Police Accountability

Debate between Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Baroness Doocey

Monday 28th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for this Statement and I join my right honourable friend the shadow Home Secretary in welcoming its contents. It is true that, for the British consent-based policing model to work, the trust must be mutual. The people must trust the police and the police must trust the system in order to perform their duties effectively. But too often lately both sides have been let down.

I therefore welcome that this Government are continuing the work of the previous Government on accountability. I particularly welcome the work of Dame Elish Angiolini on police culture; having worked with her, I have no doubt at all that her final report will make very sensible recommendations. I am also pleased that previously agreed measures to ensure that officers convicted of certain criminal offences are automatically found to have committed gross misconduct, and the empowering of chief constables to dismiss them, will be beefed up and taken forward. On these Benches we welcome these moves.

However, we are here because of the acquittal of Sergeant Martyn Blake in his trial for the murder of Chris Kaba. This raises several questions, which I would like to put to the Minister. First, I welcome that in future there will be a presumption of anonymity for accused officers. I can only imagine the struggles that Sergeant Blake and his family have been through, and they are still probably living in fear. It was appalling to read that Mr Kaba’s alleged gang associates had put a bounty on Sergeant Blake’s head. Could the Minister update the House on whether there are police investigations to find those responsible for this threat to Sergeant Blake’s life?

I also welcome that reviews will be held of the thresholds for criminal misconduct and inquest investigations, which, as the Statement notes, add

“complexity, confusion and delay to the system”.

But I would go further. Since 2010, British police have shot dead 30 people, an average of 2.1 per year. In the past decade, there have been only 66 incidents where the police have discharged a weapon at all, even though armed police are deployed to around 18,000 incidents every year. In terms of police killings per 10 million people, the only countries with a lower death rate than the UK are Japan and Iceland. Britain does not have a police brutality problem. The stats prove this and campaigners need to acknowledge it. The armed police show great restraint in the face of danger and should be commended as such. Does the Minister agree?

As my right honourable friend James Cleverly noted, training for these roles should form a legitimate part of the defence when criminal prosecutions are brought forward. This is not to argue that officers are above the law. If there are any doubts, they must of course be investigated, but we owe it to them not to create a situation in which, as James Cleverly stated, they are disincentivised from acting decisively. That puts us all at risk. Does the Minister agree?

This is a difficult and sensitive subject. Community cohesion and tensions will inevitably be mentioned in this and subsequent debates, which is right and proper. We have had a summer in which the fabric of our society has been stretched to breaking point in many cases. We in these Houses must therefore be very careful what we say to avoid stoking tensions and exacerbating problems. So I ask the Minister to condemn the comments of his honourable friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside, who said that the media were using racist tropes to justify Chris Kaba’s killing. They are not.

Any death at the hands of the police is a tragedy, but in this case an officer doing his duty has also had his life ruined. Of course, my thoughts are with the relatives of Chris Kaba, but also with Sergeant Blake’s family. I again place on record my thanks to all the police, armed and unarmed, who put themselves in harm’s way. They are heroes who would rather walk towards dangerous criminals than run away from them. As I said in my opening remarks, I welcome this Statement, but we need answers to the more difficult questions if we are truly to learn anything at all from this tragic case.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, we welcome the Home Secretary’s emphasis on speeding up proceedings in cases involving police using lethal force. Protracted investigations cause additional trauma to bereaved families, prolong the stress for officers involved and damage wider police morale. We also welcome the equalisation of thresholds for criminal charges to ensure that the police and public are held to the same standards.

These measures are long overdue, because we have now reached a point where police officers feel deeply undervalued, both by the public at large and by many politicians. Low public confidence has led police to believe that the work they do is not always appreciated. Assaults and attacks on police are now a daily occurrence. A recent review found that more than half had been physically attacked in the previous year, with a significant number requiring medical attention.

A police officer’s every move is now captured both on their bodycam and, increasingly, by members of the public, ensuring that their every action and split-second decision is recorded, criticised and documented for posterity on social media. Trial by media raises the real risk that, when things go wrong, the focus is on blaming individual officers, even when the reality points to wider systemic failings. I hope that these measures around the presumption of anonymity and the need to take account of officers’ training and guidance will help alleviate some of these problems.

I admit that I am slightly uneasy about the timing of this announcement, given the danger that it could be taken by some to signal the lowering of police accountability. I am therefore relieved to hear that the Government have made an urgent commitment to toughen up procedures around police misconduct and vetting. By putting national vetting standards on a statutory footing, we can make concrete progress in restoring public confidence. We particularly want to see the rules around officers accused of domestic abuse or sexual offences tightened significantly.

