Criminal Justice Bill (Second sitting)

Alex Norris Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 12th December 2023 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I begin this evidence session by calling Alex Norris for the Opposition.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Good afternoon to both our witnesses; thank you for your time. Rebecca Bryant, you mentioned Resolve’s long-running interest in antisocial behaviour. Could you give us your views on the clauses in the Bill that relate to antisocial behaviour and whether there is anything you would add to them?

Rebecca Bryant: Thank you for the question. First of all, as a membership organisation, the views are of our members. We have spent time talking to them since the Bill was published. Quite a few different views have been put forward by our members and by Resolve ourselves as an organisation. Some of the clauses we agree with, and some of them we do not. I can take you through each particular one.

We absolutely agree with the clause on creating a duty for police and crime commissioners to promote awareness of the antisocial behaviour case review. I am quite happy to elaborate on that. On extending the power to implement dispersal orders to local authorities, our members generally agree that dispersal powers should remain with the police rather than being spread to local authorities, and there are very specific reasons for that. The police are required to enforce any breach of the dispersal order, and really these powers should be seen as a partnership response rather than a sole agency response.

When a dispersal order is being put in place, that needs to be considered by the local authority and with it as a partnership across the board through the community safety partnership. There should be an understanding as well that the police are on the ground and out on patrol 24/7, so are in a much better position to be able to use that power. They also have the skills and knowledge to use it.

That takes me on to extending the time frame for a dispersal order from 48 hours to 72 hours. All our members that we consulted are in favour of the extension of time. Our members are not in favour of extending the public spaces protection orders to the police because local authorities are very skilled in using them—that is where the knowledge lies. Significant expertise and a lot of consultation with the public are required before you put one in place. Rather than extending it, it should be used in partnership through the community safety partnership.

In relation to lowering the age for issuing a community protection notice from 16 to 10 and increasing the upper fine limit from £100 to £500 for breaches, members are mixed, particularly on the lowering of the age to 10. A lot of work goes into early intervention and prevention and how we deal with young people on the path to causing antisocial behaviour. Penalising young people at age 10 for antisocial behaviour by fining their parents if there was to be a breach is quite a significant step and flies in the face of our approach to early intervention and prevention, which uses positive mentoring and youth interventions for young people.

On extending the time frame for applying for closure orders from 48 hours to 72 hours after serving the notice, everybody was in favour, but they would like to see more explicit guidance and support around magistrates courts. On giving the closure power to housing providers, everybody who is a housing provider is absolutely in support of that; Resolve has been lobbying for that for some time now, particularly as it is a very good tool to use for more serious types of antisocial behaviour, such as cuckooing and exploiting vulnerable people.

In terms of the power of arrest for all breaches of civil injunctions, on the whole most of our members are not particularly swayed by that because the power of arrest is a very serious tool. It requires the police to conduct that power of arrest, and it will mean significant resource implications for the police. Not only that, but we would have to get past the courts on proportionality and reasonableness for the power of arrest to be attached to any clause. It would also significantly impact on the court system, particularly if someone was arrested. They would have to be presented to court the next day, so there would be issues around cells and also the management of community expectations once we had got an injunction with the power of arrest. For the CSOs who enforce breaches of community protection notices, it was felt that this would be positive because having more resources with which to be able to enforce those breaches would be welcome.

[Alex Norris]

Q76 May I come back to the point on the minimum age for community protection notices? When responding to the Government’s antisocial behaviour action plan, you talked about how we need to think about children as victims of antisocial behaviour—I think your phrase was “silent victims”. Could you briefly talk us through that?

Rebecca Bryant: Yes. I would like to bust a few myths, if that is possible while giving evidence. There is a perception in the media and the community that young people are the main perpetrators of antisocial behaviour when, in fact, they are not: the vast majority of antisocial behaviour is perpetrated by adults.

In focusing on young people, we should be thinking about how they are impacted by antisocial behaviour. They are often victims. You will have seen terrible films on TikTok and social media outlets of fights, violence and aggression. That means that those young people are victims rather than perpetrators as a whole. We certainly need to recognise that if we can get in early and use the early intervention and prevention tools available to us to stop the antisocial behaviour or stop those young people becoming antisocial, we will be able to reduce antisocial behaviour as a whole.

Antisocial behaviour is often a precursor to more serious crime, so if we can use our opportunity—I call it a “golden moment”—to intervene with a young person, perhaps with an alternative trusted adult from outside the home, and work with them to understand the impact of the behaviour that they may be perpetrating, that in itself does not fall into the idea that we should be reducing the CPN to the age of 10.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Laura Farris)]

Q Mr Redgrave, may I ask you a bit about some of the section 16 provisions about drug testing? You may be familiar with the ambition to give greater powers to test for controlled substances—class B and class C drugs—with a view to directing the person into appropriate treatment at an earlier stage; the idea is that that will intercept more serious offending further down the line. You have written something about this, for the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, I think—or, at least, the Institute has done so. Can you comment on the provision, and what is your view of a wider form of testing in police stations?

Harvey Redgrave: I am in favour of this measure. I think it was used relatively effectively under the last Labour Government in relation to prolific offenders. [Interruption.] Sorry, do I need to speak a bit louder?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Q We will now hear oral evidence from Andy Marsh and Andy Cooke. We potentially have until 3.30 pm for this panel. Would the witnesses please introduce themselves for the record?

