noble Baroness’s justified concerns are not within the scope of the instrument.

We also maintain that there needs to be clear judicial oversight of such deployments to the extent that judicial commissioners should have the authority to prevent the deployment of—or, in urgent cases, to withdraw safely from deployment—agents or informants authorised by the police, the security services and other authorities to commit crime. Currently, there is a duty only to inform judicial commissioners within seven days of deployment, with no statutory mechanism for judicial commissioners to revoke the authority. Again, we debated this at length during the passage of the then Bill. We did not prevail in our insistence on these safeguards and the issue is not within the scope of this statutory instrument, but we feel that it is important to restate our position in this regard.

What is within the scope of this order, and what we do regret, is the authority level of the officer—particularly in the police—who can authorise an agent or informant to commit crime. In urgent cases this can be a police inspector. I was a police inspector at the age of 24. The Government may say that only specially trained inspectors can authorise the deployment of CHISs and that this will be written into the CHIS code of practice, but my understanding is that that is not contained in either primary or secondary legislation. Can the Minister confirm that it would not be unlawful for any police inspector to grant such an authority, even if it were against the code of practice? On that, the Explanatory Memorandum says that

“the formal process to update the Code is under way.”

Can the Minister confirm that, as this statutory instrument is already in force, these changes have already come into effect but the code of practice that underpins it is not yet in place?

The Explanatory Memorandum goes on to say:

“The updated Code will be subject to Parliamentary scrutiny upon the laying of an additional SI in due course”.


Can the Minister confirm whether this has happened, or when it is likely to take place? Will it be subject to the negative or affirmative procedure?

There is a world of difference between deploying an agent or informant benignly into a scenario and authorising that agent or informant to commit a crime; it is a degree of magnitude more serious, no matter what the crime is, yet the authority levels set out in this statutory instrument are the same as for a simple deployment with no authority to commit crime.

I refer back to the debates that we had during the passage of the original Bill. The noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, referred to the impeccable and courageous agents deployed by the security services, perhaps conjuring up the image of James Bond in the public imagination. I contrasted this characterisation with the fact that most informants employed by the police are criminals. I would go further, and refer to the activities of undercover police officers that have recently been the subject of both a public inquiry and successful action in the courts.

The Government will say—indeed, the Minister said during debates on the Bill—that undercover officers would never be authorised to have sexual relations with activists. In an action brought against the Metropolitan Police Service and the National Police Chiefs’ Council, where the claimant successfully argued that her human rights—her right to freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment, her right to privacy and her right to freedom of expression—had been infringed, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal at the Royal Courts of Justice found:

“We are driven to the conclusion that either senior officers were quite extraordinarily naive, totally unquestioning or chose to turn a blind eye to conduct”—


sexual relationships—

“which was ... useful to the operation”.

According to the BBC report of the case dated 30 September, the tribunal also found that the failure of the Met and the NPCC to guard against the risk of undercover officers entering into sexual relationships with women amounted to unlawful discrimination against women. The tribunal concluded:

“Our findings that the authorisations”—


under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000—

“were fatally flawed and the undercover operation could not be justified as ‘necessary in a democratic society’ revealed disturbing and lamentable failings at the most fundamental levels.”

This was not in the era of “Life on Mars”, when I joined the Metropolitan Police in the mid-1970s; this was this century. The officer concerned was not deployed undercover in connection with this case until 2003. This is not ancient history but at a time when the current commissioner and I were both senior Metropolitan Police officers, although neither of us had anything whatever to do with the case that I am describing. I am simply making the point that the senior officer in charge of the Metropolitan Police today was a senior officer in the Metropolitan Police when this happened, in terms of temporal proximity. The Government cannot say with confidence that that was a long time ago and the officers around at that time, who oversaw undercover officers and allowed that sort of thing to happen, are no longer serving.