We must remember that the Kaba case is not taking place in a vacuum. Last year, the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, highlighted the continuing presence of racism within policing almost 25 years after a similar conclusion was reached by Macpherson. Data from the National Police Chiefs’ Council shows that black people are five times more likely than white people to have force used against them. It is therefore critical that this accountability review strikes the right balance. It must be accompanied by a clear timetable to implement the existing Angiolini and Casey review recommendations. The public need to be assured that bad officers will always be held to account, that guilty officers will always be punished and that this will be done fairly and transparently. But, at the same time, it is imperative that our police are reassured that if they do the right thing and follow their training, the system will protect them and not be stacked against them.

I ask the Minister whether this review will be open to contributions from all sides. We know that the police have already made submissions, but what opportunity will there be for representatives of, for example, the black community, who are of course particularly invested in the outcome, to contribute?

I have two final points. Polls suggest that more than a third of the public lack confidence in the Independent Office for Police Conduct—IOPC—while barely one in five black people think that it is impartial. This is not good enough, nor is the fact that IOPC recommendations are almost always out of date by the time they are published because it can take years for individual case proceedings to conclude. The proposal for a lessons-learned database is extremely welcome in this context. Nevertheless, a recent independent review made 93 recommendations to improve the IOPC. What steps are the Government taking to implement these recommendations?

Finally, reports as far back as Scarman in 1981 point to the need to urgently address the lack of diversity in policing, to better reflect the communities the police serve. The Home Secretary said in her Statement that she wants to introduce neighbourhood policing, so will the Government commit to ensuring that such reform is used as a platform to address this lack of diversity, so that people in all communities believe that the police are on their side?

Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2024

Debate between Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Baroness Doocey

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, we accept the recommendation of the advisory council and support the tightening of these regulations. I shall add a couple of comments. In relation to synthetic opioids, given the continual emergence of new individual nitazenes, we are in favour of introducing a generic control for these substances. They can be much more potent than heroin, leaving users at a particularly high risk of accidental overdose. Nitazenes have already cost lives in the UK, and although there is little local evidence of the impact of the other six synthetic opioids named in the order, the potential harm they could wreak is abundantly clear, given the high risk posed for addiction and fatality, as outlined by the Minister.

The need to keep up with organised crime’s ability to synthetise new varieties of opioid is crucial at a time when the UK and European markets are especially vulnerable to their influx, given the noted drop in the supply of heroin and fentanyl. The market is shifting as people seek alternatives, so it is highly likely that the substances named will become much more prevalent. The advisory council’s report calls the individual controlling of these six named synthetic opioids “a short-term approach”. Will the Government consult on the introduction of a generic definition for these substances similar to that for nitazenes?

I also have real concern about the UK’s ability to detect these new substances in a timely fashion. I note that screening and chemical testing for them is extremely limited, that many laboratories do not have the resources routinely to check for them and that they are often not incorporated into police drug tests. Given the damage that we have seen synthetic opioid addiction wreak on parts of the USA, it is of the utmost importance that we have all the warnings we can get of what is emerging on the UK market and where.

The importance of this is underlined by another of the substances we are dealing with today, xylazine. The first UK death in which it was implicated came to light only thanks to the vigilance of a toxicologist who detected it at postmortem because they decided to investigate what they thought were strange results. Internationally, heroin and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl are increasingly being cut with xylazine, and we know it is increasingly present in fatal overdoses in the US where in some states it is present in more than one-quarter of all drug deaths, yet because xylazine is not included in standard UK drug testing we do not know how widespread its use is here. It is a not a nice drug. It leaves people like zombies and its continued use rots their skin from the inside. Back in 2022, there was also apparently no way of recording it in the UK drug deaths database. Is this still the case? Will the Minister address my wider concerns around testing?

The Liberal Democrats do not believe that criminalising individuals for drug possession is the answer, and we will continue to call for a better public health response to tackling the drugs crisis. Will the Government make any additional funding available to enable the consistent national implementation of pre-arrest and pre-prosecution police drug diversion schemes?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, the Conservative Party welcomes this order. It controls six substances, introduces a generic definition for nitazenes as class A drugs and controls 16 substances as class C drugs. These Benches believe deeply in the principles of law and order, personal responsibility and the protection of our communities. This amendment embodies those very principles by addressing the evolving nature of the drugs trade and reinforcing our nation’s commitment to keeping our streets safe.

In May, the previous Conservative Government accepted all five recommendations set out in the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs’ March 2024 report. I welcome the new Government’s continuation of our excellent work. These regulations will build on the previous Government’s work to mitigate the real threat of synthetic opioids across the UK by banning 15 new synthetic opioid drugs.