Andy Cooke: Good afternoon. I am Andy Cooke, His Majesty’s chief inspector of constabulary and His Majesty’s chief inspector of fire and rescue services.

Andy Marsh: Hello, I am Andy Marsh, the chief exec and chief constable of the College of Policing of England and Wales.

[Alex Norris]

Q Thank you both for your time this afternoon. Andy Marsh, I would like to start with you. The point about vetting has come up frequently. You may have heard it in the previous panel, and you may be aware that we also discussed it this morning. What is the College’s view on vetting?

Andy Marsh: I am of the view that there has not been enough rigour in the way in which vetting responsibilities and duties have been conducted. I am also of the view—significantly because of high-profile cases, but also because of inspection work by Andy Cooke’s team—that not only have vetting processes been inadequate but they have not been complied with. The College has done two things as a start: we have rewritten the code of practice for vetting to introduce new standards, and we are about to launch a new authorised professional practice for vetting that will set new, more rigorous standards across England and Wales that address all of the areas for improvement addressed in Mr Cooke’s inspection report.

Is that enough? In my opinion it is not enough. When the spotlight moves on from this important area of safeguarding the public and the reputation of policing, will chiefs and police forces continue to apply the scrutiny and effort that is going into this at the moment? It is my intention—I have expressed this—for this to be an area of service provision that is high-risk and which the College proposes to license or authorise in each force vetting unit each year. There will be training and support for personnel, and there are good people in those force vetting units, but in my plan, if they do not achieve the required standards, they will not be allowed to do vetting. It will have to be done by another police force.

[Alex Norris]

Q I might come to you, Andy Cooke, in a second for your reflections on that, but very briefly, when you write up your expectations, are you likely to put a new time limit on the period of vetting or do you have an alternative way of doing that?

Andy Marsh: I am unlikely to put a new time limit on the period of vetting, because I think in the 21st century when people—I am talking about all employees and police officers—commit a misdemeanour or when something occurs that throws into doubt their vetting status, that happens in real time, and our vetting systems should be good enough to pick them up in real time as well. We cannot wait for periods of time.

I used to be responsible in England and Wales for firearms licensing, and that period I was responsible for saw a shift in doctrine from revisiting a licence every three or five years to revisiting someone’s safety to hold a weapon 24/7, 365 days a year. Our approach in principle, while complying with the code of practice and the authorised professional practice on vetting, is that there will be time thresholds for hard stops on renewal, but in my opinion and assessment, there is an expectation that vetting should be under constant review.

[Alex Norris]

Q Do you think that is technologically possible?

Andy Marsh: I do.

[Alex Norris]

Q Andy Cooke, is the inspectorate of a similar mind to the College on this?

Andy Cooke: I am fully supportive of the College’s desire to license vetting officers to practise. As you are well aware, the vetting inspection we conducted not too long ago had more recommendations than any inspection previously done. It showed policing in a pretty poor light. Some forces were doing okay, but overall it was not sufficient to protect the public or the reputation of policing. If policing cannot be sure it has the right people in it, that is a sad indictment on the force or forces across the country. There needs to be a continued focus on this area of policing. Licence to practise will assist in that, and the inspectorate will continue to look at these issues right across the forces across England and Wales.

[Alex Norris]

Q Andy Cooke, clause 19 allows entry, search and seizure without a warrant under certain circumstances. Do you have any concerns over that power and how we can have confidence that it is being exercised properly?

Andy Cooke: It is a power that will need to be closely monitored, but it is a power I am supportive of. The ability to recover stolen property in such circumstances is a real issue if policing is going to catch the people it needs to catch, particularly around the likes of mobile phone theft, which is endemic across large parts of the country. The inspectorate will obviously keep a close eye on it as part of the legitimacy of policing and the ethical context in which policing is conducted. It will form part of future inspections when necessary.

[Alex Norris]

Thank you very much.

[Chris Philp]

Q Welcome Andy Marsh and Andy Cooke. Let me take the opportunity to say thank you for all the work you and your teams do supporting policing across England and Wales. It is very much appreciated by all of us, both in Government and in Parliament.

Andy Marsh, can I continue the line of questioning about the warrantless power of entry where it is necessary to recover stolen goods when there is no time to get a warrant? Andy Cooke just mentioned that the inspectorate would keep a close eye on whether that power, if granted by Parliament, is being exercised properly. Could you confirm for the Committee’s benefit whether you would in due course, if this were passed, produce some authorised professional practice to make sure that police forces exercise the power in a way that is responsible?

Andy Marsh: Minister Philp, as you are aware I am strongly supportive of police officers conducting all reasonable lines of inquiry to catch criminals and keep communities safe. It caused me great frustration as a chief if ever a letter landed on my desk to say, “My bike’s on sale on eBay, my daughter’s phone is in a house and you said you couldn’t do anything”.

We have already started our plans to hardwire this new power into our guidance, our training and our standard setting to do our very best, along with working in partnership with His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services to ensure that we use this power consistently in two respects. I do not want to see circumstances where the power should be used, where it is not and people could be caught and property returned; and I certainly do not want it to be used in such a way that would undermine confidence in policing. As in many things in policing, we need to get this just right. The College has a fundamental role in achieving consistency and getting it just right.