Police (Complaints and Conduct) Bill
Baroness Hamwee Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I am not from Liverpool but I am acutely aware of how central football can be to the DNA of the citizens of a city, and I mean more than loyalty to a particular club. In my home city, if you support Manchester City you celebrate when Manchester United loses, but tragedy brings people together. I have a vivid early memory of the air crash at Munich when Manchester United was returning from Belgrade. The shockwaves were felt throughout Manchester, among firm City supporters no less than others. Looking the other day at some information about that crash, I realised that of those who died there were as many reporters as players. That prompted me to reflect that, had that crash occurred in 2008 not 50 years earlier, the press would have behaved differently—and probably much more intrusively.
I mention the Manchester United air crash because I think I have some understanding of how the whole of Liverpool felt and still feels affected personally by the tragedy of Hillsborough—qualitatively quite differently from the public more widely. I say “feels” in the present tense because the tragedy is not just a past event. Of course, it never could be for the families of those killed or injured, or for those who were there, but the current sense of insult and outrage for the whole city and all right-thinking citizens who care about the reputation of their public services is something that is not in the past.
Tribute has rightly been paid to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool—I am embarrassed to be speaking before him—not just for the report but for the whole process. That the panel made contact with at least one member of each bereaved family says so much about how it approached its task. Again, tribute is rightly paid to the families and survivors whose grit, determination and dignity were recognised by the panel and the public. The panel’s report is powerful, telling and very shocking. I was pulled up short by its reference to,
“a narrative of hooliganism … against a background of times when football was perceived as a national disease”,
and shocked by the,
“confluence of establishment interests”.
I do not need to recite the shocking events related by the report and their quite extraordinary scale.
My other general point is that as a society we seem too often to shy away from saying “sorry”, perhaps because we focus too much on the implications for liability. That seems to have spilled over. We use weasel words like, “apologise if any inconvenience has been caused”. I want to emphasise the importance of apology. From time to time, things will go wrong—maybe badly wrong. Detail is important for those affected and those against whom allegations are made, but as well as investigating what happened, a simple apology can make clear that it is understood that there are real people with real feelings involved.
Like others, I am cautious about fast-track legislation but to delay the Hillsborough investigation even further or not to give the investigators the tools that they identified are required would not be right. I am prepared to trade extended parliamentary scrutiny of the Bill for scrutiny of the event. But having fast-tracked it, there is no excuse for not moving forward with the investigation with speed and determination. I hope that the IPCC will emulate the panel and work across agencies, individuals and issues in a co-ordinated fashion.
I will not ask the Government today when we might see legislation to address the issues that they themselves have identified as outstanding—or, on the other hand, an announcement that they have determined that legislation is not necessary. I refer here to things such as sanctions for serving officers refusing or failing to attend an interview, and the wider issues around sanctions and their application to former officers, including those who are now employed by companies providing contracted-out services, which is a growing issue. These issues are relevant to more than Hillsborough. I understand that 31 officers refused to be interviewed after the death of Mark Duggan. Conversely, there is the issue of the application of a caution before questioning. But as I say, I do not expect the Government to pursue those matters today.
There has been discussion of the term “exceptional circumstances”. It seems appropriate that the IPCC itself should assess exceptionality. The ability to make that assessment goes towards the very independence of the IPCC. It is worth reminding ourselves that the commission has the function—not just an aspiration—enshrined in statute of securing the establishment and maintenance of public confidence in dealing with complaints and possible criminal offences or behaviour.
I support the Bill, as the Home Affairs Select Committee put it,
“for the pursuit of justice for the Hillsborough families and for the future effectiveness of the IPCC”.
Scrap Metal Dealers Bill
Baroness Hamwee Excerpts(11 years, 12 months ago)
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Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I, too, welcome the Bill. I had come here prepared to hear a number of anecdotes—indeed, horror stories—ranging on a spectrum from the inconvenient to the tragic; we have already heard some of them. It was clear that there was a real problem when the monitor of national concern, “The Archers”, had a storyline about metal theft.
When the issue hit the headlines, I found that every time I went past a group of people with a white van digging up the road, I started to suspect whether they were legitimate. I had to tell myself to take a rather more positive view of society. That was fulfilled by the occasions when members of the public got together to subscribe to replace war memorials, which happened locally to me in Twickenham. I heard of a scrap metal dealer in Sutton, I think it was, who spent £20,000 restoring a memorial for the sake of the reputation of his own trade. These things, as has been said, should never have happened in the first place.