Police Recruitment: Reform

Debate between Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Baroness Doocey

Tuesday 5th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises some good points, and she is quite right about some of the recommendations made by Lady Elish. The Government of course recognise that there have been significant and justifiable concerns regarding police vetting, so over the past year we have worked to sort that out. As noble Lords will be aware, in early 2023 we asked the College of Policing to update the statutory code of practice for vetting, which was published in July 2023. It makes clear the expectation that chief officers will ensure that vetting standards are maintained within their forces. The vetting code is supported by the authorised professional practice guidance for vetting, which has recently been revised. There is much more to do on this—no one is denying that. I take the noble Baroness’s point seriously but, as I say, we will soon respond in full to the report and the recommendations.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, everyone is appalled by this dreadful crime and our thoughts are with Sarah Everard’s family. Will the Government commit to ensuring that female police officers and police staff have the same rights as the public to make a complaint of domestic abuse against their own police force? At the moment their only option is to make a criminal complaint, which most of them are not happy to do. That is definitely not helping recruitment or retention of females in the police force.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, we have already referred to the culture that needs to change, and that is part of the overall cultural change that is required. I am not particularly familiar with how that sort of report would need to be made. I will look into that and come back to the noble Baroness.

Angiolini Inquiry Report

Debate between Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Baroness Doocey

Tuesday 5th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, what happened to Sarah Everard was horrific, and made worse by the fact that this callous murder was committed by a serving police officer. The report says that Wayne Couzens should never have been a police officer and that numerous opportunities to end his career were ignored. It lays out a number of steps to ensure that this appalling tragedy is not repeated.

The Minister has promised decisive action and outlined several welcome measures, yet the vehicle required to take such action is available to him now. The Criminal Justice Bill is due to reach this House in the coming weeks. As it stands, the charity Refuge says it is seriously disappointed with the Bill’s measures on police perpetrators, which it believes will do very little to rid our forces of abusers.

The Government have so far resisted a series of amendments, such as one that would mean all allegations of police-perpetrated domestic abuse would be recorded —either as a police complaint or a conduct matter. This would inform vetting and any potential future investigations. Will the Minister reconsider placing such provisions in the Bill, rather than falling back on regulations and, worse still, voluntary codes of practice, which seldom if ever work?

Does the Minister accept that the time has now come to spell out, in no uncertain terms, that violence against women and girls is not acceptable if you are a police officer? That surely means being clear that domestic abuse is not just a criminal matter but a disciplinary matter within the police services themselves.

I also want to address the issue of consistency. At the moment, there is too much variation around the country, and the issue of warrant card removal illustrates this well. In some forces, officers are required to surrender their warrant cards if they are suspended; in other forces, they are not. Sarah Everard’s murder horribly underlines the power that comes with a warrant card. At the very least, surely suspended officers should be required to surrender warrant cards nationwide. This is something that the Domestic Abuse Commissioner is calling for.

Another matter of consistency is on the issue of suspensions themselves. The Government are now saying that there will be an automatic suspension of police officers charged with certain criminal offences pending trial. Can the Minister confirm that domestic abuse offences will be among those leading to suspension?

The Government are planning to change the rules to make it easier for forces to remove officers without vetting clearance. However, removing those who fail vetting or are guilty of gross misconduct will still not be a legal obligation. These measures will not be mandatory or backed by primary legislation. A Liberal Democrat freedom of information request last October revealed that 129 Metropolitan Police officers were still working on the front line while under investigation for allegations of sexual or domestic abuse, eight months on from the Casey review. This is, frankly, a disgrace.

Meanwhile, a clear issue with culture and leadership remains to be addressed. This is particularly critical in the context of an increasingly young and inexperienced workforce, a third of whom have less than five years’ service. The Police Foundation describes a

“culture of silence and complicity”,

where the default is to keep quiet if you want to get on or fit in. This report rightly says that our police must be held to a higher standard of behaviour and accountability given the powers that they have. Good officers will welcome anything that does this.

Time and again, we have had excellent reports which identify the issues and make recommendations to stop them happening again. Most of the recommendations are accepted, but they are seldom, if ever, implemented. Can the Minister explain what the Government propose to do to ensure a full and speedy implementation of the recommendations in this report? Crucially, can he also say what the consequences will be for those forces that fail to comply?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

I thank both noble Baronesses for their comments. The first thing to say, which I said earlier, is that my thoughts are with the family and friends of Sarah Everard.

The second thing, highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and which it was remiss of me to neglect to say earlier, is that we owe it to all the decent police officers out there—there are very many, who I would like to thank—to get this right. Finally, I place on record my thanks to Lady Elish, who has delivered a very efficient, speedy report. This is obviously only part 1. I note that part 2 is considering cultural issues, which include misogyny and predatory behaviour. There will be much more to say on that subject, which is not to say that we should not act speedily and efficiently now—and we are. I will explain how.

The vetting process has come in for a considerable amount of criticism, with some justification. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked why the Government are not legislating to put vetting standards on a statutory footing. The report did not specifically recommend that the Government legislate on vetting standards. As I have just said, part 2 will look in depth at vetting and recruitment, among other cultural issues in policing. We will consider any findings from part 2 in due course. However, we expect policing to examine the Angiolini findings from part 1 in detail, and for them to be addressed.