Trust and confidence in the police have been severely undermined by recent events, as the Government have themselves admitted, yet here we are, allowing relatively junior police officers to authorise criminals and undercover police officers to commit crime with ineffective judicial oversight. The authority levels, as set out in this statutory instrument, are too low, the range of offences that agents and informants can commit is too wide, and the judicial oversight is not stringent enough. The Government are asking us to trust the police to authorise criminals to commit crime by passing this statutory instrument into law, while at the same time telling the public not to trust police officers, particularly lone male officers in plain clothes. We regret this statutory instrument for the reasons that I have set out.

--- Later in debate ---

Finally, in answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, I take the opportunity to confirm to noble Lords, as I committed to during the passage of the Act, that the Government will shortly be consulting on that revised code of practice, which will further set out the processes underpinning the activity. I encourage all noble Lords to contribute to that process. The Government will approach the consultation in the collaborative manner in which I hope all noble Lords can agree that we approached the passage of the Act and I hope I have approached the debate today.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

Can the noble Baroness address the question that I raised of whether it would be unlawful for an inspector who was not trained to authorise a CHIS to commit crime? If she is unable to do that this evening from the Dispatch Box, perhaps she could write to me.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

As I said during my response to the debate, the officers who authorise are trained but the noble Lord is now getting into the area of rank and asking whether the authorising officer would have to be an inspector or above as well as trained. Rather than guess what the right answer might be, I shall write to him on that point of clarification.

Black Dog Crisis Management Company

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his point. The skills of the company were particularly useful in the context of the issue of the migrant crossings.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I associate myself with the remarks of the noble Baroness regarding James Brokenshire. It is a very sad situation.

Are there no internal consultants anywhere in Whitehall who could have advised the Home Office, rather than it spending public money on private sector consultants? Or was the crisis so bad that it was beyond the ability of anybody in Whitehall?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, these issues are often dealt with internally. This incident was one of some complexity and was quite novel in its aspect. That was why the STA was sought.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Paddick Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 14th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister for explaining the Bill. When the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, began, I was going to say that I broadly agreed with him on the size and complexity of the Bill. However, I am not sure that adding provision after provision is the best way of dealing with an already over-complex and lengthy Bill. That said, the Bill’s covering such a comprehensive area—anything to do with the four areas mentioned in the Bill’s title will be within scope—simply encourages people to add more and more provisions to it.

Far be it from me to be controversial, but I want to say from the outset that there are aspects of the Bill that deserve our support. But those worthy provisions are few and far between and are overshadowed by a vast number of measures that would undermine fundamental rights, increase existing discrimination or do both. These controversial measures, which have rightly received much publicity, particularly the erosion of the rights to free speech and assembly, mean that other measures that also deserve our attention have slipped through almost unnoticed—but not any more.

This is where this House comes into its own. In Committee, we on these Benches will question and challenge every provision in the Bill that demands scrutiny. But as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, has said, we are severely hampered in our duty by the sheer size of the Bill and the number of provisions it contains. With the best will in the world, and, in my case, having spent most of the Summer Recess going through the Bill, we cannot possibly do justice to the fundamental and far-reaching changes that it seeks to bring about when so much is contained in one piece of legislation. Can the Minister say why, after more than 10 years in government, it was necessary to cram so much into one Bill?

On the specific provisions, we welcome the police covenant but we need to understand how and why it is different from the Armed Forces covenant. Protecting police officers in vehicular pursuit of dangerous criminals is right, but so is protecting innocent members of the public caught up in the chase. Of course we need to do everything that we possibly can to combat serious violence, but how are the new duties different from the existing duties of crime and disorder reduction partnerships? Who is ultimately responsible: those partnerships, or elected mayors and police and crime commissioners? This legislation seems to further blur the lines as far as ultimate responsibility is concerned.

With all the homicide reviews that exist at the moment, what is the cost-benefit analysis of adding offensive weapon homicide reviews to that list? Of course the police may need to extract information from electronic devices such as mobile phones, but should, as the Bill says,

“any responsible person who is aged over 18”

be allowed to authorise such intrusion without the consent of the owner in certain circumstances?

In 2017, we told the Government that their changes to police bail were unworkable. Eighteen clauses of the Policing and Crime Act are now all but reversed, relegated to a schedule to this Bill. What has happened to the reasons why the limits on police bail were imposed in the first place?