There are a lot of statistics around this. The one which really grabbed my attention was seeing that almost 2,000 offences relating to metal theft occurred each week last year. I am delighted that the noble Baroness has been able to advance the Bill following its steering through the Commons by Richard Ottaway, MP. However, my biggest question is why this hand-out Bill did not come from the Government, who would not have needed to use a great deal of ingenuity to tack this on to their own legislation; it might well have been shoehorned, for instance, into the Crime and Courts Bill. One should not call into question House of Commons procedures, but hand-out Bills seem to be a way of going about things which detracts from the ability of Private Members’ Bills to be used for the large number of purposes for which there is a call. I do not expect the noble Baroness to answer that. Indeed, having once, many years ago, been able to move that “The Bill do now pass”, I certainly do not begrudge her the rosy glow that there will be in a very few weeks’ time. Some of that glow should spill over to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner. It is clear that legislation is needed, even though the taskforce has actually undertaken tasks and not been a talking shop.
The second biggest puzzle to me, although it is one that one gets used to, is that of Treasury rules, which in this case have precluded the Environment Agency using income from the regulated sector to pay for enforcement work in the unregulated sector. It is to the credit of the legitimate trade that they have not just supported but actively promoted the Bill. It was not until I saw their briefing that I completely made the connection with the recycling industry and the need to use and re-use resources, and all those benefits that will come with this legislation. That will include reputational benefit. Disrepute can spill over. The first time that I went to Italy, the first phrase which was translated for me was “divieto di scarico”: “no tipping”.
I understand the call for extending the regulatory regime to second-hand domestic appliance traders; that is assuming that the appliances are not salvageable and refurbishable. However, I will not be pressing that amendment, nor any amendment. I understand the need to get the Bill on to the statute book. Enforcement has been mentioned. I wonder whether there will be teething problems as the industry becomes used to recording all the information that is required under the Bill. The dealers will require some of the information, such as type, weight and so on, for their own purposes. They also will be required to record identifying marks and “distinguishing features”, and I hope that they are never faced with having to work out how to describe a Barbara Hepworth or a Henry Moore again. They also will have to record,
“information and the scrap metal to which it relates to be readily identified by reference to each other”.
That could cause some challenges but they will have to face them.
I was concerned that I might hear that these provisions would be a burden on local authorities. I checked that their briefing, which I had printed out, was not more than one page. I remembered that my printer had run out of paper at about that time but the briefing was only one page and it was supportive. Local authorities will have new duties, so there will be burdens on them. The new duties will require more than just checking some tick-boxes, especially when they have to ensure that an applicant has demonstrated,
“adequate procedures to ensure that the provisions of”,
what I hope will soon be an Act, have been complied with.
I end with one question for the Minister. Will he tell the House when the Government will bring forward the regulations and guidance that will be needed to ensure that this Bill, when it is an Act, will not be just a piece of paper but a living and enforceable set of arrangements?
Crime and Courts Bill [HL]
Baroness Hamwee Excerpts(11 years, 12 months ago)
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Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, I, too, support this amendment. Having been a member of the police authority to which the noble Lord, Lord Blair of Boughton, reported, I confirm that we did not always agree with the views that he put to us or the proposals that he made—but that was a healthy tension; there was a healthy process of governance. When I was chair of that authority, on three separate occasions a proposal was brought to the police authority by the noble Lord, Lord Blair, in his previous incarnation, which was rejected each time, and in the end a modified proposal emerged, which I think was better for London.
That was a relationship of dialogue and openness. What the Government are proposing in the Bill will be very different. There will simply be the director-general, who will report to the Home Secretary, and the Home Secretary will have the powers to set the strategic direction, the general way in which the organisation operates and, of course, have the power to hire and fire. There will be no scrutiny of that, no external validation and no one else sitting round the table—it will be a one-to-one relationship.
One of the fundamental principles of British policing, ever since Sir Robert Peel started the whole process, is that there should not be direct political control of the police service. What we have here is the creation of a potentially incredibly powerful national policing body that will report to a single politician, with no other people sitting around the table when directions and advice are given.
The advantages of my noble friend’s amendment are that it puts a layer between the Home Secretary and the director-general—a governance board—but also that the governance board has several people and interests represented. That does not absolutely prevent political interference because I am sure that the Home Secretary may on occasion phone the director-general and there will be direct dialogue, but it provides a governance structure that is a safeguard against the distortion of operational priorities for political purposes.