To ensure that forces are adhering to the existing standards, as set out by the College of Policing, the college will establish a process of national accreditation, setting out the high standards that policing must meet, with the aim of increasing confidence in policing. We are introducing regulations on vetting, which will make it easier for forces to remove those who cannot hold the minimum level of clearance.

As Lady Elish says in her report, it is not possible to

“make any conclusive finding that earlier interventions would have prevented the horrific crimes”

that the report responded to. However, I do not think that Couzens would have been able to remain a police officer if he was serving today—I think it is important to state that for the record. Vetting has been significantly tightened, and tolerances are lower. Forces now do a full re-vet on transfer. Lady Elish highlighted that that is clear in the new vetting code. There is also a data wash process. We are funding policing to develop automated screening, so that records added to the police national database, such as the indecent allegations made against Couzens in 2015, will be quickly picked up by the employing force.

In January 2023, the then Home Secretary asked HMICFRS to carry out a rapid review in response to the November 2022 inspectorate report into vetting. That also looked at what forces are doing to identify and deal with misogynistic behaviour. The inspectorate identified good process in certain areas, and in January this year, the NPCC provided evidence on the implementation of relevant recommendations across forces to the inspectorate. We have also asked the College of Policing to strengthen the statutory code of practice, which I have mentioned. That code was published in July 2023. I referred earlier to the authorised professional practice guidance which is available for public consultation. Finally, in January 2024, the Home Office agreed to provide an additional £500,000 to policing to develop a continuous integrity screening system for the workforce, building on the data wash exercise.

Recommendation 6 is for the NPCC, and I hope it will implement it as quickly as possible—indeed, that goes for all of the recommendations. We discussed some of them earlier, and they all make perfect sense to me. I hope they make perfect sense to others, as well.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked about indecent exposure and whether the police are taking such offences seriously enough. In accordance with the strategic policing requirement, we expect that all sexual offending, including for cases where there is no contact, is taken seriously, because we want victims to have the confidence to report these offences. We need them to know that they will get the support that they need, and that everything will be done to bring the offenders to justice.

As noble Lords will be aware, we have added violence against women and girls to the revised strategic policing requirement, which means that crimes that disproportionately impact women and girls, such as indecent exposure, are set out as a national threat for forces to respond to, alongside other threats such as terrorism, serious and organised crime, and child sexual abuse. The strategic policing requirement is set by the Home Secretary and provides clear direction to policing. It highlights where police forces need to work together, using their local and regional capabilities. This requirement covers all forms of violence against women and girls. We continue to work closely with the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s violence against women and girls task force to drive improvements in the policing response. It will soon publish an updated national framework on how policing needs to prepare, prevent, pursue and protect to robustly improve policing’s response to these crimes.

The report found that what might be considered “lower-level sexual offending”, such as Couzens sending unwarranted pictures of himself, could lead to more serious sexual assault. Obviously, as I have said, we regard that any kind of sexually motivated crime is abhorrent and should be treated very seriously. Women need to be confident in calling the police and reporting crimes, and to trust that they will be taken seriously when they do. As I have said, in tandem with policing partners, we will be considering Lady Elish’s recommendations very carefully and will respond fully after a review of all of the content. I am afraid that I cannot give a timetable as to recommendation 4, but, as I said earlier today, we will be responding in full very soon.

In terms of women joining the police, I looked up the statistics after the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, asked me about it earlier, and they are not as bad as I might have inferred. The 20,000 officer uplift programme provided a once in a generation opportunity to support forces. The police force is now more diverse than ever, with 53,080 women police officers and 12,086 ethnic minority police officers; this was as of 31 March 2023, so those numbers will have changed. Females accounted for 35.5% of officers—the highest number and proportion in post since comparable records began. Between April 2020 and March 2023, 43.2% of new police officer recruits in England and Wales were female—a notable increase on levels in previous years. I will not go into more detail, but it is an encouraging picture and a good start when it comes to the cultural change that we have been talking about at some length.

The noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, also asked a good question which I was unable to answer about how officers and police staff should be encouraged to call out wrongdoing when they see it. I will go into a bit more detail about this, though I suspect it is not as much as the noble Baroness would like. Police officers have a statutory duty to report wrongdoing by their colleagues when they see it, and not doing so constitutes a breach of their standards of professional behaviour. The noble Baroness referred to the Criminal Justice Bill; a duty of candour is included in that, which will help this progress significantly.

There are a number of other routes, both internal and external, through which police officers and staff can raise concerns. External routes include staff associations, trade unions, the office of the relevant PCC if the matter concerns the chief constable, Crimestoppers and the Independent Office for Police Conduct. A police officer can report wrongdoing directly to the professional standards department within their force. Most police forces in England and Wales have reporting phone lines, many with protections for anonymity. A reporting line run by the IOPC enables officers and staff to report concerns that a criminal offence has been committed or where there is evidence of conduct that would justify disciplinary proceedings. I appreciate that this does not fully answer the question about others who might report domestic abuse, but I will take those comments back and find out what can be done about it.