Measures to combat child abuse are welcome, but why has it taken so long to bring about these changes and do they go far enough?

I applaud the sentiment behind increasing the maximum penalty for a minor assault, causing no injury, to an emergency worker. It should not be an accepted part of an emergency worker’s role, or that of a shop worker for that matter, to be assaulted. But as with all the many and various provisions in this Bill that seek to increase custodial sentences, where is the evidence that someone will think twice, in the heat of the moment, about assaulting a police officer because the maximum penalty has gone from one year to two years, particularly when this Bill also increases the potential maximum penalty for damaging a bunch of flowers placed on a memorial to 10 years’ imprisonment? What message does that send to our emergency workers?

We on these Benches support provisions where the evidence shows that they are necessary and that they will work. We do not believe in sending messages through legislation that will fall largely on deaf ears. It is the culture in society, and among some of the judiciary, that seems to accept assault as part of the job for emergency workers that needs to change. We need existing penalties imposed, rather than yet more conditional discharges or minor fines that ignore the existing or increased maximum penalties.

As the Minister attempted to do, noble Lords will notice I am going through the Bill systematically. I am only on Clause 46 of 117 clauses, and I have not even got to the most controversial parts of the Bill yet, so let me skip over those aspects that we will not be skipping over in Committee and simply highlight some of the most concerning aspects of the Bill in the home affairs arena.

Imposing conditions on public processions and assemblies not only unreasonably curtails the right to free speech and assembly but would place the police in a position that is likely to undermine the whole basis of British policing—that of policing by consent. Like the provisions on unauthorised encampments, there is little or no evidence that existing provisions are inadequate, and substantial evidence that this will add to further discrimination against minorities. We would also contest the Government’s assertion that the police have called for these changes.

A complex system of police cautions appears to make the police judge and jury in their own court, while removing useful provisions such as on-the-spot fines for minor offences, such as dropping litter, and simple cautions where the salutary effect of being arrested and detained by the police is sufficient to deter vast numbers of otherwise law-abiding citizens from transgressing again.

For reasons of time, I will leave my noble friends to talk about most of the justice provisions, but serious crime reduction orders are yet another provision that undermines fundamental principles of British justice and are likely to impact disproportionately on minority communities. To allow the police to stop and search someone, for a renewable two-year period, on the basis of no information or intelligence whatever that they have anything on them that they should not be in possession of, simply because an accomplice convicted with them had a knife on them, even if it was not used in the course of the offence and even if no evidence was presented during the trial but because subsequently, on the balance of probabilities, the judge thinks that the accomplice, who the defendant was with, may have had a knife, is as unreasonable as it is complicated. The Minister said that this would be applied to those convicted of knife crime. Perhaps she would clarify that this is the case, because that is not my understanding. It is for somebody convicted of any offence where it is believed on the balance of probabilities that one of the defendants had a knife in their possession at the time.

I have been able to touch only the surface of this Bill; goodness knows what Back-Benchers in this debate are going to do with only five minutes. This Bill, quite rightly, is going to take some time, and we on these Benches are not going to let it pass without thorough scrutiny of each and every provision that demands this House’s attention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I am not sure whether the knocking sound behind us has been someone trying to get in or someone trying to get out of the Chamber.

The House recently established a new Justice and Home Affairs Committee, which I am lucky enough to chair. We are currently looking at new technologies and their application in the law—wider than the Bill, but very pertinent to it and to crime prevention and reduction, and to policing and sentencing. Artificial insemination—

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

Oh!

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

I hope Hansard does not repeat that.

Artificial intelligence has huge potential benefits and raises huge concerns, and it is not anticipating the work of the committee to refer to them this afternoon. For instance, collaboration between authorities—Part 2 of the Bill—requires the sharing of information. Will this contribute to profiling and predictive policing? Predictive policing algorithms identify likely crime hot spots; officers are deployed there, and so more stop and search takes place and more crime is reported. It is a feedback loop; a self-fulfilling prophecy which can teach the algorithm to alert the user to particular geographical areas, communities and ethnicities. It has been put to the committee that it is important to involve at a very early stage of the process, and in a meaningful way, members of the communities that are likely to be at the sharp end of these algorithms, and not to leave it to people such as the witness or me—a white, middle-class, university-educated person, who is unlikely, one hopes, to be profiled as a future risk—because even with the best will in the world, we might not spot some of these problems and risks. A tick-box exercise is not enough.

