Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, the Government remain committed to strengthening the system of firearms control where necessary in order to protect people from harm. We have identified two loopholes in the Firearms Act 1968 that we are taking the opportunity provided by this Bill to address.

The first change is in response to a recommendation made by the Home Affairs Select Committee in 2010. The committee recommended that persons with suspended sentences should be prohibited from possessing firearms in the same way as those who have served custodial sentences. The Government have accepted that recommendation, and subsection (1) of the new clause will ensure that the same prohibition applies to people who have suspended sentences.

A person who has served a custodial sentence of between three months and three years cannot possess a firearm for five years after the date of their release. For the purposes of suspended sentences, this prohibition will start from the second day after the date of sentence rather than the date of release. This is because a person with a suspended sentence will not be in custody from the date of sentence, so the prohibition needs to begin almost immediately. We have said the second day after the date of sentence so that, if the person does have a firearm, they are not instantly in breach of the law upon receiving their suspended sentence. In effect, they may have around 24 hours to sell the firearm or transfer ownership of it to someone else.

I should say, however, that this requirement on a person given a suspended sentence immediately to divest themselves of any firearms is subject to the transitional provision in subsection (3) of the new clause. This provides that a person who has had a suspended sentence imposed, and who holds a firearm or shotgun certificate on the day that the new legislation comes into effect, will be able to continue to possess their firearm or shotgun for the duration of that certificate. This is to ensure that we are not placing any additional burden and bureaucracy on the police by obliging them to go through their records to find certificate holders who have suspended sentences. As I have already said, this is purely a transitional arrangement; it will not apply to anyone given a suspended sentence after commencement.

The second change, made by subsection (2) of the new clause, will ensure that prohibited persons are prevented from possessing antique firearms. Currently a person with any criminal conviction would be able to possess an antique firearm. Intelligence indicates that there is a growing interest in antique firearms from criminal groups. This amendment will ensure that persons convicted of a criminal offence and sentenced to at least three months’ imprisonment, including a suspended sentence, will be prohibited from possessing antique firearms in the UK.

We believe that closing both these loopholes will strengthen public protection by ensuring that, as the 1968 Act intended, persons convicted of a criminal offence carrying a sentence of at least three months’ imprisonment are prohibited from possessing firearms. Amendment 104 simply makes a consequential amendment to the extent clause. I commend the new clause to the Committee.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend the Minister said that an offender would be allowed a couple of days’ grace, as it were, to sell or hand over the firearm. If the offender wanted to hand it to someone in the same household, would that person have to have a licence, so that there would be no question of it being kept around on the premises and available unless the licence was already there for someone else?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I am sure my noble friend saw me nodding. That is quite correct.

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[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I understand, and can picture, some of the incidents that have been described. When I used to have to go up to Manchester regularly at weekends, I took to checking whether Manchester United was playing at home and took care not to travel back on trains which might be full of supporters. Having said that, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Condon, on this. I would be very reluctant to make this a new criminal offence and add it to the statute book. Indeed, I would be reluctant to add any new criminal offence to the statute book unless it was absolutely necessary. Will my noble friend say a word about aggravating factors in sentencing? Would this be a matter for sentencing guidelines, which I know are not under the control of the Government given that we have a Sentencing Council? If an offence has been committed in this context, a sentence can be imposed without the need to create a new offence. I take the point that has been made about that. If a new offence were created in this context, the same problems would arise in pursuing a prosecution as arise with existing offences.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendment we are considering, which was moved so ably by my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, would create a specific offence of assault against workers in public-facing roles. Reference has been made to various people who fall in that category such as shop workers, and they also include bus drivers and health workers. The proposed offence would carry a period of imprisonment not exceeding 12 months or a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.

Reference has been made to statistics provided by organisations such as the Association of Convenience Stores, USDAW and the British Retail Consortium. The latter estimated that 30,000 attacks on shop staff were reported last year. Women comprise a high percentage of staff in shops, and that is the case with a great many public-facing roles. Given that it is their employment, if they see a potential incident arising it is not particularly easy for them to walk away from the scene.