I appreciate that I am running over time. With the indulgence of the House, I will quickly finish by talking about recommendation 5, which is what the Government have done or should be doing to try to change societal attitudes towards women and girls. It is important to highlight the Government’s Enough programme, which is designed to deliver a generational shift in the attitudes and behaviours underpinning abuse. The campaign has a continued focus on encouraging bystanders to challenge safely any abuse they may witness and to trigger reflection among perpetrators and their peers. Evaluation of Enough has shown that it is successfully reaching target audiences, driving behavioural change and encouraging bystanders to intervene when they see abuse. This has been helped by the creation of a STOP mnemonic which is proving highly effective.

I will finish there for now, though I am sure there is more to be said on this subject. Recommendation 5 makes considerable sense. I will certainly be taking the suggestion from the noble Baroness back to the Home Office.

Security of Elected Representatives

Debate between Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Baroness Doocey

Thursday 29th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

But I commend to him our paper from 2019, setting out proposals for the creation of a new online crime agency to effectively tackle online crimes such as personal fraud, and threats and incitement to violence on social media. We must work on a cross-party basis to tackle this scourge, and I know that we in this House, and all parties in the other place, will be united in this.

Politicians also need to be careful about the language they use. Talking about “no-go areas” in London or describing people exercising their democratic right to protest as “mob rule” is not helping anyone. Nor is the entry of Trump-style conspiracy theories into the mainstream of British politics—that should worry us all.

Politicians have been elected to do a job and should be able to do it without fear for their own or their family’s safety. It is also essential that they can continue to run face-to-face surgeries, which are an essential glue between the elected and the electors. We must all stick together to ensure that this contact does not disappear from our democracy, and that people from every background, gender and sexual identity can enter politics and represent people in safety.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their questions. I will start by agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, about anti-Semitism—of course I agree, and he heard me make statements on that subject from the Dispatch Box last week. In terms of how this is a societal problem, and how anti-Semitism may start with Jews but does not finish there, I refer the noble Lord to the comments from Lord Sacks that I quoted last week.

I also highlight, because I think it is important, that the Prime Minister yesterday committed to four years of funding for the CST—Community Security Trust—at £18 million a year. This is a subject that the noble Lord, Lord Mann, asked me about in that debate, which I was unable to help him on. The Prime Minister announced that yesterday, and it is very welcome when it comes to combating, and protecting people against, anti-Semitism.

In terms of local communities, yes, Operation Bridger is the police network that introduces dedicated points of contact for all elected representatives. I stress the “all”. That can be “where needed”, which also applies to the noble Lord’s question about Members of this House—although I would also refer to parliamentary security, which is available. There is also a new local communities fund for the deployment of additional police patrols in England and Wales in response to increased community tensions. Local forces can draw down in response to potential flashpoints, which we think will bolster police visibility and help public confidence.

There is much on this in the defending democracy protocol announced by the Prime Minister yesterday. He explained, and it is outlined in the protocol—I will go into some detail on this—that:

“Protests at representatives’ parties’ offices, democratic venues (such as Parliament or Town Halls) or at political events (such as constituency fundraisers or meetings) should not be allowed to (i) prevent or inhibit the use of the venue, attendance at the event or access to and from it or (ii) cause alarm, harassment or distress to attendees through the use of threatening or abusive words or disorderly behaviour, in keeping with public order laws”.


So I would say that the answer is a strong “yes”; there is a lot in place to protect local councillors.

Where I have to say “no” is to the noble Lord’s invitation to me to comment on the previous Home Secretary’s comments. That seems to be asked of me in every single debate at the moment and, just for the record, I will never comment on previous Home Secretaries’ remarks.

In terms of the counterextremism strategy, the Security Minister in the other place said earlier today that work is ongoing on this. I cannot give a clear commitment beyond what he said there, in terms of timing and so on. In regard to non-crime hate incidents, that is of course kept under control. We will not be adopting the Labour Party’s proposals on this. The noble Lord will be aware that there were many difficult instances that were reported widely with regard to this in the past, and we will not go back to those at the moment.

Of course, I agree with him on the causes of the various incidents we have seen. I would expand that and say that it is not just government that needs to look at the causes; it is all of us. It is a societal problem, not just a political one.

I think I have answered all the noble Lord’s questions, so I will move on to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. Of course, I completely agree about social media. The Home Secretary was actually in California this week, and I know that he was talking to a number of the corporates the noble Baroness referred to. The Online Safety Act has been passed by Parliament; it has just come into force, but let us see if that does what it is intended to—one would certainly hope so. I can assure the noble Baroness that I do not read Liberal Democrat party policy papers; I doubt that she is all that surprised about that. But I would also say that she has a direct line that is not available to me to at least one of those major online corporates—so I would entirely agree with her that it is a cross-party issue to be resolved. Perhaps she could help.

