Black Dog Crisis Management Company

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

Is that the only occasion on which this company has been used by the Home Office? What changes were made as a result of the investigative work that it carried out? How many other departments apart from the Home Office find it necessary to use Black Dog Crisis Management to get them out of a mess?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

It is my understanding that this company has been engaged previously by the Home Office. I can get the noble Lord some stats on other government departments if he wishes.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Rosser Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 14th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

I start by saying that our thoughts and good wishes are very much with the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, who is not able, for unavoidable reasons, to be with us today on the Government Front Bench. I add my congratulations, as so many other noble Lords have done, to the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, on his well-received maiden speech. We know that the noble Lord has a great deal to offer your Lordships’ House and we look forward to what we hope will be many more contributions from him.

The Bill has been strongly criticised by many noble Lords in this debate; not least the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and the Delegated Powers Committee which he chairs, for its extensive use of delegated powers—I think there are 62—that are not open to proper, or any, parliamentary scrutiny and which leave the interpretation of words in the Bill to the Home Secretary and the police. Let me remind your Lordships what the committee said:

“We are surprised and concerned at the large number of inappropriate delegations of power in this Bill … We are particularly concerned that the Bill would … allow Ministers—and even a non-statutory body—to influence the exercise of new police powers (including in relation to unauthorised traveller encampments and stop and search) through ‘guidance’ that is not subject to parliamentary scrutiny”.


The committee went on to say that the Bill would

“leave to regulations key aspects of new police powers—to restrict protest and to extract confidential information from electronic devices—that should instead be on the face of the Bill; and … allow the imposition of statutory duties via the novel concept of strategy’ documents that need not even be published.”

No wonder the DPRRC, and so many noble Lords today, are concerned.

A number of noble Lords have also criticised the Bill for, shall we say, a certain lack of brevity. This 177-clause, near 300-page, 13-part and 20-schedule Bill covers a multitude of different matters for which the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office have primary responsibility.

As my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton said in detailing our 11 areas of concern—which I shall not repeat—there are significant new measures in the Bill with which we profoundly disagree, and significant issues that have been ignored in the Bill. However, as my noble and learned friend also said, there are parts of the Bill which we support. They include, for example, the introduction of the police covenant, for which the Police Federation has long campaigned, and addressing assaults against emergency workers, which should also be extended to key workers such as those in retail.

On the police covenant, there must be more than warm words from the Government. We will be looking to strengthen it, particularly with regard to health, including mental health and trauma, and, crucially, independence. The covenant must be a chance for the police to lead, and government to listen, on the needs of the police workforce.

On retail workers, it is important to recognise that assaults are not just a problem born of the pandemic. Although the pandemic heightened it, this has been a rising problem faced by shop workers for many years. Amendments on this issue had cross-party Back-Bench support in the Commons, and the Government said they would consider the matter and bring forward an amendment in the Lords “if appropriate”.

In a response to the Home Affairs Select Committee, published last week, the Government said they were not complacent on this issue, and repeated their plan to consider it as part of this Bill. They also said that they would “take into account” the text of the Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act, which has recently come into force in Scotland. I pay tribute to the work of Daniel Johnson MSP as the leading Member involved. The Bill was passed unanimously, including with support from the Minister’s own party.

What does the Government “considering” the issue actually mean? What meetings have Ministers held over the summer with business, trade unions and groups, including the British Retail Consortium, on this matter? When is the consideration going to be completed and a conclusion reached? I trust that the Minister will be able to address these points in the Government’s response to this debate.

As I have already said, there are significant new measures in the Bill with which we profoundly disagree. As so many noble Lords have said, the right to protest is a cornerstone of our democracy. Yet the Bill considerably extends the conditions that can be imposed on the exercise of that right of non-violent protest, as my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti reminded us. This is perhaps a government reaction to the aspects of the Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter protests to which Ministers took very public exception.

Just one example of that extension of power is the fact that the Bill makes

“the noise generated by persons taking part”,

if it causes people

“serious unease, alarm or distress”,

a reason for the police to be able to impose conditions. The vague terminology creates a very low threshold to meet, and could be used to seriously limit or rule out peaceful protest. As so many have already said, protests tend to be noisy, because one objective is to attract attention to the cause in question. The Bill then provides for penalties for someone who breaches a police-imposed condition on a protest where they “ought to have known” that the condition existed, which would in effect criminalise even people who unwittingly breach conditions.

Yet in our view the police already have sufficient powers under existing laws to address serious disruption arising from protests that never were, or that have ceased to be, peaceful and legitimate. Those existing powers strike a balance between legitimate rights and the need to keep order, which is not what the deployment of the additional extensive powers being sought in the Bill is likely to do. In our view, the Government have got the balance wrong.

As I think my noble friend Lord Blunkett said, getting words right really matters, and the terminology in this Bill is often vague and open to different and damaging interpretations, not by Parliament but by those to whom the power of definition and interpretation is given. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said—I hope I quote him accurately—

“We do not know what this Act means”.


