Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Norton of Louth (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support the amendments proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and to reinforce the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, looking particularly at information—in this instance, under Amendment 11, information directed at users. That struck me as the key point in the amendment because the Bill is concerned primarily—necessarily so—with those who produce the substances. The danger is leaving out those who might then consume them. They are not doing anything illegal, but we should not leave them out of the discussion about them being better informed about the effects of the substances.

We will come on to education in Amendment 13. That might be useful in deterring people who want to take substances in the first place. It might be a bit optimistic, but I think that is eminently sensible. But what about those who are users and making sure they are at least informed as a consequence of what we are talking about? I am a little concerned if we focus solely on production and what we do about that, without thinking about those who are still prone to consume these substances. I am not particularly wedded to the particular amendments the noble Lord proposes, but I am very much at one with him in the intent and in what he is calling attention to: making sure we do not lose sight of that dimension. I will be very keen to hear the Minister’s response. If we are not deterring them—my hope would be that we would—I cannot see what the difficulty would be in having some regime for providing that sort of information.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, there are effectively three amendments here. One is Amendment 11, whose essence is guidance. All three may have some merit and we would be very interested in the Minister’s reply. The first one on guidance would seem to be very important for potential users. Also, of course, it would meet a concern which we were lobbied about regarding the retail sector, which clearly is going to have problems given this Bill. It is going to need some guidance and it may have to try and generate its own if the Government do not help. I would be very interested about what the Government have to say on that.

Proposed new paragraph (a) in Amendment 12 and the availability of information on the internet also seems sensible to me. It does not mean we are softening our general position on the Bill. Good information provided by government has to be a good thing. I would be very interested in the Government’s response to the proposal relating to testing centres. At first sight, it looks rather over the top, but on the other hand the Government are committed I believe—and it is very important how carefully this response comes across—to a much more comprehensive approach to testing, to support the Bill. That will give us some tangible evidence that the Bill will work. I hope the Government will take these three areas seriously and, depending on their response, we may take this further with the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, on Report.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, for his explanation on these amendments. Before I start, I was very rude earlier when I did not thank him for the kind words he said at the beginning of this debate and I feel very honoured to be taking part. I agree that a joined-up approach in departments is a very useful point. Also, I feel extremely privileged to be able to learn from my noble friend Lord Bates about how these things are conducted. The noble Lord has asked that, before this Act comes into force, the Home Secretary must issue guidance on how users, enforcement authorities and others can identify individual psychoactive substances, the degree of the psychoactivity, their safe uses and their relative harms.

I can certainly understand the sentiment underpinning at least part of Amendment 11. I acknowledge the importance of the effective implementation of the provisions in the Bill by enforcement agencies and the crucial role played by the Home Secretary in ensuring that this takes place.

I emphasise that we are working closely with enforcement agencies—the police, the Border Force, the National Crime Agency and the Local Government Association—to ensure the successful implementation of the Bill. All the agencies, supported by the Home Office, will produce guidance for their own officers that will address issues such as those raised by the noble Lord. For example, it seems sensible that the College of Policing, with the national policing lead on drugs policy, is best placed to produce the guidance for police officers, along with our input, as I have said. Similarly, the Local Government Association is well placed to produce tailored guidance for local authorities.

We are also working with other bodies, including the British Retail Consortium and the Association of Convenience Stores, to produce targeted guidance for their members. It is also important to discuss with the Welsh and Scottish Governments and with Northern Ireland’s Department of Justice what guidance is needed to address their national needs. Any guidance for prosecutors in England and Wales is a matter for the Director of Public Prosecutions.

However, I have grave concerns about issuing guidance to users of psychoactive substances on how they might identify such substances, along with their degree of psychoactivity, their safe uses and their relative harms. I have the same concerns about Amendment 12, which states that the Government must establish a network of centres where drug users can get their illegal drugs tested. Although this is doubtless well intentioned, I fear that such approaches could have the opposite effect to that intended. Such initiatives could actually serve to promote the availability of psychoactive substances and encourage their use, which is clearly contrary to the purpose of the Bill. A better approach is to highlight the harms of such substances, alongside wider efforts at prevention.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I will certainly take that forward. However, with regard to testing centres, the Dutch model sits within a more tolerant drugs policy that the Netherlands has. Our key message is that there is no safe dose of these drugs, and they should not be taken. Any move towards such a scheme would undermine that message and could encourage drug use, contrary to government policy. This proposal would also cover drugs controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act, not just those covered by this Bill. That would undermine our intentional obligations as a signatory to the UN conventions, and no clear public protection case has yet emerged for such a testing centre.

There is a well-established system for issuing a national alert. Any intelligence that Public Health England receives alerting it to identifiable problems, such as a batch of drugs likely to cause significant risk in England, is acted on.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

There is more common ground than the Minister allows. I can see her aversion to saying that there are safe levels and safe doses, and I am quite sympathetic to this. But there can always be the inverse—there can be “dangerous”, “very dangerous” and “fatal”, which is the reciprocal way of putting it. I ask the Government to look into whether there is some common ground in this area because the provision of information and alerting people to the dangers of these substances—we share the Government’s enthusiasm for banning them—by these various amendments must have a generally benign effect.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I thank the noble Lord for that, but there is a well-established system for issuing a national alert. Any intelligence that Public Health England receives alerting it to the identifiable problem of a batch of drugs likely to cause a significant risk in England is acted on. There was an example earlier this year. There was a warning from Madrid that Superman pills sold as ecstasy containing PMMA were found in Spain. This followed the tragic deaths in England over the Christmas period caused by similar Superman pills. PHE took immediate action and issued a warning that these highly dangerous drugs may still be in circulation. Public Health England is working with partners to accelerate the review already under way on how drug alert systems in the UK can be improved, including how they join up with intelligence from Europe.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I will start by explaining briefly my background. I was a police officer for more than 30 years. I served at every rank up to and including Deputy Assistant Commissioner. On a more personal level, two years ago a former partner of mine, who subsequently became my best friend, died from an accidental overdose of a controlled drug. This is not just a professional interest of mine; it is a very personal one.

I do not want to break up the happy consensus portrayed by the Minister about what the position of the three political parties was. As he quite rightly said, the Liberal Democrat manifesto talked about clamping down on those who produce and sell psychoactive substances—not necessarily, as we will see, banning them.