It goes without saying that I agree that language and its use, and the care taken to express oneself, really does need to be very carefully observed by everybody who has any sort of platform.

Knife Crime: Violence Reduction Units

Debate between Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Baroness Doocey

Tuesday 20th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

On the noble Lord’s latter point, I agree, which is one of the reasons the Home Office has invested £200 million in the youth endowment fund, to which I have already referred. As regards knife crime across the country, the rise is driven largely by the situation in London. For police-recorded offences involving knives or sharp instruments, there was a 5% increase year-on-year nationally, but the increase in London was 22%. If London was taken out of those figures, the natural trend would be a 1% reduction.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, violence reduction units can definitely reduce knife crime, as has been shown time and time again, but for them to be able to do their job properly they need long-term funding and they are not being provided with it. The Government’s three-year funding model runs out next year and there is great anxiety about what will come next. Will the Government reconsider their current funding model and provide the sort of long-term funding that these units, which are so desperately needed, require to do the job they were set up for?

Protest Measures

Debate between Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Baroness Doocey

Tuesday 13th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, I appreciate that the Government are trying to strike a balance among competing priorities—maintaining the right to peaceful protest, restraining incitement to racial and religious hatred, and keeping the country moving, free from disruptive events. It is right that police use all available powers to arrest those who go beyond what is acceptable for a peaceful protest, not least when their actions are motivated by hate. Protest should not be used as a shield to allow anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or any other type of hatred to fester with impunity.

However, we must ensure that the tactics employed by a minority do not undermine the ability of others to protest peacefully. I have a number of concerns, and it would be helpful if the Minister could address them when he responds. The provisions announced to prevent the use of facial coverings plainly bear a relationship to the increased use of facial recognition technology in policing. The Policing Minister is on record as saying that he is already encouraging police forces to search all available databases, including the passport database, to identify people using facial recognition technology for crime generally.

Clause 27 of the Criminal Justice Bill creates a very wide power to access driver licence records for this purpose, but there has been little public debate on this or on the parameters of the accelerated use of such technology. Given the potential freedoms that this could infringe, is a legal protest the correct context for technology to be used? Should the faces of people engaged in lawful and peaceful protest systematically be recorded and added to databases? Would there be a temptation to create lists of people who attend such protests, with the justification that these are people who are not in favour of the status quo and might, at some future date, cause trouble?

Police already collect information on political activists. However, attending a protest should not qualify as criminal activism. The fact that facial recognition is being introduced into policing without the debate or openness that is needed is a cause for concern. Since the Government are proposing amendments to the Criminal Justice Bill, will the Minister commit to setting out in that Bill the circumstances in which this technology should be used? Will he commit specifically to addressing the many concerns that the systems can be particularly bad at recognising black female faces? This is powerful technology, but it is not infallible by any means.

As things stand, its use enjoys public support, but that support may diminish if it is deployed disproportionately, causing problems for minority groups or being used for minor offences. It is surely in the interests of all of us who want to continue to see policing by consent for this to be avoided.

Finally, I want to raise the question of police resources. The Home Affairs Committee recently expressed concern about the effect that the increasing number of protests is having on the number of rest days being cancelled for police officers. Last year the Metropolitan Police had to cancel 4,000 rest days to police protests at a cost of nearly £19 million. Can the Minister say what the Home Office is doing to ensure that police forces are reimbursed for the cost of these cancelled days? When I was a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, we had a dreadful job trying to get the money back from the Home Office. I suspect that things have not changed very much. What is being done to support officers’ well-being when large numbers of rest days have to be cancelled?

Will police officers receive the necessary resources and training to identify and prevent hate crimes, including threats and incitements to violence on social media? According to the official figures, between October and December last year there were more than 1,000 protests and vigils and 600 arrests, accounting for 26,000 police officer shifts. This issue is not going away. The duty of care that we owe police officers needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

These are among the issues that we on these Benches will want to raise during the passage of the Criminal Justice Bill. I look forward to the Minister giving us his early indications of his views.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank both the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for their generally supportive remarks. Like the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, I join in congratulating, thanking and praising the police for their strenuous efforts to keep us all safe during the recent heightened protest activity.

Both noble Lords asked me about the questions raised in response to the original Statement, regarding the Home Affairs Select Committee pointing out that 4,000 rest days had been lost, coming at a cost of about £18 million or £19 million. Obviously, that is very concerning, but I have to say that the police uplift programme has helped many forces around the country significantly with their numbers. That helps to minimise the number of rest days lost. Unfortunately, the Metropolitan Police in London did not manage to fulfil its police uplift numbers, and that has financial consequences as well as a consequence for the rest of the officers employed. It is regrettable, but I am afraid it is very much for the Metropolitan Police to up its recruitment to sort out that particular problem. That is not the same as saying that we do not care about it or are not keeping a very close eye on it. We do.