There is also a real risk that some community groups who have legitimate concerns and want their voices heard will look at the provisions and powers in this Bill and decide that non-violent protest is potentially too risky for them. That would certainly have serious implications for the concept of policing by consent, apart from on the democratic right to protest peacefully.

Another part of the Bill contains clauses on unauthorised encampments, about which my noble friend Lady Whitaker and many other noble Lords have spoken so powerfully. These clauses create a new offence, backed up by custodial or financial penalties, of residing and—it seems—having an intention to reside on land without consent in or with a vehicle. This offence is clearly targeted at Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. Under the powers in the Bill, the police can seize and remove property if they “reasonably suspect” that the new offence has been committed, which could mean seizure and removal of a vehicle which is a person’s or persons’ primary residence. The police do not believe that criminalisation of unauthorised encampments will do anything other than make situations worse, and they have said that the shortage of sites to occupy is the real problem that leads to unlawful encampments.

A duty to tackle and prevent serious violence is introduced under the Bill, and we support the intention of the serious violence duty to get every agency working together locally to tackle violence. However, we are concerned that there is no provision in the Bill to safeguard children and that the Government have rejected calls for a new definition of child criminal exploitation. We also want to see it made clear in the Bill that domestic abuse or sexual violence, particularly against women and girls, counts as serious violence. As has been said already, it is a national—not local—issue. This issue is being pursued in particular by the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, and the noble Lords, Lord Russell of Liverpool and Lord Polak.

We are concerned, too, about data capture elements in the Bill and the sharing of information between agencies including the police. In particular, we want effective protection of victims, not least victims of rape and sexual abuse, from demeaning and often unnecessary intrusion into their lives by the examination of their phone data by strangers, as has been said. We are currently working with the Victims’ Commissioner on these data extraction issues.

Under the Bill, and following their being piloted, serious violence reduction orders would allow police officers with such orders to stop and search people with previous convictions involving an offensive weapon, whether used or being carried at the time of the offence. Frankly, it is hard to believe that such sweeping powers to stop and search such people without the officer having reasonable grounds and without authorisation will reduce serious violence when the evidence shows that it is intelligence-led searches which produce results.

This is a divisive Bill which challenges the continuation of long-standing basic freedoms while failing to address legitimate public concerns about keeping people safe—not least women and girls. As my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton pointed out, this Bill should have been the opportunity to make positive changes to the criminal justice system to better victims’ experience of it and ensure that it works for everyone and to put in place long overdue protections for women and girls against unacceptable violence. Despite the impact of a decade of government cuts to the police and the justice system, that opportunity has been ignored, and instead we have a government Bill that does more to protect statues than women, does nothing to better victims’ experience of the criminal justice system and clamps down on the democratic right to protest. As a result, there will no doubt be many amendments to this Bill put down in Committee and on Report. It now remains to be seen whether there are significant issues of concern about this Bill—which have been expressed today—on which the Government will be prepared to move of their own volition.

EU Borders: Refugees from Afghanistan

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

I think that the answers to the last few questions show the difficulties since the Government have not yet outlined the full details of the Afghan citizens’ resettlement scheme, confirmed when it will begin or confirmed how many people are expected to join it. We are seeing some of the difficulties arising from that. The Government’s responsibility to Afghan citizens who have worked closely with our troops over the past 20 years extends beyond giving them the basic right to settle in the UK. The Home Office and other departments must surely support their integration into British life by beginning to help them to find permanent accommodation. In their Statement on Afghanistan this week, the Government said:

“Years before this episode, we began to fulfil our obligation to those Afghans who had helped us”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/9/21; col. 21.]


Can the Minister say how many evacuated Afghans are currently being housed in hotels and other temporary accommodation, and how many are now in permanent accommodation?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The noble Lord raises the issue that many of the people who have now arrived here are still in quarantine; many of the people whom we have flown here will be in quarantine until tomorrow, I think. He is absolutely right that it must be a prime consideration that those people can eventually be found permanent accommodation.

EU Bilateral Agreements for Asylum Seekers

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I absolutely dispute that. We have granted protection or other forms of leave to 2,742 children alone, and to more than 47,000 since 2010. As I previously said, in 2020, the UK received the second highest number out of all European countries—nearly 3,000—of asylum applications from unaccompanied children.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, there appear to have been agreements involving money reached with the French authorities in connection with what the Government regard as irregular migrants who are trafficked across the channel in small boats. First, how much has been paid to the French authorities over the past five years and how much is still due to be paid? Secondly, since record numbers of people fleeing desperate situations have already crossed the channel this year, against what specific criteria do and will the Government assess whether that money paid has or has not delivered on whatever it is the Government expect from the French in return?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I fear that I do not have details of payments made to the French, but I can say that, so far this year, up to 25 August, our co-operation with French law enforcement has helped to prevent more than 10,000 migrant attempts. That compares to just over 4,000 for the previous period, in 2020. Clearly, how we are working together is having some effect.