We on these Benches are as concerned about the harm caused by people misusing drugs as the Government and the Labour Party are. We believe that there should be a health-based approach, aimed at reducing harm caused by drug misuse, rather than a legalistic approach that is likely to further criminalise drug users. Successive Governments have gradually eroded the link between criminal penalties and the harm caused by drugs by ignoring the scientific evidence and the advice that they have been given, to the extent that the drug laws in the UK are no longer considered by many people to have any credibility. The Bill, by failing to differentiate between dangerous psychoactive substances and those that are harmless, and by criminalising the production and supply of these substances but allowing simple possession, adds to that confusion and further undermines the credibility of UK drug laws.

As drafted, the Bill is far too broad and indiscriminate, further undermining credibility and efficacy in reducing harm. Legal minds far greater than mine have speculated on whether producing and supplying scented roses, or perfumes that evoke a sense of well-being or romance, could be illegal under the Bill. Those who claim that simply sniffing such substances falls outside the scope of the Bill clearly need to go back to school to learn some simple biology and chemistry. If you sniff something, you are inhaling it; you are taking molecules into your system, exactly as described in the Bill.

As drafted, the Bill would not outlaw simple possession of new psychoactive substances that come on to the market, which could potentially be far more toxic than drugs currently listed as class A under the Misuse of Drugs Act. The Government may well reply—I think that the Minister alluded to this in his opening remarks—that if that is the case, they could be temporarily banned and then designated as controlled drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act. That course is available to the Government now, without the need for the Bill. My understanding was that the whole purpose of the Bill was to get away from manufacturers constantly changing the formula of psychoactive substances to avoid a drug being banned, yet it does not criminalise possession of what are potentially very dangerous drugs, which could quite easily change in formula in the way that the Bill is designed to eradicate. Either the Government want to send a very strong message that these substances are dangerous, which they may or may not be—in which case, why is possession not a criminal offence?—or they want to say, “Well, actually, these drugs are not as dangerous as controlled drugs”, when in fact they may well be.

As the Bill allows possession of new psychoactive substances while possession of drugs controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act is a criminal offence, the police will be faced with situations that make enforcement very difficult, if not impossible. If the police suspect that I have EX-1, a synthetic imitator of real ecstasy—I hasten to add that an internet search taught me that—in my possession for my own use, the Bill does not give the power for the police to stop, search or arrest me because to possess the substance will not be a criminal offence. However, if the police suspect that I have a real ecstasy tablet in my possession, they can stop, search and arrest me because it is a controlled drug. How are the police going to know? Some will say, “They will assume that it is a controlled drug, and search and arrest you anyway”. So what if I tell the officer that I have nothing illegal on me, that the tablet is indeed a legal EX-1, that they have no grounds to search and arrest me and that if they do, I will sue them? What if the tablet turns out to be legal to possess? Where does that leave the police? What if the police officer backs off because of my assurances, but the ecstasy tablet that I have is in fact a real one? The Bill, quite clearly, has not been thought through in terms of its practical application.

At the moment, I can buy legal highs from a head shop on the high street. It is acknowledged in the briefing given by the Government on the Bill that, contrary to what the Minister said in his introduction, many of these head shops are well run, with those that manage them being very keen to comply with the law. At the very least, I can be pretty sure that what I am buying is not a dangerously addictive class A drug. If things go badly wrong once I have taken a legal high purchased from one of these head shops, someone can go back to the head shop where I bought it and at least have some idea of what I have taken, and action could be taken to ensure that others are not similarly affected.

Many people buy legal highs now. They like what they do to them, and their use is increasing. If the Bill passes, the only way they can get psychoactive substances and be sure that they are not breaking the law is to go to a local drug dealer. Many of these street dealers have no incentive to ensure the quality of the drugs that they sell, because they could just disappear overnight if things go wrong. The chances of tracing and establishing what drug I had actually been given, were things to go badly wrong, would be much lower.

These drug dealers could just as easily sell me highly addictive class A drugs, and indeed they may have a vested interest in misleading me by giving me a highly addictive class A drug instead of the legal high that I asked for; the high is likely to be greater, and if I get addicted, I could become a regular client. It would make no difference to the dealer, if he were to be caught, whether he was supplying controlled drugs or other psychoactive substances—a long term in prison would await.

We are likely to criminalise many more people as a consequence. If you order psychoactive substances online—we have heard evidence this afternoon about how Irish online sites closed down with the introduction of their legislation—the chances are that the website you are ordering from will be based abroad. Even if you are buying psychoactive substances only for your own personal use, you will be guilty of the criminal offence of importing drugs. If you buy a few tablets to share with your mates on a night out, again you will be guilty of a criminal offence. A lot more people are going to end up with a criminal record as a result of the Bill, even if their primary intention is just to consume the drugs themselves.

The genie is out of the bottle. Many people take legal highs, and they will continue to get hold of them one way or another—whether head shops disappear from the high street or not—or they will simply switch to far more dangerous controlled drugs. The reason that millions of people break the law by taking controlled drugs is that, quite rightly, they see that our drug laws lack credibility. I have never heard a discussion among young people about to go on a night out as to which class a particular drug belongs to, and therefore which drug they are going to take on that basis. The Bill, as currently drafted, as I have said, further undermines the credibility of the drug laws in this country.

We need a new approach: a health-based approach that will genuinely reduce the harm caused by drug misuse and that has credibility among those who misuse drugs, not just an approach that appears to have credibility among politicians who do not really know what they are talking about. We need a system that differentiates between the psychoactive substances that cause most harm and those that are relatively safe—at least as safe as smoking tobacco or drinking alcohol—and we should control and regulate the supply of those relatively safe substances as we do with tobacco and alcohol. To do anything else would lack credibility, particularly in the eyes of young people.

If someone is caught in possession of harmful psychoactive drugs for their own use, controlled or otherwise, and they are a social user, they should have their drugs seized and be placed on an education programme. If someone is caught in possession of harmful psychoactive drugs, controlled or otherwise, and that person is addicted, they should be placed on a rehabilitation programme. If they refuse to co-operate, they should be given a civil fine. Such an approach would be much simpler and far more effective in dealing with this problem than giving thousands of young people a criminal record that could ruin their life chances because they made stupid mistake.

It is time that we started treating those who misuse drugs as victims of drug dealers rather than as criminals. It is time that we confronted the fact that criminalising young people for possessing substances only as harmful—or less harmful—than alcohol or tobacco lacks credibility.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

For the avoidance of doubt, is the noble Lord saying that the Liberal Democrats so oppose the essence of the Bill that they will either vote against it or propose wrecking amendments?