It has been argued that there is no need to create a different category of offence. I think that the issue is fairly clear cut. The noble Lord, Lord Condon, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, have expressed the same view on this issue and we wait to hear whether it is shared by the Minister. However, I think a lot of people feel that those who are attacked and assaulted in the course of their employment are entitled to greater protection than might be the case in other circumstances.

The current sentencing guidelines for assault indicate that an offence committed against those working in the public sector or providing a service to the public should be regarded as an aggravating factor adding to the seriousness of the offence. However, as has been said, that is just one of a number of possible aggravating factors. There is a wide range under the sentencing guidelines for common assault offences of this kind.

We are also aware that many of these assaults do not seem to be reported where they happen in the course of people’s employment, which is what we are talking about. The survey by USDAW, as I think my noble friend Lord Foulkes mentioned, showed that 17% of retail staff who had suffered a physical assault at work had not reported it as they believed that nothing would be done. There is also a feeling among some employees that many cases which are reported are not prosecuted, even where the assailants are known to the police.

Reference has been made to the separate offences of assaulting police officers in the execution of their duty and, in Scotland only, assaulting emergency service workers. The offence in Scotland in respect of emergency service workers is defined by the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005 and is, I think, subject to a maximum of nine months in prison or a fine of up to £10,000. Prosecutions using that Act have grown year on year since its introduction. There were 324 prosecutions in 2010-11 and, in total, there have been just over 1,100 prosecutions since the Act came into force, with the implementation of the Act raising the profile of assaults on those who provide emergency services.

The evidence indicates that if we had a separate offence in England and Wales of assaulting public-facing workers—we are talking about people in contact with the public in the course of their employment—with tougher penalties than for common assault, that would increase the likelihood of cases being prosecuted. It would restore what is clearly waning confidence among many public-facing workers that the judicial system will protect them, and it would act as a deterrent, as preliminary evidence from Scotland shows that while the number of prosecutions for assaulting emergency service workers has gone up, the number of such incidents has declined. That suggests that the message may be getting over, but I am afraid that attacking and assaulting people in the course of their employment when they are carrying out that role in direct contact with the public just will not be accepted. There has to be a change in attitude towards assaults of this kind, and I suggest that that can only properly be reflected in making clear that the penalties will be higher than they would be for other kinds of assaults.

The present arrangements in England and Wales do not appear adequate, as assaulting a public-facing worker in the course of his or her employment is not a separate specific offence and is regarded as being only one of a number of potentially aggravating factors relating to the crime of common assault. The result is that such assaults are not regarded as being much more serious than many other assaults in the way that applies, as it should, to assaults on a police officer in England and Wales and emergency service workers in Scotland.

If the Government want to assert that this Bill is about putting the victim first, they should recognise that public-facing workers are all too often victims of assault in the course of their employment, and they should accept this amendment, which creates a separate specific offence, with tougher penalties, for assaults of this kind.

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[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, in speaking to Amendment 56NA, I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for tabling it. We need government and, indeed, all political parties to get together to try to create a safer world for our young people while new psychoactive substances are so readily available to them. The amendment has merit on two grounds: first, it seeks to remove these substances from the shop window, as one might put it, which has to be helpful; and secondly, a feature of the amendment is that it focuses exclusively on suppliers and does not seek to criminalise the users of these substances. Those are two important points in favour of the amendment.

However, we need to be aware of some of the potential problems with the amendment. My only qualification for speaking today is that I chaired the APPG inquiry into new psychoactive substances, which received evidence from all the major governmental and non-governmental organisations involved in this field, as well as academics and those working on the front line, who really understand the implications of policies and perhaps their ineffectuality. As a result of that work, I have a number of concerns.

The first is the absence of proportionality or logic in the proposal. We have to accept, albeit reluctantly, that a sizeable proportion of young people will use drugs that may harm them. Our aim must surely be to reduce the incidence of addiction to any dangerous drug and, in particular, to reduce addiction to the most dangerous drugs, whether legal or illegal. We also need to reduce as far as possible the risk of a young person having a single dose of a substance that can cause death or serious injury.