Zimbabwe: Human Rights

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I can confirm to the noble Lord that it is government policy to deport foreign national offenders who have received a custodial sentence of 12 months or more. We are not trying to distract from human rights issues. Regarding the flight that departed last night, 50 were due to be on it; 14 were returned and 44 submitted last-minute claims.

[Lord Rosser (Lab) [V]]

The Home Office has a poor record in relation to Covid-19 safety, having already been warned by the High Court about its approach to the asylum system in this regard. Following what happened at Napier barracks, what is the position at the Brook House immigration removal centre? Is it that there has been at least one confirmed positive Covid-19 case? Were any of those on the scheduled deportation flight to Zimbabwe, whom the Government said were all foreign national offenders, people who were awaiting a Covid-19 test result; had tested positive themselves; or should have been, or were, self-isolating for 10 days because they had come into contact with somebody with Covid-19?

Strategy for Tackling Violence against Women and Girls

Lord Rosser 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.

Police and Crime Commissioner By-election

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Lords Chamber

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

My noble friend is right; they are incredibly stringent. They were set out in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 and would, of course, require primary legislation to be amended. That is not within the scope of the Cabinet Office Elections Bill. My noble friend outlines that there certainly appear to be gaps in the process, and the Cabinet Office is looking at that.

[Lord Rosser (Lab) [V]]

Previous convictions do not necessarily preclude anyone from appointment as a police officer, as account can be taken of the nature and circumstances of the offence, age at the time the offence was committed and the number of years since the offence was committed. Neither do previous convictions for an imprisonable offence preclude a person becoming Home Secretary, and thus accountable to Parliament for the police and having regular direct contact with chief constables and commissioners, as happened following the pulling down of the Colston statue in Bristol and repeatedly during the Sarah Everard vigil in London. In view of this, do the Government really have no plans to review the strict rules on convictions for an imprisonable offence that preclude people from standing for and taking up the position of police and crime commissioner?

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

I remind the noble Lord that the high standard was set with cross-party agreement and with the support of senior officers, because PCCs hold police forces, whose duty is to uphold the law, to account.

Domestic Abuse: Older People

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2021 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, that is a very valid question in light of the legislation we have just passed. I do not know the overall figures for non-fatal strangulation but certainly we saw it as sufficiently worrying that we passed legislation to ensure that it was outlawed. In terms of people over 65, the House will know that over-75s are now being included in ONS statistics. I think that is a very good move.

[Lord Rosser (Lab) [V]]

During the passage of the Domestic Abuse Bill, the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, tabled amendments on ensuring that local authorities recognised and reported abuse of older people and ensuring entry powers for social workers in situations where abuse is suspected. The Government argued that neither amendment was necessary as the necessary training and powers already exist. However, training to recognise older victims of abuse can be piecemeal across different public bodies and agencies. What is being done, and by whom, to ensure that people in public-facing roles are properly trained to recognise and report such abuse?

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

The noble Lord raises a really valid point: underlying all of this is the need for sufficient training to enable agencies and local authorities to refer onwards. Indeed, because tier 1 local authorities now have a duty placed upon them, that need is emphasised even further.

E-scooters

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2021 Lords Chamber

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

I thank my noble friend for his question, which he asked me a few weeks ago when we had the previous Question. I can inform him that DfT Ministers have held four round tables with groups representing vulnerable people. He is absolutely right that e-scooters can be extremely hazardous to people who are hard of sight or not swift on their feet. The last round table we had on this matter was last month. Clearly those groups have raised concerns about the trials and, when the trials finish, we will be able to evaluate the framework for the use of these scooters.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

Police numbers are still considerably lower today than they were in 2010, and on top of this, the population is higher than it was just over a decade ago. Do the Government agree that, if police numbers were still at 2010 levels, the police would have more resources to stop people using e-scooters illegally, which would also be a greater deterrent to the illegal use of e-scooters?

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

The noble Lord will know that the Government remain on track—in fact, ahead of track—to deliver the number of 20,000 more police, because we have recognised that the demands on the police are changing and therefore that more police to tackle various types of crime are needed on our streets.

Independent Office for Police Conduct

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

In terms of capacity, the IOPC budget for 2021-22 is £69.6 million and it employs approximately 1,000 staff. To that extent, I think it is well-resourced.

[Lord Rosser (Lab) [V]]

What is the Home Secretary expecting to get from bringing forward her review of the Independent Office for Police Conduct? Does she expect advice on whether its powers and resources should be strengthened and increased, since only 80% of conduct investigation cases are resolved within 12 months? Or does the Home Secretary have doubts about whether the IOPC—a body that this Government created—should now continue in existence at all, as she regards it as neither effective nor efficient? After all, a Home Secretary does not bring forward a periodic review of a body without having some view about the future of that body.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

As she announced last month, the Home Secretary is bringing forward the review of the IOPC in part due to some concerns about Midland. The review will consider the IOPC’s governance, accountability, efficiency and efficacy, and should ultimately lead to better outcomes not only for the organisation itself but for the public and the police. It is quite routine for arm’s-length bodies to be reviewed, and doing it now is timely.