The noble Lord, Lord Blair, referred to the difficulties that he might have faced in respect of cash for honours. At the time of that investigation, there was a Labour chair of the police authority—it was not me; that was after my time, although I was still on the police authority—and I know that that Labour chair came under considerable political pressure from Labour Party colleagues about that investigation. Quite properly, he did not intervene on those matters; indeed, he defended the operational decisions of the police. But even had he been minded not to resist that political pressure, he had around him 22 other members of the police authority calling him to account and saying, “Actually, this must be allowed to run its course, right or wrong”. Here, there will just be the Home Secretary relating to the director-general in private, with no one else around the table able to say, “Is this appropriate or not?”.
It is a profoundly dangerous structure. I am sure it is being done for the best of all possible reasons and we will be told how efficient it is. But I have yet to hear anyone say that the SOCA board has been a waste of time, that it has not added value or that it has not improved the governance of the Serious Organised Crime Agency—none of those points has been put.
Instead, we are offered this direct-line relationship between the director-general and the Home Secretary. It is extremely dangerous. Even if the current Home Secretary and her successors have no intention of ever crossing that line and trying to intervene in the operational decision-making of the director-general, they will be open to the allegation that that is precisely what they have done. That weakens the position both of the director-general and of Ministers. For that reason I believe that the Bill’s proposals are profoundly dangerous, and I support my noble friend’s amendments.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames and I have Amendment 3 in this group. I am not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Blair, was looking at me—I believe he was—when he referred to some people in this Chamber having been members of a police authority at the relevant time. I was not a member, but I questioned him in public, carrying out a role that is not unrelated to the subject of this amendment, which is getting information into the public domain—a hugely important role that someone needs to carry out. I am not sure who that someone might be in this structure.
I am aware that the Government have designed an arrangement under which the director-general is accountable to the Secretary of State, who is in turn accountable to Parliament. The Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Henley, in response to my amendment at the previous stage, told me that a supervisory board, which was how I described it, would muddy the waters. I had taken that proposal for a supervisory board from the arrangements that the Department for Communities and Local Government had in place, as I was easily able to access its arrangements. I said then that I was not seeking to change the architecture of the Bill.
I do not propose a governing board, and I do not go as far as the noble Baroness. However, because of the concern not to change the architecture, I have amended my own amendment to include the words, “Subject to Part 1”. That deals with the respective roles of the Secretary of State and the director-general. I tabled my amendment before seeing the outline framework document, which we are told will cover internal governance. Reading Hansard following Committee, I thought that perhaps “supervision” was regarded at any rate as an indelicate term for the relationship, although I felt at the time that the Government were a little oversensitive to my amendment.
However, I will be even blunter and say that as I read the paragraph in the outline framework document, the word that comes to mind is “cosy”. It might be much less cosy if we knew more from this document about what the governance arrangements would consist of. We are to have a management board, which comes under the heading of “Internal Governance”—it is almost the whole of that paragraph. I do not regard management as being the same as governance. Neither do I regard governance as being the same as administration, although that is the umbrella word used for governance in Schedule 2. It is the term used to introduce the concept of governance.
I have used terms including “strategic and corporate leadership” and “advice” in my amendment. If the management board that we are to expect is not to provide strategic and corporate leadership and advice, what is it going to do? Perhaps the Minister can help us today by fleshing this out a little more.
The framework does not tell us what it will do, and that is clearly important. It says only that there will be a description of the role of the board. Although, as I said, my amendment does not go as far as Amendment 1, the points made hitherto raised extremely important issues about governance in the public and political sector. I ask one further question. I do not want to pre-empt the noble Lord, Lord Condon, because it was his question at the previous stage, but will the board include stakeholders? We know that there are to be some ex-officio members and non-executive members. Again, the House would be interested to know who it is anticipated will fulfil those roles.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, this amendment would require pre-appointment scrutiny of the director-general by the appropriate parliamentary Select Committee, presumably the Home Affairs Committee.
As we understand it, the Government consider pre-appointment hearings to be best practice for major public appointments. The coalition agreement contains a specific commitment to,
“strengthen the powers of Select Committees to scrutinise major public appointments”,
as part of improving government transparency. Yet the Government have not considered this approach relevant for the office of director-general of the National Crime Agency, a role that is to be much more powerful than the chief executive of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, with the NCA’s increased responsibilities and the absence of any governance structure, as we have just debated.
In Committee, the Government said:
“We accept that there is a place for departmental Select Committees to undertake pre-appointment hearings for certain key public appointments but we do not believe that this is one of them”.—[Official Report, 18/6/12; col. 1597.]