Trust in systems translates to trust in authorities and in government itself—or, of course, the converse. The Bill permits the disclosure of data, but who owns it? What consents are required? Who knows about disclosure? We all expect some information—for instance, that between us and our medical professionals—to remain confidential. Transparency is important at an individual level, as well as more broadly. A defendant, or indeed someone questioned, will find it difficult to establish what technology—what combination of facial recognition technology, number plate recognition, predictive techniques—has led to his being identified as a suspect. If he cannot identify it, he cannot challenge it. How are we to ensure governance, regulation, accountability and scrutiny on an ongoing basis in the case of machine learning?

The technology has to be procured, and it will be procured from the private sector, whose interests are not the same as the public sector’s, and it is differently regulated, if at all. How can we be sure that purchasing authorities in the public sector understand what they are procuring? In the US, some police departments accepted a free trial of body-worn cameras, but they came with an obligation to be part of the manufacturer’s data ecosystem, including an obligation to use that company’s software and store data on its servers.

It is said that we need “human override”, but humans can get it wrong too. Human operators need to understand the limitations of particular technology to avoid overreliance on it or misinterpretation; they need to retain their critical factors.

These issues apply to identification, the extraction of information from electronic devices, monitoring and more that is in the Bill. They are the context for the development of policing and sentencing, such as the new cautions; for scrutiny, both general and in particular cases; and for our assessment of ethical considerations. We should be clear that there are clear principles to be applied. The National Audit Office has just reported on the national law enforcement data programme from a value-for-money point of view, of course, but there are other costs. The NAO mentioned, as I have, trust and the cost of damaging it. AI impacts society, communities, democracy and individual rights. We must be clear about what we are doing and why.

EU Borders: Refugees from Afghanistan

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Again, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, every asylum application should be treated on its merit. If a person left Afghanistan some time ago, before the Taliban takeover, and their application is in the system, that application will be treated on a case-by-case basis. Clearly, others came through Operation Pitting and the ARAP scheme. I repeat: anyone who finds themselves in Europe should claim asylum in the first safe country that they reach.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, can the Minister clarify two of the answers that she has just given? The Government maintain that all refugees must claim asylum in the first safe country they arrive in and that they will seek to return any asylum seeker who travels to the UK, particularly through EU countries that the Government consider safe. Is the Minister really saying that, if those Afghans who helped the British forces are unable to fly back to the UK and have to travel by land through EU countries, they will be refused entry to the UK because they travelled through EU countries?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Let me clarify: no, that is not the case at all. If anyone has been accepted through the ARAP scheme or Operation Pitting, they can go to a VAC or be processed in any country in the world, so I am absolutely not saying that. What I am saying is that if someone is not coming through a legal route, they should claim asylum in the first safe country that they reach.

Alcohol Licensing (Coronavirus) (Regulatory Easements) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her cogent introduction to the regulations and for the copious, detailed, helpful Home Office Explanatory Memorandum. I am sure that all of us seek progress for these regulations. It is so good to see my noble friend Lord Coaker in his Front-Bench seat. I recollect his determination, diligence and command of subject in another place. Can the Minister throw any further light on how previous provisions for Covid have fared in Wales? Was there easy acceptance or did her department detect some resistance? How did her department liaise with and consult the Senedd in Cardiff? Speedily, was it? Or was it dilatory? What form did the consultation take? Was it ministerially, face to face? I think not, from paragraph 10 of the Explanatory Memorandum. Was it official to official? Again, paragraph 10 is specific. Why was it not ministerially face to face? Were there problems? Surely the Minister will surely dispel those considerations. Has the department made any assessment of the differences in the reception of and obedience to the previous post-Covid provisions? What was the link between her department and the department of health? How were these links between departments managed?