Our drug policies must face reality. We will not stamp out drug use through bans and punishment. Our only hope is to create a rational system which makes abundantly clear to our young people those substances that are seriously dangerous, those that cause medium harm and those with short-term and relatively mild ill effects. We have not even begun to go down the road of proportionality in our drugs policy and, unfortunately, this amendment does not adopt this essential principle. Some other countries have done so, with impressive results, and even the US is beginning to take steps in a rational direction.

My comments on this amendment reflect my increasing conviction of the need for proportionality in our drug policies, combined with extensive information, education, treatment and psychological support for those who need it. Only with such an approach will we have a chance to achieve a safer drugs policy.

We need young people to respect the law. If the law is an ass, young people will get round it or simply ignore it. The amendment does not offer a proportionate response to these substances. There is also a lack of logic in the amendment, if I may put it that way; for example,

“a herbal substance with the appearance of cannabis”,

would be banned under this amendment. Why those particular herbal substances? They may in fact present a far lower risk and be far preferable for the health of young people than legal drugs such as tobacco and alcohol, and certainly the many other drugs that are available.

The Angelus Foundation, the organisation behind this amendment, argues in its briefing that the ban should apply only to synthetic psychoactive substances. It accepts that head shops have sold a number of substances that are non-addictive, do not cause significant social problems or are mild in their effects. It rightly says that such substances should not be caught by this amendment. But why should synthetic substances of similarly low risk and lack of social consequences be banned? Young people will very quickly realise the inconsistency in the situation.

Turning to a different issue, I find myself in agreement with the Home Office concern that the amendment completely bypasses the ACMD—the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. That august body of scientists should be at the heart of drug policy-making, assessing risks and actually making decisions—if I had my way —on the classes of different drugs. If we had scientists making these decisions, we would arrive at a more sensible set of policies.

Another and quite different concern is that if this amendment were passed it might be seen as a solution to the problem of NPS. Of course, a proportion of these young people will immediately go to the web if they cannot get what they want from the local head shop, and that proportion could be very close to 100%. Young people know all about the web—far more than I do—and it would not take them many minutes to realise that that is all they have to do to get what they want.

A very different question is whether the authors of the amendment explored the implications for research of this measure. Already, serious psychopharmacological researchers are having incredible difficulty obtaining the substances they need to undertake their research.

Also, have those supporting the amendment considered its cost implications? Trading standards representatives who gave evidence to our APPG on Drug Policy Reform made clear that if they are to take responsibility for policing head shops, they will need money to do it. That money has to cover the testing of those substances. It is no good their picking up a substance from a head shop if they have no idea what it is and no money to test it.

In conclusion, I applaud Angelus for its untiring work to try to reduce the access of young people to dangerous psychoactive substances. I welcome the attempt to reduce the risks to our young people of NPS. Whatever is agreed on the amendment, I hope that all political parties will work together to achieve improved policies to deal with the considerable risks presented to our young people by new psychoactive substances.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I well understand the concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. For instance, I recognise what I can think of only as collusion between sellers and buyers of substances labelled bath salts, plant food, and so on. The noble Baroness says that this is her only qualification—come on, it is some qualification. We are very lucky to have her explain her point so clearly and, to my mind, so persuasively. As she says, trading standards authorities are as concerned as everybody else and struggling to find a way to deal with this. Has the noble Lord had comments on the proposal from the Trading Standards Institute?

Like the noble Baroness, the points that occurred to me, which I will not repeat but simply support, are: is this risk-based, is it evidence-based, will it bring the law into disrepute, does it recognise the psychology of the consumer? Chemists in China will stay ahead of the game and will use the internet. Of course we have to be smart, but we have to be smart differently, not try to beat them in the way that they are working.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, the problems of new psychoactive substances are real and perilous. My noble friend Lord Rosser mentioned the number of recorded deaths. It is simple for an organic chemist to synthesise a new psychoactive substance to mimic the effect of a substance that has been banned. We understand that, across Europe, about 250 new psychoactive substances have been introduced in recent years. The Angelus Foundation, which originally proposed the new clause, has counted at least 250 head shops offering to provide such substances on the shopping streets of this country. There are other outlets, as has been mentioned, all of which succeed at the moment in evading existing regulation.