The Government argued that pre-appointment scrutiny by the relevant Select Committee was not justified because the Home Secretary was accountable for public protection and the progress made by the National Crime Agency. Yet the occupant of the post of director-general of the NCA will have considerable powers and, in effect, will be the head of the one national crime-fighting agency in the country dealing with serious, high-profile and organised crimes. In addition, the Government are also considering giving the NCA and its director-general responsibilities for counter- terrorism. The occupant of the post of director-general will also have the power to direct chief officers of other police forces throughout England and Wales to carry out specific tasks.
Under Schedule 1, a person need not be an NCA officer before appointment as the director-general. The only requirement is that a,
“person may not be appointed as Director General unless the Secretary of State is satisfied that the person … is capable of effectively exercising operational powers and … is a suitable person to exercise operational powers”.
That is a somewhat subjective judgment, with nothing specific about proven skills or experience. The reputation and credibility of the NCA is going to be determined to a significant degree by the effectiveness and ability of the director-general, who will have responsibilities directly affecting the safety and security of the people of this country and will have operational independence but without the support or protection of a board, unlike the Serious Organised Crime Agency, between the director-general and the Secretary of State to help to ensure that that is the case.
This post is a new one with responsibility for potentially very sensitive issues, including what could be sensitive issues with political implications. The occupant will need to be strong enough to ensure that operational independence from government is a reality and to withstand any pressures to have too cosy a relationship with his or her political masters. To leave the matter solely in the hands of the Secretary of State without any other parliamentary approval being required would not seem the appropriate step in relation to this post, bearing in mind the nature and responsibilities of it. This must surely be one position for which there is a strong case for pre-appointment scrutiny by the relevant parliamentary Select Committee. I beg to move.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I have a difficulty with this amendment because it seems to seek not pre-appointment scrutiny, as the noble Lord has described it, but appointment veto. Pre-appointment scrutiny, questioning a proposed candidate but then leaving it to the appointer to take the final decision in the light of that scrutiny is something which, as the House will know, I have advocated in other contexts. For very senior and important positions I think that that is very desirable. However, I do not go so far as wanting to see Select Committees approving appointments such as this. Although the noble Lord’s speech was very persuasive, what he is seeking the House to agree to is something even more than he was arguing for.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that this amendment seeks to make the appointment of the director-general of the NCA subject to the approval of the Home Affairs Select Committee. This is a step up from the amendment tabled by noble Lords in Committee, which provided only for consultation with that committee.
As my noble friend Lord Henley outlined during the Committee stage, the Home Secretary is ultimately accountable for public protection. She will account to Parliament for the progress made by the National Crime Agency. It is right, therefore, that she is responsible for appointing the director-general. Of course, there is a place for departmental Select Committees to approve certain key public appointments, but we do not believe that this is one of them.
In the Government’s June 2012 response to the House of Commons Liaison Committee’s report on public appointments, we indicated that,
“there are some posts where it is appropriate for Parliament to exercise a formal control over appointments”.
However, the response went on to say:
“This is exceptional and where the remit is associated with the functions of Parliament”.
That is not the case with this appointment, as it was not the case with the appointment of the director-general of the Serious Organised Crime Agency. The Home Affairs Select Committee will, of course, have a role in scrutinising the work of the National Crime Agency, in the same way as it has scrutinised the work of SOCA, and I believe it is in this capacity that it can best contribute. Indeed, Keith Bristow gave evidence to the committee as recently as 16 October, and I expect that he will be frequently before that committee to be challenged on how the NCA is performing.
The Government do not agree to Select Committees having an effective veto on a wider range of appointments and for that reason I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I am conscious that there are a large number of amendments in this group, but they are all essentially technical and drafting in nature. In a few cases, they respond to points raised in Committee and I will deal with these first.
On the first day of Committee on 18 June, I undertook to consider an amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Hamwee, which sought to provide for secondments from the NCA into police forces. As your Lordships will be aware, the Bill already contains provision for secondments in the other direction, so that police officers can be seconded to the NCA. On reflection, we agree that this was an omission. Amendment 9 makes the necessary change to ensure a two-way exchange of NCA and police officers.
On that first day of Committee, my noble friend also had a probing amendment designed to test why the Bill provided for compensating only NCA specials for loss of salary as a result of an injury or death on duty. We agree that it would be helpful not to unnecessarily restrict the scope of the scheme. Amendments 10 to 13 therefore remove the limitation in respect of loss of salary. The scheme through which NCA specials would be eligible for compensation will, of course, be subject to set criteria as with all existing schemes for public servants. In reality, the calculations made under such schemes are frequently linked to loss of remuneration, so I do not want to give the impression that the scheme for NCA specials will necessarily adopt a different approach. Nor do I want to limit the scheme so that NCA specials who do not receive a salary elsewhere cannot be adequately compensated. I should add that these amendments will also make it possible for NCA specials to be covered by either the Civil Service injury benefits scheme or another stand-alone scheme to be established by the NCA, as appropriate.