I should also point out that the police have arrested more than 600 people over the course of the protests, and some 30-plus were related to Terrorism Act offences. Once again, I thank the police for their efforts.

On the question about whether these laws were requested by the police, the police have a comprehensive suite of powers to maintain public order and to keep the public safe. However, we keep their powers under constant review and, when gaps are identified, by whomever, we seek to legislate for them. I am not precisely sure how many of these powers were asked for by the police; I know that the bulk of them were, but not precisely which ones. When we come across gaps in the legislation, we seek to make these types of changes.

Those were very good questions on face coverings, particularly as regards the legitimate wearing of face coverings in protests. It is not difficult to come up with a number of scenarios that would classify themselves as legitimate. This was addressed in detail by my right honourable friend the Security Minister. The guidelines in the legislation that we are setting out will cover this, because police officers will have discretion to give an order requiring a face covering to be removed, but those commanding the policing of protests will have discretion over when they ask for that instruction to be carried out.

Under Section 60AA, the new criminal offence of concealing an identity will apply only when there is a particular authorisation on a protest, and those authorisations come only when there is a risk of serious violence or crime. Just as a reminder to the House, Section 60 offences can be ordered only by those of the rank of inspector or above and for a period of 24 hours, which is extendable for a further 24 hours. So they apply only to protests and only where an authorisation is in place. I hope that answers and assuages noble Lords’ concerns to some extent. I will come back to facial recognition towards the end of my remarks.

The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, asked me about pyrotechnics, flares and disorder. The current legislation on the use of fireworks in public places does not consistently prohibit the possession of pyrotechnic articles during a protest but limits it to specific circumstances, such as the use of fireworks in public places and possession of explosives other than for a lawful purpose. It is not already an offence to be in the possession of such articles at certain musical events and football matches, for example, but this extends it to processions and protests. The new measures do not provide police with new stop and search powers, but they do allow the police to make an arrest when an individual is holding or lighting a flare at a protest.

I associate myself with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, on war memorials. I am also delighted that this is taking place, for all sorts of reasons. I do not have a huge amount more to say on this subject; I think we have all been offended by the antics of certain protesters who have clambered all over war memorials. The Security Minister in the other place described them as

“altars of our national grief”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/2/23; col. 379.]

That description could be extended, but it is very appropriate none the less and sums up all our feelings.

The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, also asked me about hateful extremism. He is quite right that there is some thinking about that at the moment. The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is working on a definition of extremism alongside the Attorney-General. Of course, this is an extremely complex subject and conversation, so I will update the House when I have more, but I am afraid I cannot at the moment.

The noble Lord will know what I am about to say on proscription. The Government do not comment on groups that are potentially about to be proscribed or are under consideration. This will come under the Criminal Justice Bill.

I do not think facial recognition is entirely aligned with the subject of the measures that are being taken today. However, I understand the noble Baroness’s concerns and this subject will have to be further debated. It is a philosophical discussion about freedoms, rights and proportionality, and I have no doubt that we will revisit it in due course.

These measures are proportionate and carefully thought through. We will be discussing them at greater length, and I thank noble Lords for their support.

Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Codes of Practice) (Revision of Codes A, B, C, D and H and New Code I) Order 2023

Debate between Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Baroness Doocey

Tuesday 12th December 2023 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

My Lords, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Codes of Practice) (Revision of Codes A, B, C, D and H and New Code I) Order 2023 was laid before this House on 16 October 2023. This debate follows a debate that I took part in on 4 December regarding three instruments related to the National Security Act that were also laid on 16 October.

Turning to the order we are discussing today, Section 66 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, or PACE, requires the Home Secretary to issue codes of practice which govern the use of police powers, including the associated rights and safeguards for suspects and the public in England and Wales. The revised and new codes of practice before us ensure that those codes reflect the provisions of both the National Security Act 2023 and the Public Order Act 2023.

Before getting into the detail of the changes, I begin by noting that, as per Section 67(4) of PACE, two separate consultations on these changes were carried out, one in relation to each of the new Acts. These were carried out from 20 July to 31 August this year. The responses were generally positive about the changes proposed and the Government considered and incorporated suggestions for further amendments to the codes of practice following these consultations. The full details of the consultations and the Government’s response can be found on GOV.UK.

I will now briefly outline the changes made through this order—first, those to PACE Code A required as a result of amendments to stop and search powers made in the Public Order Act 2023 and the Government’s commitment to streamline stop and search guidance. Following Royal Assent of the Public Order Act 2023, PACE Code A required modifications to emphasise that the suspicion-led stop and search power introduced in Section 10 of the Public Order Act is afforded the safeguards contained in Code A. The suspicionless powers in Section 11 of the same Act authorise the police to stop and search individuals and vehicles to find objects made, adapted or intended to be used in connection with protest-related offences.

