Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Lord Rosser and Lord Dear

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard - part one): House of Lords
Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, I echo the words that we have just heard. I have considerable sympathy with the emotions and reasoning behind the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. I make no comment about staffing in psychiatric wards—I have no knowledge of that—but as I speak against this amendment, we should remember that the Taser was introduced as an intermediate stage. It is intermediate between the use of batons, pepper sprays, CS gas and so on the one hand and firearms on the other. A Taser is not a firearm. It is something akin to it—it looks rather like one—but it is not a firearm within the definition of the Act. It does a different thing altogether. There is a violent interaction; of that, there can be no doubt. It brings immediate incapacity and some discomfort when it is fired but, as is sometimes said, in fact it knocks down the individual completely. That has to be the object of the exercise.

Perhaps I can give the Committee a circumstance which has already been alluded to. On a psychiatric ward a patient, for whatever reason, has become exceedingly violent and probably caused serious injury. They may even have caused death. The police are called; what are they going to do? If this amendment is passed into law, the police cannot use a Taser. They will use either the original, which is the pepper spray and so on, or a firearm. We need to remember that the use of a firearm in those extreme circumstances is justified in law, because there is a threat to life. By taking the Taser out we will in effect open the door, in extremis, to somebody being shot with a real lethal barrelled weapon.

I am all for looking at practice directions and reviewing the use of Tasers. Mission creep has been mentioned and perhaps there is mission creep—I do not know that and have not looked at the figures. However, to have something as extreme and prescriptive as this amendment within statute will certainly expose patients in psychiatric wards to the risk of death rather than anything else. In speaking against this, I am all for looking closely at the use of Tasers and for counselling officers using or thinking of using them to exercise extreme caution, but I would not go so far as the amendment stands.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, my name is attached to Amendment 194 and to a further amendment in this group, Amendment 201SB. As far as Amendment 194 is concerned, as has been said, it provides that a police officer may not use a Taser or electroshock weapon during deployment on a psychiatric ward. The purpose of adding my name to this amendment is to raise concerns that have been expressed to us about what is, in effect, a police response to what one might have thought was a clinical emergency but which has the potential effect of appearing to criminalise highly vulnerable people. I accept, though, that there could be very exceptional circumstances where a police officer might have to use a Taser during deployment on a psychiatric ward.

In response to this debate, perhaps the Government could provide figures on the extent of the use of Tasers or other devices by the police on psychiatric wards over the last 12-month period for which figures are available, and on the varying extent to which the trusts concerned called in the police and why there are such variations. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, clearly has similar information to that which I have been given. I have been told that there are trusts which call in the police literally hundreds of times a year. It would be helpful if the Government could say in response whether they accept that that is true and why they think it happens. If the police are called in on frequent occasions, is the heart of the problem that results in them being called in in that way either inadequate numbers of staff on duty to cope with situations that arise, or is it due in any way to inadequate or insufficient training of staff?

The second amendment which I have in this group calls for a review of Tasers, including in places of custody, and the extent to which there is or is not a disproportionate use of Tasers against black and minority ethnic groups. Once again, this concern has been raised with us—hence the amendment—and it was highlighted following an incident which led to the death of a former well-known footballer. I simply ask: what procedures exist to ensure that there is transparency and scrutiny over the use of Tasers? What information is kept of the details of those against whom Tasers are deployed, including age, gender and ethnicity? What requirement is there for the use of Tasers to be reported immediately and to whom?

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, I have just seen the letter sent yesterday to Charles Walker MP from the Minister of State for Policing and the Fire Service on the use of Tasers in mental health settings. No doubt in her response the Minister will seek to place on record in Hansard the thrust of the terms of that letter and the circular that has been sent to police and crime commissioners, chief constables and the chairs of local mental health crisis care concordat partnerships in England. Nevertheless, I hope that the Government will seek to respond to my questions insofar as they can, bearing in mind that the circular states that at present there are no reliable data on the frequency or scale of any Taser use in mental health settings.