Amendment 26 addresses an issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in Committee. The noble Lord will recall that he drew attention to the fact that there was no requirement for the Secretary of State to consent to a direction by the director-general to the chief constable of the British Transport Police to provide assistance to the National Crime Agency. It was our intention to include this consent requirement—it already applies where a direction is made to one of the 43 territorial forces—and I am grateful to the noble Lord for highlighting this gap in the Bill.
Amendment 35 closes a gap in the independent oversight arrangements. It extends the remit of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland to include complaints and conduct matters arising from the exercise of asset recovery functions by NCA officers in Northern Ireland. The Bill already provides for the remit of the Independent Police Complaints Commission to extend to such matters in England and Wales.
Amendments 39 to 55 extend the power to make schemes for the transfer of staff, property, rights and liabilities. As noble Lords will be aware, the National Policing Improvement Agency is currently being wound down as a prelude to its abolition following the enactment of this Bill. Most of its staff and property will have been transferred to the successor bodies by December of this year, but there may be some residual staff, property, rights and liabilities that fall to be transferred on formal abolition of the NPIA. Schedule 8 already enables schemes to be made to make transfers from the NPIA to the National Crime Agency but, as a precaution, these amendments also enable transfers from the NPIA to the Home Office.
Amendments 52 and 56 make transitional provisions in consequence of the abolition of the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the NPIA. Amendment 52 ensures that corporate liability for any criminal acts—for example, health and safety breaches—committed by SOCA or the NPIA passes to the successor body. It is also critical that in creating the National Crime Agency we do not undermine the operational integrity of things done by SOCA or other precursor bodies. In particular, we need to ensure that operations and investigations started by SOCA can and will continue to be investigated and taken through to conclusion by the National Crime Agency.
Amendment 56 has been drafted so that it captures a wide range of documents, contracts, authorisations and legal proceedings. For example, it is important that search warrants secured by SOCA under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act or authorisations granted by senior SOCA officers under RIPA continue to have force at the point at which the National Crime Agency takes over from SOCA. Amendment 56 also ensures that three statutory instruments made under Part 1 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 continue in force, with the necessary adaptations, when the relevant order-making powers are repealed and replaced by equivalent powers in Part 1 of this Bill. Both measures will, as I have said, ensure a smooth transition from SOCA to the NCA.
The other amendments to Schedule 8 in this group make further consequential amendments to various enactments and subordinate legislation to repeal or replace various statutory references to SOCA. I draw the particular attention of my noble friend Lady Hamwee to Amendment 76, which makes consequential amendments to the Equality Act 2010. My noble friend asked in Committee on 20 June why paragraph 4 of Schedule 4 to the Bill made particular provision for the application of discrimination legislation in Northern Ireland but seemingly not in other parts of the United Kingdom. These amendments to the Equality Act ensure that all NCA officers are protected by the relevant discrimination legislation in each part of the United Kingdom.
Finally, I draw the House’s attention to Amendment 62, which builds on the existing provision in the Bill enabling police officers to retain, in certain prescribed circumstances, their police pension when appointed to posts within the NCA. This amendment extends that provision to include reservists in the Police Service of Northern Ireland so that they are on an equal footing. As I indicated at the start, these amendments cover a lot of ground but I trust that your Lordships will agree that they are necessary changes to refine and build on the provisions of the Bill and to ensure a smooth transition from SOCA to the National Crime Agency. I beg to move.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, my heart sank when I saw the enormous number of government amendments to the Bill. It lifted quite a lot when I realised that the first amendment, on secondment, and the next, on compensation for specials, were in response to points that I made at the previous stage. Then to bookend it, as it were, was the amendment to the Equality Act to which the noble Earl has just referred. I am grateful to the Government for taking those points on board.
I have two amendments to the government amendments, both of which are quite small points. They both refer to Amendment 56. The first would take out proposed new sub-paragraph (7), which provides for determination by the Secretary of State as to the two circumstances set out. I hope that the Minister is aware that my question is on whether the determination should be a matter for the court or the employment tribunal, which is likely to be the relevant tribunal. It occurs to me that the Home Secretary could be a party to the proceedings in question and it seems to deserve a little explanation as to it always being proper for the Secretary of State to determine these questions.