Finally, the Committee may know that many decades ago there was a referendum in Wales to determine Sunday opening for public houses. Nonconformist opinion rallied negative forces. The referendum was lost and many remained thirsty on Sundays. I hasten to say that Wales is not a land of hypocrisy and whitewash, but in those days in much of Wales every Sunday there was a procession of buses carrying thirsty Welshwomen and Welshmen to borderland English pubs. Several decades later the second referendum was positive, possibly because the chapels were emptying. I remind the Committee that the great Welshman and Prime Minister Lloyd George enacted legislation that impinged strongly on pub opening times, but the World War I war effort was judged to be the better for it.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for explaining these regulations. I am concerned that the information that she gave to the Committee appears to be somewhat out of date. For example, she gave information about the sale of beer until May this year. Looking at the press, the evidence is that the hospitality sector has recovered extremely well in recent months, what with staycations and people enjoying their newfound freedom. I wonder whether she has any more up-to-date information about why these regulations are necessary.

Of the three measures, the last one is consequential in terms of applications for temporary event notices, and the increases to the limits for temporary event notices are only marginal. My major concern, which we have previously discussed, is about on-licence premises being allowed to sell alcohol to take away. When we discussed this previously, I expressed concern about alcohol being sold in open containers, allowing customers to purchase alcohol and then to walk down the street unsupervised, to the annoyance of passers-by and local residents. Of particular concern was if the alcohol was served in containers made of glass which could be broken and used as weapons.

EU Bilateral Agreements for Asylum Seekers

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The noble Lord will not be surprised to hear me say that no, it is not a self-inflicted disaster. Of all EU states, we have been one of the most generous. As I said previously, we do not think we are doing anything that breaches our international obligations.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister claims that the UK is very generous but, according to the Home Office, in 2019, there were around five asylum claims per 10,000 people living in the UK, compared with the EU 28, where there were 14 asylum claims per 10,000 people. What success does the Minister expect to achieve in returning asylum seekers to the EU when the UK does not appear to be taking its fair share?

Strategy for Tackling Violence against Women and Girls

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser (Lab) [V]]

[Inaudible]—are at a record low and domestic abuse in this country continues to increase, but charging continues to fall. According to Ofsted, sexual abuse in schools is becoming the norm. Ending abuse against women and girls is a cross-party issue on which all sides of this House wish to see progress. Unfortunately, the strategy the Government have outlined in their Statement falls short. We need ambition that matches the scale of the problem.

I again raise the concern that many have raised before: that the Government have regarded the violence against women and girls strategy as being separate from domestic abuse when, in reality, they are unavoidably interconnected. A policing lead on violence against women and girls is certainly welcome, but we already have one for domestic abuse, one for rape and sex offences, another for historical sexual abuse and one for child sex abuse. This policing lead, we are told, will be full time, unlike the others, and is in line with the recommendation last week from the inspectorate.

The Minister in the Commons yesterday seemed unable to answer questions about how the policing lead would work, including what the relationship would be with the inspectorate in respect of their investigations. What resources and powers will this new full-time policing lead have? Will the individual have the same resources and powers as the other policing leads, or will they have more extensive resources and powers? If so, what will they be?

On plans for the rape helpline, how prompt will the response be via the helpline in linking a victim to specialist support? How long a wait time will we consider acceptable? In the Commons yesterday, the Minister said in the Statement:

“we will be launching a multi-million-pound national communications campaign with a focus on targeting perpetrators and harmful misogynistic attitudes, educating young people about healthy relationships, and ensuring that victims can access support.”

How many millions of pounds will be allocated to the campaign? When will it start and how long will it last? By what criteria will the success or otherwise of the campaign be judged? Crucially, who will the department engage with and consult on the content and design of the campaign? The Minister in the Commons also said the Government had

“launched a specific safety of women at night fund worth £5 million to ensure that women do not face violence in public spaces at night.”—[Official Report, Commons, 21/7/21; col; 1084.]