[Lord Paddick]

My Lords, we do not propose to wreck the Bill. Clearly, we cannot allow head shops to continue operating as they do now—purporting to sell substances that are harmless when they are far from harmless, or trying to get around the law by saying in very small print on the back of the substances that they are not fit for human consumption. However, the dangers in the Bill as drafted are to make the drug laws even more of a laughing stock than they are currently.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, I rise in the somewhat uncomfortable position of speaking from the Opposition Front Bench to support the generality of the Bill. I hope this will not be a role I shall have to take too often, since Oppositions normally disagree with Governments.

The Bill before us is quite simple. It is interesting that today’s debate has, in many ways, not been about the Bill. Today’s debate has been about the essence of drug policy. A number of noble Lords have said—I praise those who have said it, such as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—that prohibition does not work. That is not the position of the law at the moment, of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, of the Government, of the Opposition, or of a majority of the general public. There is a belief that prohibition works and the law seeks to enforce those prohibitions. Debate on decriminalisation—that is what much of the debate has been—has been interesting, but it is not what we seek to do.

[Baroness Meacher]

I just want to raise the point, which has already been mentioned, that it is absolutely clear to everyone involved that across the world and certainly across Latin America, which has been most severely affected by prohibition, prohibition has not worked.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

The debate will proceed smoothly if we recognise that I am in a minority. I repeat: prohibition is the policy of the Government and of the Opposition, and it is supported by the majority of people in this country. There have been many interesting speeches, but they have not persuaded either major political party or the general public that that is the way to go.

I put to noble Lords who have that belief that probably the worst place to start with decriminalisation is with NPSs. The whole problem with NPSs is that they are drugs of unknown consequence. The debate about alcohol—I entirely recognise the point that alcohol has serious negative effects, but, as a user, I have to say that it also has some really rather nice, positive effects—should be addressed through education. I entirely take the point brought out by the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and by my noble friend Lord Patel that prescribed drugs can have extremely serious effects when mismanaged, but the problem with NPSs and why they should be added to the prohibition we presently have is the unknown consequences. Ultimately, the goal of the manufacturers of these drugs is to create drugs every bit as potent as the presently proscribed drugs and to sell them to our young people, our old people, our hard-working people and our lazy people.

We support what the Bill is trying to do. It is intellectually extremely simple. It basically says that this is a race that is impossible to win, through which dangerous drugs are introduced to the markets, the merits of their impact are then determined and only then are they banned. It is a race that we simply will not win—the criminals will run faster. For that reason, we support the intellectual concept that we ban the generality and then make exceptions. Either you live with that concept and support the essence of the Bill, or you do not.

I have heard a number of speeches essentially saying that noble Lords do not support the essence of the Bill. I praise in particular the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, for his unambiguous statement that he will oppose the Bill. That is fair enough and I see where he is coming from; I just do not happen to agree with him and nor do the Opposition. I find it difficult to understand how he can say that after the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick.

Part of the Bill could be interpreted as moving into the area of harm: the regulatory powers in Clause 3. Clause 3 allows the Government to add to the list substances which are harmless or negligible in their impact, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, said. The Opposition cannot think of such substances or envisage such a situation, but clearly the Bill allows for it. It is arguable that providing that absolute ban and an absolute power in Clause 3 to add new substances to Schedule 1 should be better defined. I would like the Minister to explain further how Clause 3 will be used. What will be the criteria, and the process, for allowing a new substance to be added to Schedule 1? If somebody develops a safer form of alcohol with a different molecular structure, how would they set about getting it added to the list? I do not believe there is a safer form of alcohol; safer consumption is all about education. However, if a safer drug was developed and it came under the terms of the Bill and was introduced, what processes would the manufacturer of such a drug follow?

There are also absolutely proper concerns about research and industry, which were mentioned by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Hollins, Lady Browning and Lady Meacher, and the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood. The Government must go out of their way to convince us that those concerns are met. We have to recognise that research is not just about finding out what we do not know, but finding out what we do not know about places where we may not want to go, because you have to understand the environment in which a situation arises. You may be doing research that leads in a direction with which the Government feel uncomfortable, but that is no good reason to ban research that is better informing the debate about drugs. Research establishments, especially established ones with good ethics policies—I am sorry to be rather conservative about this—that know which research to do and how to do it, should have a pretty easy ride in getting their processes approved under Clause 10.

The other area on which I think there is consensus everywhere except in the Treasury is that the non-legislative thrust of the anti-drugs policies should be greatly strengthened. The £180,000 that the Government have almost boasted of spending in this area is pitifully inadequate compared with the problems we are addressing. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Bates, will be able to assure the House that the education and prevention programmes referred to in paragraphs 12, 13 and 14 of the Angelus Foundation literature and the education of professionals to stop prescribed drug abuse activities will be undertaken in parallel.

I hope that the Minister will also be able to assure me that the programmes outlined in the October 2014 government response to the new psychoactive substances review expert panel report still stand, given that that review was published under the coalition. Are the new Government conservative in tooth and claw, as it were? Will they stick to the non-legislative concepts that they promise to stick to in the response, and try to ensure that such efforts are every bit as vigorous as the legislative efforts?

The Bill takes a sensible, proportionate and progressive approach to enforcement. It has the concept of the notice, the order and the criminality. I welcome the fact, as other noble Lords have done, that it is not criminalising simple possession and use, but the problem with that flexible approach is that it needs to be co-ordinated between many local authorities, police forces and the National Crime Agency. I would therefore like an assurance from the Government that the right amount of effort will go into providing guidance to make it work at a local level, and that there will be proper consultation with people who understand this area about providing that guidance. We have heard a number of concerns about the consultation that has gone into the Bill.

On a more detailed point, I dutifully read the Bill, the notes and all the relevant paperwork; I almost feel that one should get a medal for that. But I am still unclear about the “not for human consumption” loophole, so I seek an assurance from the Government that that loophole, which has been used in the past, is properly covered by the Bill.

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, raised the issue of international co-operation. The Government should assure us that there will be vigorous efforts to co-operate with our friends in Europe—at least, my friends in Europe—because the extraterritorial jurisdiction issues in this area are very complex, and the more co-operation we can have worldwide, the more effective we will be. But I come back to the fact that we believe in prohibition. We believe the loophole is a dangerous one, and we believe that this Bill is a sensible way of plugging it.