The second amendment is to the provision in proposed new sub-paragraph (12)(b) that deals with,
“the reference to the assumption of a third party function”,
which is limited to the three functions listed. I should be grateful if the Minister can confirm that these are the only cases. My reason for asking is that proposed new sub-paragraph (12)(a) uses the term “includes” and (12)(b) uses the term “is”. Is there no assumption of a function unless there is also a transfer of staff? That is what I read into this, but I may well be wrong.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
My Lords, I confess that when I see a list of almost 50 government amendments that the Minister describes as technical and drafting, I realise that I am becoming quite cynical as I get older. By and large they are technical and drafting amendments, but I have some questions, some of which the noble Earl has sought to address in his comments. However, if I may, I will press him on a couple of points for an explanation.
On government Amendments 10 to 12, compensation of NCA specials is addressed. The amendments take out “NCA” with regard to compensation. The Minister said that that is because they may be compensated from elsewhere. I am not quite clear where the elsewhere would be that would allow for expenses and compensation to NCA specials. Does he envisage a greater role for the private sector to pay them, for example? I do not know, but is he able to elaborate further? That was clearly not envisaged during Committee or when the Bill was first drafted. I am unclear why the Government have felt the need to change it. Who else will compensate or pay the expenses of NCA specials?
I also thank the Government for dealing with the comment made by my noble friend Lord Rosser about clarifying the position on which Secretary of State would apply regarding transport. That was helpful. As regards the transitional provision, I am sorry that this was not in a separate group of amendments because that might have been helpful to your Lordships’ House. We discussed this in some detail during earlier stages of the Bill and I have asked Parliamentary Questions about the transitional costs and how the transition should be arranged. The concept of the transition from the predecessor organisations to the NCA is extremely important.
Baroness Hamwee
“(3A) In the event that the Secretary of State determines any variation in strategic priorities for the NCA to take effect before the start of the next financial year, she shall lay a report before Parliament setting them out.”
Baroness Hamwee
Clause 4, which has the heading “Operations”, tells us that the director-general must have regard to strategic priorities, the annual plan and the framework document—all matters to which your Lordships have referred—and that before the beginning of each financial year the director-general must issue an annual plan setting out how he intends the functions to be exercised during the year. The importance of clarity about strategic priorities and other matters has been raised very clearly at every stage of the Bill by all sides, including by Ministers. The annual plan—a prospective document, if I can put it in that way—will tell us what is planned for the following financial year.
My amendment—it is a small amendment, following a matter which I raised at the previous stage—is intended to ask the Minister to give the House an assurance about how strategic priorities which have changed during the year will be taken into account. The amendment simply proposes that if the Secretary of State determines any variation in the strategic priorities, she will lay a report before Parliament setting out the variation. I beg to move.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, we have two amendments in this group. They would remove the requirement for the director-general to seek the consent of the Secretary of State and others to the annual plan, as currently provided for in the Bill. Instead, the requirement would be on the director-general to consult so far as concerns the Secretary of State and others. Although we obviously agree that the Secretary of State should retain ultimate strategic oversight of the National Crime Agency and determine the strategic priorities, it is vital to preserve the National Crime Agency’s operational independence from the Government. We understood that that is the Government’s intention, too.
Yet while the director-general is to set the annual plan for the operation of the National Crime Agency’s functions in pursuit of the laid-down strategic priorities, he or she will still be obliged to seek the consent of the Home Secretary before publication of this operational document. Such consent is not currently required, for example, by the Serious Organised Crime Agency. The director-general will be under a statutory obligation to ensure that the annual plan meets the strategic priorities determined by the Secretary of State. Bearing that in mind, why is it necessary for the director-general also to have the consent of the Home Secretary for what is surely an operational document?
That leaves the way open for interference by a Secretary of State in operational matters if their consent has to be obtained before publication of that annual plan, which sets out how the director-general intends to deliver the laid-down strategic priorities. I am speaking to my amendments on the basis of those points. I hope that the Minister will be able to address the specific points that I have made and explain why it is felt necessary that the Secretary of State should have to consent to the annual plan rather than be consulted on it by the director-general.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for explaining their amendments. Clause 4 already requires that the agency’s annual plan should be published and must include the strategic priorities determined by the Home Secretary. My noble friend’s Amendment 15 proposes that, in addition to the normal publication of the strategic priorities in the annual plan, the Home Secretary should lay a report before Parliament if she should determine any variation in the NCA’s strategic priorities out of sync with the annual plan cycle. I understand that my noble friend is rightly concerned to ensure that Parliament is kept abreast of changes to the strategic priorities. However, in practice, I do not think that there is any need for this amendment. The strategic priorities are not going to be changed every other month. They will be informed by weighty assessment of the threats from serious and organised crime.