What exactly will that £5 million deliver? Over what period of time will it be spent and how will its impact be judged?

The Statement says that the Government will

“review options to limit use of non-disclosure agreements in cases of sexual harassment in higher education”,

which is welcome. Why, then, is there nothing about non-disclosure agreements in workplaces, where women are still being abused and silenced—completely legally—in our country?

The Minister asserted in the Commons that

“there are legitimate reasons for non-disclosure agreements in workplaces.”—[Official Report, Commons, 21/7/21; col; 1087.]

That may be, but there are also non-legitimate reasons for non-disclosure agreements in the workplace, including in relation to the sexual harassment of women. What action do the Government intend to take over these agreements? Should the Government not think about taking the side of women who have been subject to sexual harassment in the workplace?

Why is there no national strategy for, or inclusion in this strategy of, adult victims of sexual exploitation? Where do these women find their experiences in this strategy? There is nothing but a gap. The only passing reference comes where the Government say they are going to ask porn sites to voluntarily do better on exploitation—do not hold your breath on that one if it involves a potential loss of money.

Where is the much-needed public sexual harassment law? The Government have said they think offences exist already. That will certainly be of real comfort to the two-thirds of young women who tell us they are suffering abuse every day. Home Office statistics show that 83% of sexual assaults go unreported. What is going to be done to address this alarming situation and the apparent lack of trust between victims and the policing system?

We need to make sure that women and girls, wherever they are and whatever they are doing, are safe and able to feel safe. The violence against women and girls strategy expects services to be able to deliver without any serious funding to deliver it. If that is wrong and there is such additional long-term funding to deliver this strategy, could the Government say how much it will be, and over what period of time?

What is clear is that, on every single step of their journey, women and girls are being failed—and, today, it feels as if the Government do not have enough of a plan to manage that. The Labour Party has worked up a green paper for ending violence against women and girls. We have set out, among many other things, toughening sentences for rape, stalking and domestic murder, and reviewing sentences for all domestic abuse. We have set about introducing a survivor’s support package to improve victims’ experiences in the courts, including fast-tracking rape and sexual violence cases, end-to-end legal help for victims and better training for professionals to give people the help they need. We also suggest the creation, as quickly as possible, of new offences for street harassment.

Clearly, the Government do not expect any early results from their strategy, since the Minister in the Commons said that she was prepared to wait until the end of this decade to see

“changes in the attitudes, misogynistic and otherwise, that underpin so much of this offending behaviour”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/7/21; col. 1087.]

The chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee summed it up very well in the Commons yesterday when she said:

“Much of this feels very incremental—just limited pilots and evidence gathering”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/7/21; col. 1090.]

[Lord Paddick (LD) [V]]

My Lords, before I start, I wish all noble Lords, and especially the Minister, a well-deserved, restful and restorative Recess. However, before we get there, such is the importance that this Government place on violence against women and girls that this strategy was announced in the other place at 7 pm yesterday—or, as the Minister in the other place put it,

“at an unusual hour, I think it is fair to say, of the parliamentary day”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/7/21; col. 1083.]

And here we are—last business before the Summer Recess.

A strategy should include a coherent set of specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely objectives, rather than what appears to be the result of a “board blast”, where every possible option is thrown in the paper. The Minister in the other place said that the strategy would build on the

“progress we have made in recent years”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/7/21; col. 1083.]

She cited London as being the first major capital city in the world to publish a comprehensive strategy to combat violence against women and girls, when Boris Johnson was Mayor of London.

The current Mayor of London said this year that the capital’s streets were not safe for women and girls, and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, in response to his comments, said that the streets of London were

“not safe for everyone all of the time”.

Is that the sort of progress that the Statement referred to?

We have seen an incoherent collection of random ideas before, with the serious violence strategy published by the Government in April 2018. The difficulty is that success should be measured in terms of outcomes, not outputs. Can the Minister tell the House what impact in terms of outcomes that strategy has had on levels of violent crime in the past three years?