Modern Slavery Bill

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, in rising to speak on this important Second Reading I must first pass on the apologies of my noble friend Lady Royall. The noble Baroness, assisted by my noble friend Lord Rosser, will be leading for the Opposition on this very important Bill, but unfortunately today she has to attend a family funeral.

We often think of slavery as history, a story of atrocities past and fights fought and won. The harrowing film “12 Years a Slave” and Doris Kearns Goodwin’s compelling account of Lincoln’s fight for abolition both tell of events that took place centuries ago. However, slavery is not a thing of the past. Sylvia, one of the women whom the Eaves Poppy Project has helped, is 47 years old. She came to the UK from Uganda to escape an abusive husband, after a friend told her that she could work for his friend’s company. On arriving, however, she was taken to a house in Manchester, locked in a room with another girl, raped, beaten and forced into prostitution. Her traffickers would film and photograph her. She was given just one meal a day and not allowed any contact with her son. After four months she escaped but was so scared that she went into hiding. Finally she got the courage to get help and claim asylum, but the Home Office sent her to Yarl’s Wood immigration centre. There, fortunately, she came across the Eaves Poppy Project, which helped to secure her release and prevented her being sent back to Uganda.

This is what 21st-century slavery looks like in Britain: women raped, beaten and forced into prostitution; children groomed and sexually exploited for profit; men exploited, conned and forced to work in inhuman and degrading conditions; families trafficked by gangs across borders but also within our country and sometimes within the same area. I am proud of the work that we did in government through criminalising trafficking in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and the Asylum and Immigration Act of 2004; the introduction of the offence of forced labour, slavery or servitude; the national referral mechanism; the creation of the UK Human Trafficking Centre; and, of course, the introduction of the Human Rights Act. But we agree that more needs to be done, so I welcome the Bill.

I pay tribute to the Members of this House who have worked so hard on this issue, particularly the noble Lord, Lord McColl, who is tireless in his fight for trafficked children and victims generally, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I also pay tribute to members of the Joint Committee, including my noble friends Lady Kennedy and Lord Warner, the noble Baronesses, Lady Hanham and Lady Doocey, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby.

The invaluable campaign briefings of the many organisations that fight for the victims will also inform our proceedings. The victims of these terrible crimes should be at the centre of everything we do. We owe it to them to make the Bill as good as it can be. We think that it should go further in tackling the problems it seeks to resolve and we will work with colleagues across the House to amend it accordingly. I will now touch on one or two of the issues that we will pursue.

Let me start with the offences at the heart of the Bill. In 2011-12, there were 15 prosecutions for slavery but no convictions. In the same year, there were 150 prosecutions for trafficking but only eight convictions. Ensuring that the offences under the Bill are well drafted, clear and strong enough to allow us to prosecute and secure more convictions of these criminals is therefore crucial. Currently, the Bill transposes existing offences from three pieces of legislation, maintaining the current offences of holding someone in slavery and merging two existing offences of human trafficking into a single one. Worryingly, the threshold needed to secure convictions is very high.

I am sure that we have all heard of the case of Craig Kinsella. Craig was held captive by the Rooke family in Sheffield and forced to work from 7.30 am until midnight for no pay. He was starved and beaten. Craig was not trafficked into the country: a British national, he voluntarily moved in with the family but was then subjected to appalling abuse and exploitation. Despite extensive evidence, the Rookes were convicted of false imprisonment and other lesser offences, not of slavery and trafficking.

A similar situation arose in Kent, involving 29 Lithuanian chicken catchers. They were beaten and had their wages stolen, and they were living in appalling conditions. The police thought that this was criminal conduct but the CPS said that there was not enough evidence to prosecute. Following this case, Detective Inspector Roberts of Kent Police gave evidence to the Joint Committee and said that they had,

“quite considerable difficulty in working out what is criminal exploitation”.

I am worried that these cases would still not be covered under the Bill. Like the Joint Committee, the Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group, the Joseph Rowntree Trust and others, I believe that there should be separate offences of exploitation.

If the examples of adults being exploited are abhorrent, the idea of a child being subjected to these crimes does not bear thinking about. The numbers are even more shocking. In 2013, the national referral mechanism received 1,746 separate cases of human trafficking, 432 of them involving minors. The UK Human Trafficking Centre identified 2,744 victims last year, including 600 children—yet, since the introduction of the offence, there have been no prosecutions where the victim was a child.

There is much we could do in the Bill to improve the situation for children. Crucially, we need to introduce new offences of child trafficking and exploitation. Have the Government considered child exploitation in relation to recent UK cases, particularly the sexual exploitation of girls in Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford and elsewhere? These girls were neither trafficked nor held in slavery, but they were exploited. Putting specific offences in the Bill would move the legislative framework from one looking at individual sexual acts to one in which exerting control over a course of behaviour is more important.

The notion that a child could ever consent to their exploitation is beyond my comprehension. They very rarely understand that they have been trafficked and are often duped by those who traffic them. I do not understand the Government’s reticence on this point and we will want to unpick this in Committee. I am pleased to see a basis for the guardianship system in the Bill—once again, I pay tribute again to the noble Lord, Lord McColl, for his work on this—and welcome the requirement for the advocate to act in the child’s best interests, but this was added late in the Commons and we will want to look again at the strength of the clause. We must also look at the issue of the statutory defence for children. The Bill as it stands does not reflect the specific vulnerabilities of children, and that cannot be right.

It is also key that we look at the role that the regulatory framework and the UK industry have to play. We have all heard calls for stronger action on supply chains. Noble Lords will, like me, have been shocked by stories of men trafficked from Burma and Cambodia and forced to work 20 hours a day for no pay, fishing for prawns for UK shops; and by the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory, where 1,200 people making clothes lost their lives. We need stronger legislation to prevent this happening; other countries are doing it and it has the support of 82% of the British public.

I am pleased that the Government have listened and introduced a new clause. I am not sure, though, that it is strong enough. We need to ensure that it has a wide coverage, that consumers are able to compare and assess how different companies are doing, and that the provisions can be adequately enforced. The Government have to play their part as well. Legislating for supply chains without also looking at expanding the powers and remit of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to other sectors where forced labour is prevalent, such as hospitality, construction and catering, does not make sense.

