Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Monday 25th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I lend my support to Amendments 34, 60 and 65 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, to which I have added my name. I do so particularly in regard to the Bill’s effects on local authorities, having 28 years’ experience of having served on one.

Local authority officers, especially those working in social services, are the most collaborative people possible—they have multiagency working written into their DNA—but within proper professional limits, especially concerning the guardianship of personal information. Their focus is always first and foremost, properly, on the welfare of their client—in the case of serious violence, often young people living in the twilight zone between potential offender and, at the same time, potential victim. Of course, the risk in these provisions is that the disclosure of information provisions in Clause 15 changes the relationship between social worker and client so as to drive the latter away from services that could in fact divert them from serious violence.

What I do not fully understand and has not been made explicit is whether Clause 15 alters or expands the existing legal and professional constraints that social workers operate under in relation to the release of information to the police. If it does not, what is the point of it? If it does, will my noble friend say in what way and to what extent it does so, and what the rationale is? It may be that my noble friend can satisfy my concerns about this, but in the meantime the amendments proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, particularly Amendment 65 requiring depersonalisation of data, go some way to address those concerns, and I support them.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, this group enables me to raise a concern that will not be new to the Committee or to the Minister but has not been resolved as a general issue and is possible as the Bill is drafted. It is the reluctance of immigrant women—it is usually women—suffering domestic abuse to go to the police for help because they fear that information will be shared with immigration authorities.

Last week, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner published a report entitled Safety Before Status, and one of her recommendations is that

“the Home Office should introduce a firewall between police and immigration enforcement, accompanied by safe reporting mechanisms”

I cannot resist saying that it continues

“and funded referral pathways to support.”

Perpetrators can use a victim’s insecure status as a component of coercive control. They can use status that is not insecure, but the victim is led to believe that it is. If victims are to come first, it is essential that they know that they can seek support without putting themselves in danger of deportation. I was going to ask noble Lords to imagine what this means, but I am not sure any of us can: not only the financial and accommodation implications considerations but, in some communities, shame and abandonment by the family in the country of origin. There are a number of very difficult consequences—that is putting it too mildly.

The commissioner’s report says:

“Immigration abuse and insecure immigration status as a risk factor is not always identified in local safeguarding protocols, and often the risk faced by victims … is misidentified.”


She goes on:

“Information sharing with immigration enforcement undermines trust in the police and public services”—


a point that has been made this evening—

“and enables perpetrators to control and abuse survivors with impunity. A key reason why staff in public services share information with immigration enforcement is for the perceived purpose of safeguarding a victim. Data sharing in this capacity, however, can put the victim or survivor at risk … and, even where enforcement action does not take place can compound the experience of immigration abuse, pushing victims and survivors further away from support.”

I could not let this group go by without raising that issue.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I will briefly but wholeheartedly support the thrust of all the amendments in the group. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, as a former policeman, put it very well: if everyone tries to be the policeman society is the poorer, but effective policing is also harder to achieve. To crystallise it, let us say that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, is the policeman and I am the teacher or youth worker. If I am under any kind of duty, or perceived to be, to hand over my notes on an automatic basis or on demand to him, there is a significant problem not just for education and youth work but for trust and confidence in civil society, and indeed for my ability to go to the noble Lord when I have a specific overriding concern about an individual young person or student.

I understand where this comes from—it comes with the best intentions, because Governments of all persuasions have gone increasingly down this road of big data for many decades. It is not a party-political point, because when you are in government you are told, quite rightly, that central government is indivisible and that there is one Secretary of State. That is a very important central government constitutional principle, yet even central government is supposed to hold data for specific purposes.

There is an obvious attraction to creating a purpose that overrides all others on a wholesale basis, especially when it is something as important as combating serious violence. However, if it trumps not just other government purposes, such as tax collection or healthcare, but begins to trump local and professional confidential duties, we are really in trouble. As I said, with the best of intentions, this will undermine trust and confidence in a number of vital services and will, I believe, undermine the role of the police. When you are looking for a needle in a haystack, do not keep building an ever greater haystack.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope I have been able to provide some reassurances to the Committee about the nature and purpose of the information-sharing provisions in this part of the Bill and the safeguards in place. I have already indicated in response to previous amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that we will consider further the issue of patient information and, on that basis, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, will be happy to withdraw her amendment and support Clauses 9, 14, 15 and 16 standing part of the Bill.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, of course I would be glad to be updated, but I think that the Minister will recognise that, as the Bill stands, the position I spelled out would be possible: information could be shared with immigration authorities—and, of course, the Data Protection Act has an exemption in that regard.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her explanation. I did not quite understand when she seemed to suggest that this was all facilitation and to enable different authorities to share information—and that there was no compulsion to do so. Could she therefore explain Clause 17, where it says that,

“if the Secretary of State is satisfied that … a specified authority has failed to discharge a duty imposed on it by section 7, 13(6), 14(3) or 16(4), or … an educational authority, prison authority or youth custody authority has failed to discharge a duty imposed on it by section 14(3), (4) or (5)(b) or 16(4)”,

then

“The Secretary of State may give directions to the authority for the purpose of securing compliance with the duty”


and can enforce that requirement by a mandatory order? In what way is that voluntarily facilitating the exchange of information? Clause 17 is all about the Secretary of State forcing authorities to share information.