As the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has just said, the Statement says that the strategy includes a

“multi-million-pound … communications campaign”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/7/21; col. 1084.]

It also talks about a £5 million safety of women at night fund, and talks about the broader, £25 million safer streets fund. Exactly what does “multi-million-pound” amount to? How many millions? The Statement is quite specific on the other initiatives, so why not on this one?

The Statement says that the Government will continue to back the police to catch perpetrators of violence against women and girls and bring them to justice, and that they have given the police more powers, more resources and more officers. How much more are this Government currently giving the police in real terms compared with 2010? What is the current establishment of police officers and community support officers in England and Wales—who are the visible policing presence on the street—compared with 2010? Although it is not just how much money is being spent but how it is spent that it is important, can the Minister tell the House exactly how much new money is specifically being targeted on reducing violence against women and girls, in support of this strategy?

It is abundantly clear what the problem is with violence against women and girls: it is the attitude of men, the culture in our society, and the belief among many men that they can do whatever they like to women because they can. They can because they are, on average, physically stronger, and they do not fear the consequences, whether disapproval from their peers or wider society, or effective sanction—whether by the criminal justice system, employers or institutions, including schools, political parties or religious organisations.

Too many men are likely to be given an encouraging slap on the back by other men for abusing women and girls, rather than condemnation. Every single person and every single organisation needs to say clearly and unambiguously that any abuse of women and girls, particularly male violence against them, is totally unacceptable. In particular, male leaders, especially political leaders, must set an example—not by being one of the lads, but by treating women and girls with dignity and respect. Noble Lords will not have to think very hard or for very long to think of an example.

We made drinking and driving socially unacceptable, and we need to make even verbal abuse of women and girls equally unacceptable, including making street harassment a specific criminal offence. We need every man to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

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

I join both noble Lords in commending the VAWG strategy. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for wishing us happy holidays—I am definitely looking forward to mine. I often do last business before Recess, so the noble Lord is not wrong in his observation. None the less, this is an incredibly important Statement. My honourable friend Vicky Atkins did not say that it would take a decade, but rather that it is the start of a decade of change. It is the beginning of the journey; it is a statement of intent. I am very glad that she laid her Statement to the House of Commons last night.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, talked about prosecutions being down and what we are going to do about it. We have absolutely acknowledged that prosecutions are down, particularly for rape. My honourable friend Kit Malthouse in another place led the rape review together with the MoJ; it concluded in May. The whole point of the rape review was to make the victim’s horrendous journey a much easier one from start to finish and to ensure that convictions, now so low, matched the number of victims coming forward in terms of proportion.

The noble Lord asked about the police lead on VAWG, as did the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. It is not just another police lead on something; we intend to make this a specific role. This will be a full-time job, and it is absolutely the right thing to do, particularly in terms of good practice, training, et cetera. The noble Lord asked about the wait time for the helpline. I am afraid I do not know the answer, and I will have to let him know, but we will be spending £1.14 million on it.

The noble Lord also asked about NDAs in universities but not in workplaces. Of course, we are all familiar with NDAs in the workplace and there is no doubt that, if someone is made to sign an NDA and it conceals the fact that they might be sexually harassed, the NDA is null and void. On universities, we want to send a clear message to students that sexual harassment is in no way tolerable on our campuses and online environments and to take the necessary steps to ensure that it is stamped out of our world-leading higher education sector.

Both the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Paddick, talked about street harassment. Although it is true that there are existing offences that can address sexual harassment, we are looking carefully at where there might be gaps in existing law and how a specific offence for public sexual harassment could address these. This is complex and it is important that we take the time to ensure that any potential legislation is both proportionate and reasonably defined.

We are committed to ensuring that not only are the right laws in place but that they work in practice. First, £3 million will go into the national communications campaign, which noble Lords asked about. It will challenge this kind of behaviour and ensure that victims know how and where to report it. Secondly, we will ensure that police and prosecutors are confident about how to respond to public sexual harassment—for example, through new police guidance. Thirdly, to prevent it from happening in the first place, we need to deepen our understanding of who commits these crimes, why they do so and how it may escalate—for example, through our new funding for what works to tackle violence against women and girls.