It is disappointing that Ministers would not even consider the amendment put forward by my colleagues in the Commons, which was only an enabling power. We will also come back to this in Committee. I am also deeply concerned about the issue of domestic workers being tied to abusive employers. The last Government put in place a regime for migrant domestic workers who accompanied employers to the UK that was internationally recognised as good practice. The current Government changed the regime in April 2012. These individuals are now tied to their original employer and their visas are not renewable beyond the initial six-month duration.

Mira, a Filipina domestic worker, was brought by her employers from the Middle East to the UK. She worked 16 hours a day with no time off, shared a room with the family’s children and had no private time or space. Mira’s employer retained her passport and paid her nothing while she was in the UK. She ate only leftovers and if the family ate out, she went hungry. One day, Mira found her passport and sought help from Kalayaan, which advised that she had only a tied domestic worker’s visa. Thankfully, Kalayaan found Mira legal assistance and referred her to the national referral mechanism. Kalayaan found that 92% of those on the new visa were unable to leave the house unaccompanied. This is clearly unacceptable.

Victims of trafficking should be at the heart of the Bill. If we do not support them, we are leaving people who have been abused to be betrayed once again. The national referral mechanism needs to be strengthened. In 2012, the UK Human Trafficking Centre identified 2,255 victims, but the NRM identified only just over 1,000. Too often, they are treated merely as immigration cases.

At the moment the NRM is an internal process of the Home Office, and there is no transparency or appeal. We have an opportunity to place it on a statutory footing and give it a greater ability and authority to support victims at the time when they need it most. I am aware that the review of the NRM has recently concluded, and we will want to look at its findings in Committee.

Victims should be better compensated. We support the provisions to define trafficking as a lifestyle offence, but I urge the Government to look again at proposals that we made in the Serious Crime Bill to strengthen the recovery of assets. Money cannot go to the victims if we are not recovering it from criminals in the first place. I also welcome the creation of reparation orders, but we must ensure that victims can be compensated even when there has not been a specific conviction.

While I welcome the introduction of the anti-slavery commissioner, their remit needs to be strengthened. At present, it is extremely limited to doing little more than acting as directed by the Home Office. The remit should include supporting victims and a clear mandate to make recommendations across government. We also want greater independence for the commissioner, and that is simply not established by the mere addition of the word “independent” to the title.

The Government are rightly proud of having introduced the Bill, but the victims of trafficking need us to do more. A fortnight ago we found out that the UK will no longer support future search and rescue operations to prevent migrants drowning in the Mediterranean. Many of the men, women and children on these boats will be victims of traffickers—gangs who are exploiting people’s desperation by sending them on unsafe journeys and sometimes deliberately killing them. In that context I am glad that we are opting back in to the European arrest warrant, but there is a lot more we could be doing, whether to prevent families undertaking these dreadful journeys in the first place or to tackle these crimes more generally, if it were not for this Government’s reluctance to work with our European partners.

Abraham Lincoln once wrote:

“If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong”.

All of us agree that slavery is wrong. That is not the issue today. The Bill is not a party-political Bill. It is about the abuse of human rights; it is about the most vulnerable men, women and children who are exploited by their fellow human beings; and it is about victims, their rights, and our ability to support them and bring perpetrators to justice. I am deeply ashamed that in 21st-century Britain slavery is flourishing and blighting the lives of many. Over the coming weeks, as we debate and seek to improve the Bill, we should keep uppermost in our minds the plight of the all too many victims of this terrible crime; think of Sylvia, Craig and Mira. Working to build on the legacy of William Wilberforce, let us ensure that through the Bill we in this House do everything possible to end this heinous practice. We have a responsibility to work together on all sides of this Chamber to ensure that this good Bill can be an even better one.

Modern Slavery Bill

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2014 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, this has been an outstanding debate to be part of and to listen to. There have been 31 excellent contributions and it is absolutely right that, before I move on, I should mention three in particular—the maiden speeches. The noble Lord, Lord Cashman, spoke of this place, having just arrived, as being public life at its best. Many of us who have been here a little longer will understand and respect that. We welcome very much his journey from the East End to the West End and hope that he is as effective and successful here. My noble friend Lady Chisholm spoke of her personal experiences in this area, from her life as a nurse and from her time dealing with those with drug and alcohol issues. Again, I think that that experience will be helpful. My noble friend Lady Mobarik brings great expertise from the world of business, which will be crucial as we get into the area of the supply chain.

I have the easy task of summing up 31 speeches, to which I have—and I counted—42 pages of notes from the Box, in not more than 15 or 20 minutes. I say at the outset that it is an impossible task. I know that many noble Lords on the other side, who have stood where I have, realise that. However, I think that, following the debate, we should perhaps respond with a substantial letter, copied to all Members. That can be a basis, as we go into Committee, for examining the many issues in much greater detail.

I recognise the passion that noble Lords have brought to the debate. Many who took part spoke from personal experience, whether it was the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, speaking with international experience of freeing people from slavery in Sudan, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby, talking about his experiences in his diocese, or the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and my noble friend Lord McColl, with their experiences in this area.

Responding to my noble friend Lord McColl gives me the opportunity again, like the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, to pay tribute to the excellent work undertaken by the pre-legislative scrutiny committee. Often we complain about systems and processes for examining legislation in this place. I think that this might be one case where it is not complete yet but is heading in the right direction. As well as the pre-legislative scrutiny and a draft Bill, there was, as the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, mentioned, the consideration by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which also looked at the Bill. One of the comments that more or less summed up where we were on this was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey. She began her remarks by saying that she hoped that I and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, who is with me on the Front Bench, would be gratified by the warm reception that the legislation had received. She then proceeded over the subsequent seven minutes to tell me all the things that needed to be added to it to make it acceptable. We can all see the gaps, but it will be a long process.

I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for pointing out in his winding-up speech that this is not something that we have just alighted on. It has been a long-standing problem tackled by successive Governments. As the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, pointed out, it will have to be revisited in future. The reason for that is interesting. I had occasion to visit the National Crime Agency’s human trafficking unit to receive a report from it. It is mind-blowing to think that the things that it was telling me about are going on in this country. If it had told me that these things were going on in Sudan or North Korea, which the noble Lord, Lord Alton, mentioned, I might have believed it, but they are going on in this country.

That was why it was so important that the Centre for Social Justice, referred to by my noble friend Lady Newlove, entitled its 2013 report It Happens Here. We need humility. We tend to look around the world to point out the gaps where other people are falling short, so removing the plank from our own eye is a good place to start. One reason driving that, according to the report’s analysis, was that our action against the drug trade and the movement of weapons, guns and contraband was so successful in closing those activities down that organised crime gangs were now switching to another commodity—trafficking human beings and exploiting them. That is horrific and certainly deserves the increased sentences that we propose.