The timetable for that assessment process will be in sync with the development of the annual plan, which will itself inform the agency’s annual financial planning cycle determining how it allocates resources. The annual plan really is the right place for the strategic priorities to sit. Indeed, it is highly likely that in some years, as has been the case for SOCA, the strategic priorities will remain the same because the strategic threat picture remains consistent. The only reason for changing the priorities mid-year would be if there was a seismic shift in the organised crime landscape, such as the emergence of a totally new threat. If that were to happen, Parliament would undoubtedly already be well aware of it, and in any case the Home Secretary would, of course, notify Parliament, whether through an Oral or Written Statement or by some other established mechanism. The Bill also provides for the agency’s annual report to be laid before Parliament and for such reports to include an assessment of the extent to which the annual plan for the year has been carried out. Parliament will be well informed about the strategic priorities and how the agency is delivering against them.
I turn now to Amendments 16 and 17, spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. I understand the concerns expressed in Committee by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that the provision requiring consent to the annual plan before issuing it invites potential political interference in the operational independence of the agency. Let me first be clear on the purpose of the annual plan. It is intended as the means by which the director-general sets out how he intends to deliver the NCA’s objectives for the coming year, chief among which will be the Home Secretary’s strategic priorities. Using his operational expertise and an informed picture of the threat, he crafts a high-level plan for the National Crime Agency’s operational response to serious and organised crime over the coming year. He still, of course, has independent operational responsibility for decisions throughout the year about which individual operations to mount and how they should be conducted, as is clearly set out in Clause 4. Equally, it is crucial that he gains agreement to the annual plan from those to whom he is ultimately accountable at the national level for delivery against the strategic priorities.
Let me seek to explain why. First, let us consider the consent of the Home Secretary. I do not at all see this as political interference, as the noble Lord has suggested, but as a common-sense approach to guarantee consistency between what the Home Secretary needs the National Crime Agency to deliver, as set out in the strategic priorities, and what the director-general intends to deliver operationally in any given year. How can my right honourable friend be held truly accountable to Parliament for the agency’s performance in the fight against serious and organised crime if she has not publicly agreed the high-level direction set for the agency by the director-general in the annual plan?
Secondly, but no less importantly, let us consider the consent of the devolved Administrations. They will play an important role in shaping the fight against organised crime through consultation on the strategic priorities, ensuring that the priorities of the devolved Administrations in Scotland and Northern Ireland feed into the overall strategic priorities that the Home Secretary will set. Given their accountability for the fight against organised crime in Scotland and Northern Ireland, it therefore follows that the devolved Administrations should rightly have a role in agreeing those aspects of the annual plan which affect Scotland and Northern Ireland, not least to ensure that the agency’s operational priorities set out in the annual plan are consistent with the serious and organised crime priorities there.
I would go so far as to say that I am a little surprised that the noble Lord would want to water down this clear and important safeguard for the devolved Administrations. We will come to discuss Northern Ireland later, but I fully expect that the Northern Ireland Department of Justice will be stressing the important safeguards that we have included in the Bill to respect the devolution settlement in discussions in Northern Ireland, with this provision being a case in point. I know how strongly the noble Lord feels about securing arrangements in Northern Ireland that meet the needs of Northern Ireland but it rather seems that this amendment undermines that end.
In summary, given the clear mechanisms already in the Bill to ensure that the strategic priorities are published regularly, I am not persuaded that it is necessary to have a further procedure for laying the strategic priorities before Parliament “in-year”. Similarly, I am clear that the requirement of consent is an important level of assurance—for the Home Secretary, for the devolved Administrations, for Parliament and for the public—that the agency is heading in the right direction to spearhead the national response to serious and organised crime. I hope, therefore, that noble Lords will not press their amendments at the appropriate point.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, the Minister assures us that the activities will be in sync. Circumstances indeed might change. We all know about events—sometimes with a capital E. He takes the view that there would need to be a change only if there were a seismic shift in the security threat. I appreciate that, if that were the case, everyone would know that there had been a seismic shift. However, we are talking here about priorities. Prioritising means putting things in the order in which you have regard to them, or spend money on them, or whatever, and there could be a change in priorities in much less dramatic circumstances than my noble friend describes.