Both noble Lords asked about additional money. The total funding for 2021-22 is £300 million. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked about additional money. That will be £43 million in addition. On funding for the police, in terms of numbers we have committed to the 20,000 and in terms of future commitment clearly a spending review precludes me from committing to anything further than that.

Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2021

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD) [V]]

[Inaudible]—the contributions of the noble Lord, Lord Bhatia. I thank the Minster for explaining this order and I again express my thanks to those in the police and security services who work tirelessly to keep us all safe.

We have seen in recent weeks the hideous face of British racism and the disgraceful failure of senior members of the Government to support the anti-racism stance taken by the England football team. I quote from the Times opinion piece by the Conservative noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, published yesterday:

“In the contest between Priti Patel and Tyrone Mings there will only be one winner, and it won’t be the politician.”


As the Minister has explained, that is why proscribing extreme right-wing terrorist groups such as the Base is so important. I quote the Home Office press release:

“The Base has celebrated and promoted the use of violence in an attempt to establish a fascist, white ethno-state by means of a race war, and members are known to have engaged in weapons and explosives training. Its founder has also published a series of videos under his alias covering topics including”,


as the Minister has said,

“lone wolf activity, advocating guerrilla warfare, and leaderless resistance.”

When we considered the last proscription order on 22 April, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark—I warmly congratulate him on his appointment as the Labour Party Chief Whip in this House—and I questioned why it had taken so long to proscribe Atomwaffen Division when a cursory search of various news articles showed that it was linked to Sonnenkrieg Division, an organisation that had been proscribed 14 months previously. The Minister replied:

“The noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Paddick, pressed me on why we are bringing these measures forward now. Obviously, there is information that the Home Secretary receives that I cannot discuss, and she will make decisions based on the intelligence and legal information that she receives.”—[Official Report, 22/4/21; col. 1978.]


With the greatest respect to the noble Baroness, if the challenge were that there did not appear to be information in the public domain to justify the proscription, the noble Baroness may have a point, but that is not the issue. The question is why, when there appears to be overwhelming evidence in the public domain that an organisation should be proscribed, it is not proscribed earlier. Any delay in proscribing such dangerous and divisive organisations runs the risk of people being influenced and atrocities being perpetrated. As MI5’s Ken McCallum warned yesterday, racism is fuelling the far-right threat in the UK.

This order proscribes the Base. I quote a BBC article published on 24 January 2020, almost 18 months ago. It says:

“The Base is a major counter-terrorism focus for the FBI. Seven alleged members were charged this month with various offenses, including conspiracy to commit murder. Court documents prepared by the FBI describe The Base as a ‘racially motivated violent extremist group’ that ‘seeks to accelerate the downfall of the United States government, incite a race war, and establish a white ethno-state’ … In social media posts that year”,


which was 2018, “Norman Spear”, an alias used by the founder of the Base,

“posted imagery and videos by the outlawed British terrorist group National Action, praised al-Qaeda, and asked for volunteers possessing various skills, including with weapons, for his new organisation”.

That is not the information that the Minister has just given us; it is information from a BBC article 18 months ago.

An article in the Guardian newspaper, published on 24 January, the same date, states:

“The white supremacy group, which has regional and international cells, extols the virtues of an all-out race war while specifically targeting African Americans and Jewish people”.


Here we have evidence from the FBI that this is a dangerous terrorist organisation, that it was promoting the UK proscribed organisation National Action and had international cells. There appears to have been, in January 2020, almost 18 months ago, sufficient grounds to proscribe the base, yet the Government are bringing forward this order only now.

After the debate on 12 April, the Minister dismissively derided my internet research. In this case, there are various serious questions for the Government to answer. In the face of overwhelming evidence from the FBI in the public domain, published by reputable news organisations 18 months ago, that this organisation should be proscribed, why has it taken the Government until now to ban it? To say that there is information that the Home Secretary receives that cannot be discussed is simply not good enough. Of course we support this order, but we would have supported it 18 months ago, when it should have been introduced.