I turn to some particular issues. Given the work that my noble friend Lady Newlove does across government as Victims’ Commissioner, it is important that victims are at the heart of this. She and the newly appointed commissioner should address it and make recommendations.

My noble friend Lord McColl and many other noble Lords referred to child trafficking advocates and the importance of including them in the Bill. A number of references were made to how Northern Ireland had spelt out the responsibilities and that that was a better way forward. Of course we will look at what Northern Ireland has done, but we have taken a slightly different approach. We have simply said that we will undertake trials across 23 local authority areas, working with Barnardo’s, which will have child trafficking advocates who will speak up for the children. We will learn from that and on that basis set out in regulations what those responsibilities should be. That is exactly the same as what has happened in Northern Ireland, except that there it has happened in primary rather than secondary legislation. We feel that it is more suitable to have those responsibilities, which may be subject to change over time, dealt with in regulations rather than in the Bill.

I absolutely accept the chiding of my noble friend Lady Hanham when she said that it was critical that the evaluation of this exercise should happen promptly and that we should not waste any time. Of course that is our intention. As the Bill progresses, we will come forward with some of our early thoughts about the timing of when all that will happen.

There was reference to the national referral mechanism, which was introduced by the previous Government in 2009. It is worth putting a couple of figures on the record. In 2009, there were 535 referrals on to the national referral mechanism. Last year, that had increased to 1,746. My noble friend Lady Hamwee was on to something when she talked about the importance of raising awareness about this issue. Sadly, too few people are aware that this is something that is happening right here.

That is the role of the new commissioner. The new commissioner has very much to engage with these forces, with local authorities, to ensure that those referrals happen and that prosecutions are brought. I very much subscribe to the view of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby when he talked about people seeing themselves as “slavery safeguarding leads”—that is a very good way of describing it. However, out of the referrals that have happened so far, 42% came through the Home Office, 25% came through the police, 21% came through NGOs—reference has been made to some of those excellent NGOs—but only 9% came through local authorities, 2% through the National Crime Agency and 1% through the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. There is progress, but attention needs to be drawn to this issue. The role of the commissioner is very much to ensure that those numbers increase and that the number of prosecutions increases. He has to report to Parliament each year and parliamentarians will have an opportunity to give their views on his progress.

There were comments from several Members on the period for reflection—about what the figure was, whether 45 days was too short and whether it should be 90 days, as was suggested. The Council of Europe convention which provides for this said that it should be 30 days. We have said here that it should be a minimum of 45 days. That is not a maximum: in fact it will go on longer than that in many cases. There is no maximum time for this but I reassure noble Lords that that element is there. However, again, we will come back to it and look at the appropriateness of it, and of course we will get feedback on it—a lot, crucially, from the child trafficking advocates. When they have undertaken their work they will be able to offer us some feedback about it.

Several Members—I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, who focused on this—spoke about the fine balance: whether it was a criminal justice measure or something aimed at victims. The answer has to be that it is both. The crucial element we are after here is to disrupt and prevent the organised gangs which are undertaking this work. Part of that is to do with this Bill; part of it was to do with legislation we passed in the earlier Serious Crime Bill, which has now gone down to the other place with amendments. That Bill looked at tackling and restricting the work of the criminal gangs behind these activities. That is an extremely important part of it.

Several Members also referred to the supply chain. I have already referred to the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, but of course the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, led that excellent debate on 30 October which to we have referred. It is critical that we do this. I was mindful, when she was talking about it, that I myself had had some experience of dealing with suppliers overseas. Often, if you could only get people to apply the same standards to quality of product as they do to the terms and conditions of employment of people then the problem would be solved overnight. There is no question that people here demand the highest standards of quality—they do not flinch from that for one second, because reputations depend on it. We want them to take the same approach when considering the quality and the terms and conditions which they are applying.

I cannot remember exactly who it was but there was reference to the importance these days of brands. It may have been the namesake noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, so I pay tribute to her work in looking at the human rights element in this and her experience in dealing with victims at first hand. Brand is absolutely mission-critical to any business. The impact of having one of those stories which, sadly, we regularly find in our newspapers—the effect of having loose practice in supply chains—can be tremendously damaging to brands. I would have thought that it would behove any director or senior management team of any company to want to protect their brand above all things. This is a key element and the more aware that the public are of it, the more that will come to the fore.

There was reference to the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, whose work was recognised by many people and which was introduced by the previous Government. It has been a success. After the horrific example referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, of the deaths in Morecambe Bay of 23 Chinese nationals, the establishment of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority brought some order into a disorderly marketplace and applied some structures. One of the problems is that whenever any organisation is successful, we immediately want to broaden its remit. Before we do that, we have to be very careful that in seeking to broaden its remit into the other, vulnerable sectors that have been mentioned, we would not undermine the good work that it is doing already. At the moment, it is doing a very focused job in an excellent way and having a positive effect in the broader fight against exploitation. We want that to continue but it is something that we will keep under review. I am sure that we will come back to it in Committee and listen very carefully to the suggestions that are made.

Several noble Lords referred to the fact that there are far too few prosecutions. My noble friend Lady Hodgson asked me to confirm the paltry number of prosecutions which have been brought forward, compared to the scale of the problem of which we are aware. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Warner, also referred to our needing to do much more to increase the number of convictions. I know this is coming back to a criminal justice focus but there is no doubt that when people see regular, severe sentences being handed out which meet the scale of the crime, that will act as a deterrent effect—as has happened in other areas of organised criminal activity. To do that, it is absolutely critical that we provide more support to victims so that they feel that they can come forward and bring their concerns to the public without fearing that they will end up in the dock, when it is the criminals who have brought them here or exploited them. I think that a lot of the measures that area are broadly welcomed.

In terms of the statutory footing, I am running out of time so I will be into the territory of reaching for that letter faster than I thought. However, the international effort is really important and we are already talking about it with the Department for International Development, which I know was referred to, and the FCO, which is working to see what more can be done in tackling this, as well as the National Crime Agency, which is working overseas as well.