It follows that the buyers of those substances have no information about the composition, toxicity or purity of what they are buying. It is not only from the head shops that those substances can be obtained. Increasingly, they are being bought over the internet. Social networking spreads the news of the arrival of a new substance, and it is not at all uncommon for party invitations, distributed through social networking, to contain links to the suppliers of such substances.

The situation is very dangerous. The substances are cheap to produce and pretty cheap to buy. Sadly, young people are willing to take extraordinary risks with their own health and safety. A survey by Mixmag of club drug users found that no fewer than 25% of respondents said that they were willing to purchase and consume any white powder, unidentified.

The Angelus Foundation is right to have highlighted this issue and to have dedicated itself to improving the education available to people about new psychoactive substances. I pay tribute to Maryon Stewart, who created the Angelus Foundation following the tragic death of her daughter, who had consumed a new psychoactive substance. Maryon Stewart was impressive when she gave evidence to the inquiry which the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, chaired on this issue.

However, with genuine great respect for the Angelus Foundation, and of course for my noble friends Lady Smith and Lord Rosser, I believe that this proposed new clause is not the right way to approach the problem. Attacking head shops in the way that it envisages might indeed succeed in driving them out of business, but my worry is that it would drive the people who are purchasing these substances into the arms of nastier criminals—into the danger and squalor of engaging with gang-related street dealers in car parks and alleyways. If they are not already using the internet, and I suspect that most of them will be, it will of course drive them into its seductions and dangers, perhaps particularly those of the dark web. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction reported in its 2013 annual statement that it has identified 693 different internet outlets offering new psychoactive substances for sales. Actually, what I think will happen is that the internet will drive the head shops out of business, just as it has driven record shops and book shops out of business. This is not a measure that would enable us to police the net.

The Angelus Foundation has been candid that its purpose in proposing this new clause is to ban the sale of new psychoactive substances but all the evidence from 50 years of prohibition is that banning substances does not stop trafficking in drugs or people using drugs. In fact, it drives innovation; as one avenue is closed, another is opened. Prohibition has been an engine of crime. It has been counterproductive and has produced appalling consequences.

There are also civil liberties implications in this proposed new clause. Since an earlier version was debated in another place, it has been revised to require a lower standard of proof. The proposition is now that if a court is satisfied merely on the balance of probabilities, and not beyond reasonable doubt, it may make an order against a head shop listing products which appear to trading standards officers to be psychoactive and synthetic, and to have been bought for the purpose of intoxication. If the proprietor is unable to demonstrate that that is not the case, he will be liable to a prison sentence of six months or a level 5 fine. It is inconceivable that in this country we should legislate to imprison people because it appears to an official of the state that such and such is the case and the accused is unable to disprove the allegation. We have not seen legislation like this since the days of the Warsaw Pact in eastern Europe. It would be wrong for us to lower our standard of justice.

I am also bemused to note that the expectation, according to the Angelus Foundation briefing, is that consultation should follow once the legislation is on the statute book. That would be Alice in Wonderland legislation. I had not hitherto seen my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon as the Red Queen, or my noble friend Lord Rosser as the Red King.

The Intoxicating Substances (Supply) Act 1985 is, I suggest, a bad model for legislation to deal with the problem that we are addressing. It was designed to ban the sale of glue or lighter fluid for purposes of intoxication, but we know what glue and lighter fluid are. The very difficulty is that we do not know what these new psychoactive substances are, so how would the court establish the balance of probabilities? Would it be on the basis of guesswork or on the say-so of a trading standards officer? Justice, like policy, ought to be based on evidence. One of the great difficulties that we are facing is that the infrastructure for forensic testing in this country is entirely inadequate. We have not invested as we needed to do in it. That is a point that we made in the all-party group’s report. The result is that the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, temporary class drug orders and the whole apparatus of the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs are underresourced and unable to deal with a problem of the scale, complexity and pace of change that we have to deal with in respect of new psychoactive substances.

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Debate on whether Clause 115 should stand part of the Bill.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I am taking this opportunity to ask the Minister, who knows about my question, whether Clause 115 has the effect which it seems to me to have. The new section which is to be inserted into the Police Act will provide for powers to anyone to disclose information to the College of Policing where this is,

“for the purposes of the exercise by the College of any of its functions”.