We are also changing PACE Code A to include provisions to improve community relations and data collection as currently found in the Best Use of Stop and Search Scheme guidance. Communicating the use of suspicionless search powers such as Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 and Section 11 of the Public Order Act 2023, where it is operationally beneficial to do so, and embedding a data collection requirement within the code, will build on the existing trust and confidence between the police and the community they serve.

Finally, changes proposed to PACE Code A include an updated start date for the serious violence reduction order pilot, which commenced in April this year, and an update to the ethnicity list found in Annexe B to reflect the latest categories from the 2021 census.

The amendments related to the National Security Act concern PACE Codes A, B, C, D and H, along with a new PACE Code I. In summary, the amendments to Code A are required to govern how searches of individuals subject to prevention and investigation measures under Part 2 of the Act should be carried out. These changes mirror the existing provisions in Code A for the equivalent terrorism measures.

The amendments to Code B, which covers search, seizure and retention powers, are required to account for the new search and seizure powers introduced by Schedule 2 to the National Security Act. They largely replicate those already contained in Code B for similar powers.

The changes to PACE Codes C and D make it clear that those codes do not apply to relevant provisions in the National Security Act or Schedule 3 to the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, such as detention provisions. This is because separate codes—including the new PACE Code I—deal with those provisions.

Both Codes A and D are also amended to exempt an officer having to give their name in the case of inquiries linked to national security. This extends the approach currently taken towards terrorism investigations and provides a crucial change to protect the identities of police officers from state actors who may seek to do them harm.

The changes to Code H implement recommendations made by the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, which the Government have accepted. They largely reflect amendments to Section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000 made via the National Security Act—for example, making it clear that time spent in detention under certain other detention powers will be accounted for when calculating the maximum period of detention.

Finally, this order brings into operation a new PACE Code I to govern the detention, treatment and questioning of individuals arrested under Section 27 of the National Security Act. This code contains various operational procedural matters, such as how to arrange for an interpreter for the suspect, what information must be documented in the custody record, how to provide cautions and what to do with the detainee’s property upon arrest. The code is based very closely on PACE Code H, which provides guidance for the detention and treatment of persons arrested under terrorism legislation, including the updates I have just set out.

I point out that the changes to these codes are supported by Counter Terrorism Policing and the Crown Prosecution Service. The Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation has also specifically supported the changes to Code H.

I hope I have made it clear that changes made by this order are supportive of primary legislation that has already been agreed by Parliament. These revised codes promote the fundamental principles to be observed by the police and help preserve the effectiveness of, and public confidence in, the use of their legislative powers.

I very much hope noble Lords will support these revisions to the PACE codes of practice. I commend the order to the Committee, and I beg to move.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction. As he said, the changes have already been debated at length and approved by Parliament, and we will not oppose them. However, I would like to make some specific points. Perhaps the Minister could address them in his summation.

We do, of course, understand the importance of ensuring, at a time of heightened and ongoing risk from hostile state actors, that the powers we give our police are a match for those people who seek to harm us. We also appreciate the need to give officers on the ground clear guidance, but there must be a balance between allowing the police to do their job and protecting civil liberties. We welcome attempts to keep the public informed about what the police are doing in relation to suspicionless stop and search. We hope this will go some way to re-establish trust among those citizens most commonly subjected to this practice, namely members of the black community.

We note concerns raised during the consultation process about when the public will be alerted to the use of suspicionless stop and search. The concern is that the term “operationally beneficial” is simply not clear enough to define when it will be in operation. Everyone recognises the importance of police operational autonomy, but can the Minister confirm that this particular concern has been taken into account?

We welcome the new data collection requirement in Code A, particularly given that the ethnicity of 20% of those subjected to stop and search in the year ending March 2022 remains unknown because it was not recorded. However, our key concern remains the extension of police powers to stop and search someone without reasonable grounds for suspicion. We have made our concerns clear that extending these powers now is fundamentally incompatible with the findings of the Casey review and the recent IOPC report, both of which found that progress in tackling racial disparity in stop and search still has a very long way to go.

In light of this, what signal are we sending to these communities in giving the police even greater leeway to carry on that practice, despite the well-documented racial bias still evident in it? Sadly, I suspect that, for many, it says that we are just not listening.

Metropolitan Police Reform

Debate between Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Baroness Doocey

Monday 27th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble and learned Baroness asks me a very good question; I am afraid that I do not understand the inner workings of the secondary legislation and SI process, but I will find out.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, last month, the police watchdog published an urgent report warning of the serious risks posed to London’s most vulnerable children by the Met’s ongoing failures in child protection. This issue was first highlighted in a damning report by HMICFRS six years ago. It cannot be allowed to continue. Have the Government met the commissioner and the Mayor of London to demand action now—that is, not in a month’s time or a year’s time? This is serious and it must be sorted out now.