I should probably be drawing my remarks to a close there. Again, I apologise to your Lordships for not being able to address all the points which have been made. I hope that we have provided some reassurance that, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, we are no longer walking by on the other side and closing our eyes to this problem. I look forward to debating all these issues and more in Committee and I am sure that they will be debated in the informed, constructive and engaged spirit that has made tonight such an impressive occasion. At the heart of our further deliberations on the Bill should be the victim. I have no doubt that the true mark of the success of the Bill, and our continued fight against modern slavery, will be fewer victims whose lives are blighted by modern slavery.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

For the avoidance of doubt, is the Minister assuring us that he will write on all the points he has not covered and circulate that to all noble Lords who participated in the debate?

[Lord Bates]

I am very happy to give the noble Lord that assurance. Many hundreds of points have been raised, but the substantive points will certainly be covered and that will form the basis of our discussions in Committee. Fewer victims whose lives are blighted by modern slavery is what we all seek, and I commend the Bill to the House.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Protection of Freedoms Bill

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 101, and there are other amendments in this group. My amendments are quite simple. They are probing amendments. Clause 29(3) provides that provision may, in particular, be made in the code about standards applicable to persons using systems or processing information. When I read that, I hesitated and wondered what was meant by “standards” in this context. My amendment proposes inserting a reference to operational practices because it seems to me that they are relevant, rather than the people who are using or maintaining the systems as individuals. I beg to move Amendment 100 in order to help me understand the clause a little better.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 102, 106 and 112A. I thank the noble Lord for ensuring that the results of the first consultation on the proposed CCTV code of practice were published before the Committee stage in order to ensure proper scrutiny. The opposition amendments in this group seek to probe the Government’s thinking in this area and to tease out more detail of the shape of the final code now that they have reflected on the results of the consultation.

On Amendment 102, we are concerned that any future code should not force local authorities and police forces into disclosing the location of cameras. The consultation notes that some respondents,

“considered that there ought to be public access to a full list of camera locations and data retention periods”.

I note that the Government, although not committing to such a view, stated in response:

“The Government intends that the Code of Practice will increase transparency over the operation of surveillance cameras”.

It is right that, in some cases, CCTV locations are made public. Indeed, many cameras are clearly visible to the public and their visibility acts as an important deterrent to crime. However, it must be right that local authorities and police should reserve the right to conceal the location of other cameras, particularly those positioned in sensitive locations and deployed temporarily in order to apprehend criminals. There is also a real concern that, by disclosing the location of cameras and surveillance centres, there is a risk that these will become the targets of vandals and criminals wishing to prevent the detection of crime. Will the Minister give a clear assurance to the Committee that any future code of practice will not include a blanket requirement to disclose the location of surveillance cameras?

Amendment 106 probes the Government’s intentions with respect to the code of practice in relation to CCTV and ANPR footage that is used as evidence in court. Clause 33 currently provides:

“A court or tribunal may, in particular, take into account a failure by a relevant authority to have regard to the surveillance camera code in determining a question in any such proceedings”.

In fact, this would appear to be the only real enforcement tool at the disposal of the Government. Local authorities will be required to have regard to the surveillance camera code but they will commit no criminal or civil offence if they fail to adhere to it. The implication is that the Government envisage that local authorities and police forces will feel compelled to comply with the code for fear that otherwise evidence provided by their cameras will not be admissible in court.

This view is reinforced by the response to the consultation in which the Government note that the failure to comply can be tested in judicial proceedings. It is one thing to conclude that evidence should be inadmissible on the basis that it violates requirements under the Data Protection Act; however, it is quite another to jeopardise whole trials on the basis that, for instance, the location of the camera in question was not adequately disclosed to the public. What assurances can the Minister give to the Committee that enforcement of the code in this way will not lead to the police being hamstrung in their use of key evidence derived from CCTV cameras?

Finally, Amendment 112A seeks again to probe the Government’s intentions with regard to ensuring that there is clarity for local authorities on the overlap of existing requirements under the Data Protection Act and those under the proposed code of practice. This point was raised by a number of sources when the Bill was debated in another place. Indeed, the Information Commissioner has himself expressed concerns about the implementation of the code in this area. In a letter to my noble friend Lady Royall on 22 November the Information Commissioner noted:

“There is potential overlap between these provisions, including my role, and those set out in the bill relating to the Secretary of State’s Code of Practice and the activities of the Surveillance Camera Commissioner”.

In his memorandum to the Public Bill Committee, the commissioner goes further, stating that,

“there is a risk that regulation becomes frequently fragmented, confusing and contradictory, especially if commissioners take different approaches … there will be overlaps in their responsibilities running the risk that commissioners may adopt differing interpretive approaches and guidance on each other’s statutory provisions”.

The Government’s consultation recognises that there is an issue to be dealt with, and states:

“We shall take note of the concern expressed by respondents in the way we develop the role of the Surveillance Camera Commissioner and how this interacts with that of the Information Commissioner and the Surveillance Commissioners”.

To prevent unnecessary bureaucratic burdens and confusion in the public sector, I ask the Minister to take this opportunity to expand on how the Government aim to ensure maximum clarity and minimum overlap in the roles and requirements of the two commissioners.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Hamwee moved Amendments 100 and spoke to Amendment 101, and the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, spoke to Amendments 102 and 112A.

In the amendment that we have just dealt with, the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, complained that we knew nothing about the code. Obviously, we do not know about the code at this stage because it has not yet been prepared. Some detail is given in Clause 29 about what the code may include particular provision about; we lay it out in subsection (3), which says:

“Such a code may, in particular, include provision about”,

and then goes from paragraphs (a) to (i). Subsection (4)(a) then provides that such a code also,

“need not contain provision about every type of surveillance camera system”,

and subsection (4)(b) says that it,

“may make different provision for different purposes”.

We have amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, dealing with that.