Will the Data Protection Act be overridden in its entirety by this provision? What checks, possibility of challenge and possibility of complaint will there be? Is there any proportionality, propriety and so on? I am sure that I will be told that there is a difference between the college’s functions and its powers but I am not clear about the extent of this clause, which seems to be very wide.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I take it that my noble friend’s comments primarily were probing. Clause 115 provides the basis of information-sharing agreements between individuals and the College of Policing. In order for the college to fulfil its objectives it will need, from time to time, to have access to certain information. This information could cover a range of issues, including information about data in support of its work on the effectiveness of policing practice, data to inform the standards it sets for police officers and staff, and information that will help it produce the standards of ethics and values for the police. For example, as part of the college’s work to develop standards and ethics for the police, it may need information from the IPCC about its investigations and some of the lessons it has learned from the conduct of police officers. This information will be general and it should not be necessary for the IPCC to share information that would enable the college or its staff to identify individual police officers. I hope that noble Lords agree that it is important for the IPCC and other public authorities to have a clear legal power to share this valuable information with the college.

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This enabling power ensures that organisations which may wish to share information with the college are able to do so. We have not specified those organisations or the information that they may need to share in the Bill. We want the college, working together with the police, to determine how it can best deliver its objectives. That should include allowing it the freedom to identify the organisations with which it will work and how it wants those organisations to support its delivery. This clause will enable the college to do so successfully. In that explanation, I hope that I have addressed the questions raised by my noble friend and, if she is satisfied, that noble Lords will agree that the clause stands part of the Bill.

[Baroness Hamwee]

Of course, at this stage I am probing. Anything more comes later. I understand to an extent the purpose of the clause, which is to give powers. Perhaps it is a failure of my imagination but I am not clear as to what sort of information the college might require to be disclosed. I will look at what my noble friend has said. As I have said, this seems to be a very wide clause. I will have to do some work on this after today but I am not clear on how the restrictions to which my noble friend has referred would work in this connection. For the moment, I am left with one question. Has the Information Commissioner specifically been consulted about this clause?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I suggest that between Committee and Report I meet my noble friend to address her specific concerns, which I hope will help with clarity and understanding at the next stage.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

Does the noble Baroness agree that it might be helpful if the Minister, in writing to her, sets out a precise list of what is required and explains why it would not be possible for that list to be laid in regulations so that it is clear what information is being referred to? The way in which it is written at the moment seems extraordinarily broad.

[Baroness Hamwee]

I agree with that. I was going to press my noble friend a little on whether the Information Commissioner has been consulted. I hoped that there might be time for inspiration to flow across half the length of the Chamber but I do not think that it has.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

While inspiration may be somewhat limited, I take on board the noble Lord’s suggestion. As I have said, I will suggest a meeting to address some of the concerns.

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Moved by

[Baroness Hamwee]

56QZB: Clause 119, page 87, leave out lines 12 to 18

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, in moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendments 56QZC and 56QZD, which are on the same issue. Clause 119 deals with consultation on regulations about hours, leave or pay. My amendment, which is probing at this stage, would remove the provision whereby the duty on the Secretary of State,

“to consider advice from the Senior Salaries Review Body or to refer the matter to the Police Remuneration Review Body does not apply if the Secretary of State considers that”,

the matter is so urgent that there is not enough time, or the nature of the proposed regulations makes it unnecessary to undertake that. The duty is to “consider” advice rather than consult, so perhaps the message goes out but one does not wait to receive responses.