I start by dealing with my noble friend’s amendments, which seek to extend the list of matters that may be covered by the surveillance code of practice. As I have said, subsection (3) is intended to set out a very broad framework in the Bill for which issues may be covered in the code of practice. We have deliberately adopted a very flexible framework so that the code of practice can be revised over time in the light of experience and to reflect the wide range of circumstances in which surveillance cameras are used. For these reasons, the list of matters that may be included in the code is not intended to be prescriptive. Nor is it intended to be an exhaustive or exclusive list. The nature of such non-exhaustive lists is that they inevitably attract debate as to why this or that matter has not been included. Certainly, on first seeing Amendments 100 and 101 from my noble friend, I was unsure what she had in mind. However, I am grateful for her explanation that she wanted a degree of reassurance about what might be included. She also expressed concerns about standards and how they could concern not only the competence of an operator of CCTV but whether the operator was a fit and proper person. Those standards might also apply to operational processes but the code is intended to provide a degree of advice, rather than absolute prescriptive requirements. With that reassurance in mind, I hope that the noble Baroness will accept that, as we develop the code further, we can consider her points and make sure we get it right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I support this group of amendments, but with a degree of confusion as to just what the Bill provides. If one looks at Clause 29, which introduces the code of practice, there is no reference there at all to relevant authority. There are two references in subsections (3)(f) and (3)(g) simply to “persons” operating a CCTV system. The more my noble friend introduced the group of amendments, the more I wondered why on earth this code is not applicable to all users of CCTV systems, be they public, private or whatever. Why, for example, in a shopping mall with endless numbers of CCTV cameras should they not be subject to the code requirements, just as any of the relevant authorities as defined in Clause 33 are? My noble friend the Minister might like to ask her officials whether Clause 29 was indeed drafted to apply to all those operating CCTV systems, and why Clause 33 itself refers twice to relevant authorities but in subsection (2) simply refers to a

“failure on the part of any person to act in accordance with any provision”,

of the code.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, the dilemma in front of us is basically to do with the application of CCTV, its value and the safeguards related to its value. I have peculiar experience of this, having headed up an organisation which had probably one of the largest CCTV installations in the UK. I have to say it was introduced before anybody thought about any sort of code, and we built up practice. Our experience was that the benefits massively outweighed the disadvantages. Our other experience was that acceptance by the general public simply grew with time. In London, people are used to CCTV on transport systems, in public spaces and so on. We think that the benefits are enormous.

We are not against the general concept of introducing a code, but we have all made it clear that we think the way this code is being introduced is wrong. The right thing to do is to have an inquiry to understand the extent of the problem, to start working up criteria and so on. However, if the Government insist on introducing this code more rapidly than that, we would be against its extension to all publicly funded areas and to schools and colleges. This is not because we are against extension of the code—as has been rightly pointed out, there are many privately owned CCTV cameras that could sensibly fall within a comprehensive code. What we are against is the extension of that code until the right amount of experience has been gained and investigation has taken place. Otherwise, these crucial areas, particularly schools and colleges, where CCTV is so valuable, will be burdened with a bureaucratic nightmare until we achieve a code that gets the right balance of being bureaucratically light while achieving the effective objectives of public engagement and acceptance. Therefore, in this Bill at this time we do not support these amendments.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I shall start by picking up where the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, left off, and by making the point that there is a lot of support for CCTV in this country. As my noble friend has already made clear today, the Government are certainly not in any way trying to restrict the use of CCTV through the introduction of this Bill. We are trying to introduce a code so that the use of CCTV is clear, and that where it is used the public have clarity in their understanding of its purpose.

I shall address, first, my noble friend’s Amendment 107, which proposes extending the code to all public bodies in receipt of money provided by Parliament. Given the incremental approach that we are adopting, we are not persuaded that the duty to have regard to the code should apply more widely than to local authorities and the police from the outset. All operators of public space CCTV are subject to the requirements of the Data Protection Act. We see local authorities and the police as the operators of publicly owned CCTV systems in public space, and as the bodies who are well placed to set the example for standards of operation. They frequently work in partnership with other CCTV operators and we see their behaviour as a powerful driver for positive change elsewhere.

To place a duty to have regard to the code on every publicly funded body from the outset would be premature. We should see how the code beds in and, drawing on the advice from the Surveillance Camera Commissioner, consider in due course whether the duty should be extended and, if so, to which bodies. Clause 33 contains a provision to enable the duty to have regard to the code of practice to be extended to other bodies by means of secondary legislation, so we do not need to settle this question now. We will not hesitate to make use of this provision if we deem it necessary and beneficial. Any order made to this end will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, and so will need to be debated and approved by both Houses.

At this point, I should refer to the question asked by my noble friend Lord Phillips about the period of review of the code. Subject to any further advice that I receive, I refer him to Clause 35, which refers to reports by the commissioner. Subsection (2)(b) makes it clear that the commissioner will be required to report every 12 months. On that basis, I suspect that any advice or proposals that he might want to make about the extension of the code would therefore be covered in his reports.

I turn now to my noble friend’s Amendment 109, which refers explicitly to educational establishments—schools, colleges and universities. I accept that the use of CCTV in schools and colleges is a potentially emotive issue for a variety of reasons. Some of the examples that my noble friend outlined certainly illustrate that point most clearly. As with any other establishment, we would expect any decision to install CCTV in an educational establishment to be very carefully considered, and the reasons for so doing tightly defined. The new code is intended to assist with these considerations. While we are not proposing that schools be covered by the code at the outset, it is there for all organisations that wish to install CCTV to use and be guided by in determining the purpose of that CCTV, precisely as the noble Baroness says. It is very important that, if a school introduces cameras, it should be clear about why it is choosing to do that.

The public consultation that we carried out earlier this year received over 100 responses, which are available on the Home Office website. Analysis of the responses received found that comments on the use of CCTV in schools were minimal. While there were some respondents who argued that the code should be made mandatory for all operators, none put forward a specific case for compliance with the code to be made mandatory for schools. Similarly, in relation to the amendment of my noble friend Lady Randerson regarding higher education institutions, there were no calls in the public consultation relating to universities or further education colleges and there are no specific concerns that we are aware of.

I assure your Lordships that the detail of the code will be developed in consultation with interested parties and, as part of that dialogue, we will consider whether any issues associated with surveillance camera systems within schools or healthcare settings require specific reference within it. When using CCTV on their premises, schools, colleges, universities and indeed all public bodies—including government departments—must adhere to the requirements in the Data Protection Act. Noble Lords will be well aware of the existing powers of the Information Commissioner to enforce compliance through a regulatory action policy.

There are therefore already safeguards in place for the privacy of students and the wider public. We trust the proprietors of schools, colleges and universities and their heads of institution to comply with those requirements, and for schools, where appropriate, to consult with parents on any deployment of CCTV.

I hope that by giving the assurance that we recognise the importance and value of CCTV; by outlining that the introduction of the code is to provide some clarity in terms of its use; and by explaining that there is an option to extend the code beyond the relevant authorities outlined already in the Bill but that we will not do so prematurely, I have addressed all the points that have been raised by noble Lords in the debate today. I hope my noble friend will feel able to withdraw her amendment.