In my mind, this boils down to hours, leave and pay. What can be so urgent about these matters that the Secretary of State should not have to undertake process? If they are minor, the SSRB and the PRRB can say so. Indeed, if they are urgent, the two bodies could say, “We appreciate the urgency but we simply do not have time to deal with this”. The provision in new Section 52A(5) is a check on the Secretary of State, so I am concerned that it may be sidelined. The other amendments in this group are with regard to the Northern Ireland Secretary and the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland. I beg to move.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for the opportunity to address this important safety mechanism in the functioning of the Police Remuneration Review Body. The provisions that my noble friend’s amendment would delete from the Bill are intended to be used in only two instances. The first is if a matter is so urgent there is not enough time for the Secretary of State or the Northern Ireland Minister of Justice to consult the review body, which is of course not in constant session. To illustrate that, the Government have in mind a time of national emergency—for instance, ongoing, widespread rioting, or co-ordinated terrorist attacks across the country, or even, because we must always plan for every eventuality, at a time of war. There might be, for example, an alternative process for arranging officers’ shift patterns, or officers might be called to take on special duties that we could not foresee but which might be critical to the national response to an emergency, and for which we would want them, rightly, to be compensated.

Secondly, the provisions that my noble friend has drawn to our attention are intended to be used in situations where it would be unnecessary to consult the review body on a matter. For example, if a minor drafting error in the regulations needed to be corrected it would be inefficient and unnecessary to have to consult the Police Remuneration Review Body before correcting the error. Similarly, if there was an uncontroversial change to employment law that did not automatically apply to police officers by virtue of their unique employment status, of which noble Lords will be aware, we would want to amend regulations to reflect this change in the law without reference to the review body.

We added this power specifically in response to comments by policing partners, including the Police Federation and the Police Superintendents’ Association, that they would be concerned that not being able to make police regulations without reference to the body, in certain circumstances, could actually make the system more cumbersome. We believe that this provision addresses that concern.

I should conclude my comments on this proposed amendment by noting that in all cases, regardless of whether the review body is consulted or not, a draft of the proposed changes must be supplied to all interested parties before any changes are made, and this includes the opportunity for interested parties to make any representations. Therefore, neither the Secretary of State nor the Northern Ireland Minister of Justice would ever make changes to police officer remuneration in a vacuum, and would always have the input of representatives of police officers and those responsible for maintaining police forces. I hope in the light of my explanations that my noble friend will be able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, it is helpful to have that explanation on the record. On the point about hours, leave and so on in the event of a national emergency—I believe that “national emergency” is being used in a rather non-technical, wide sense—I had assumed that the terms and conditions of the regulations already allowed for the flexibility needed for the circumstances referred to by my noble friend. That is no doubt naivety on my part. As to whether something is necessary, I simply say that it can be a matter of judgment. That is why I thought it was important to understand what was meant here. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 56QZB withdrawn.

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[Baroness Hamwee]

Before my noble friend responds, perhaps I may add to the list of things that she might want to mention. As I understand it—I would be interested to know whether I read this correctly—my noble friend seeks a spread of experience. Points can be made about the date and the percentage, but what is important, apart from independence and the perception of independence, is that good practice—there is a lot of it among the police, but it is not confined to the police—could be spread to the non-police investigators and, conversely, that experience from elsewhere might be shared with those who have that professional background.

The last time that I took even the slightest issue with the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, somebody said to me, “Watch it, they’ll all have your car registration number”. However, I drive so slowly as perhaps to be a problem in that way.

We are trying to get to a good mix. Nobody exclusively has the right experience or the right way to approach these matters.

[Baroness Doocey]

My Lords, I thank the Minister—my noble friend the listening Minister—for his positive response. I confirm that I was referring to serious cases —he was right about that—not the cases that should rightly be dealt with at a lower level. I apologise to the House if I did not make that entirely clear.

I am delighted that the Minister has confirmed that, in future, all serious cases will be investigated independently by the IPCC. That is very important. Everyone who has made comments agrees that it is important that the IPCC is not just independent but seen by the public to be to be independent. We can all agree on that.

However, I am concerned about the issue of a date. To me, the words “direction of travel” mean, “Kick it into the long grass”. It would be sad if that happened. I understand the experience of noble Lords who have spoken, and it may well be that the date that I chose is too soon, but there must be a date as a cut-off point. If there is not, it could go on and on; that would be very wrong. We must deal with this issue of the perception of the police investigating the police. That will continue as long as the vast majority of investigators are former or seconded police officers.

Having said that, I have no desire for the IPCC to lose very good officers who are doing a very good job and who have experience. The issue is not to throw the baby out with the bath water. There is time for us to modify my proposal, which the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, has agreed that we should do. With that in mind, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.