I shall not pursue the issue now. I hope, of course, that we never see a seismic shift. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hamwee
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, Amendment 18 brings us to the issue of the framework document in Schedule 2. I am afraid that I am still having difficulty in following paragraph 4 of that schedule. Paragraph 4(1) tells us that the Secretary of State must consult the director-general in preparing a framework document and obtain his consent before issuing it. Paragraph 4(2) then states that the director-general’s duty to have regard to the annual plan does not apply in relation to the two functions I have just spelled out. My amendment refers to the functions of responding to the consultation and giving consent, the ones in question, and I ask the Minister whether it spells out what is provided—I am sure that he will tell me that it is not necessary—or whether the paragraph means something else. Perhaps the Minister will say also whether the annual plan or the framework document takes precedence in this context. I beg to move.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 19 and 20. I did not wish to raise this issue again—I apologise to the Minister for doing so—but I had hoped that the Government would have come forward with something a little more substantial than they have done to date. I am slightly confused and disappointed that not all noble Lords had been able to get access to the outline framework document earlier in the debate. I know the Minister intended that they should have access and it was disappointing that the document was not available.
Schedule 2 to the Bill stresses the importance of the framework document and outlines what it does and how it does it. The framework document explains almost everything about the National Crime Agency. It is a far-reaching document, is hugely significant and includes provisions for NCA finance and governance. The goalposts have been moved on more than one occasion since we first discussed this issue. We understood originally that we would have the document by this stage, but then it became only the outline. We are now at Report and all we have is the outline, which is inadequate for scrutiny. The fact that we have so little information about it may have had an impact on the previous decision in this House not to include counterterrorism within the National Crime Agency.
I looked through the document to see how much of an outline it really is. I have already referred to the issues around the NCA management board. The outline framework document basically lists what provisions will be in the framework document, including: that the director-general will establish and chair a management board; a description of the board; the composition of the board; and that further committees may be established by the board which must include audit and risk and nominations and governance. As for working in partnership, the document contains only a bullet point about the NCA’s use of immigration or customs facilities. As for scrutiny, transparency and information, there are three bullet points: the first is on scrutiny; the second on the duty to publish information in accordance with publication arrangements, which will be set out in an annexe and which we also have not seen; and the third is on public information handling and complaints.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I think the frustration over the outline framework document has arisen from the fact that, until discovering by accident only a matter of hours ago that the outline does exist, some of us had assumed that it did not. Not having had the letter, some noble Lords assumed that that was the case. However, these things can of course go wrong from time to time. One understands that. The other frustration is that the framework document, as the Minister has just confirmed, deals with ways in which the NCA is to operate. The outline is still more of a “what” than a “how”. It did make me think that it was worth your Lordships pursuing some of these points. The six principles of CEOP were spoken to with some passion by noble Lords at the previous stage, and they have made their way into this outline. I think the Minister can assume that some of us will be encouraged by that on other issues in the future.
As regards my own amendment, I am grateful for the explanation, which I did follow. It is a matter not only of my inability to bowl googlies—which I have never been able to do, and will never be able to do —but also of my lack of understanding beforehand. I thank my noble friend for the explanation and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hamwee
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, when one hears the Lord Chairman remind the House of the point of pre-emption, one feels one should start the speech with, “I wish”.
This group of amendments deals with payments between the NCA and police forces in the event of tasking, and Amendment 28 is about how the payment is determined. Paragraph 29(1) provides that if the parties cannot agree on the amount to be paid then it is a matter for the Secretary of State to determine. I had a similar amendment at the last stage, and the noble Earl, responding for the Government, explained that determination was not on a case-by-case basis but referred to overall principle. I still have some difficulty in reading the paragraph that way, because it refers to the “amount”. If it referred to the absence of agreement as to the formula or the calculation, I would understand it.
The outline of the framework document deals with the question of tasking. The basis for the determination should be in the framework document. That is what my amendment would provide. Fees and charges are mentioned, but those seem to be a different issue. At the moment, and of course continuing, we will have a position where there is mutual aid between police forces. As I understand it, payment for mutual aid is a matter that is in the public domain—I believe that ACPO deals with it. There should be a similar approach, and the schedule should not allow for case-by-case determination, even if that is not what is envisaged, because as it is drafted it would be allowed for. I beg to move.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, we have two amendments in this group, and I suspect that the purpose of our amendments is not dissimilar to the intention behind the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee.
The Bill appears to provide for the Secretary of State to act as final arbiter over disputes arising between, for example, the National Crime Agency and police forces over compensation for resources provided under voluntary or directed assistance. It is not appropriate for the Secretary of State to have such a role, because it could introduce a potential conflict of interest. The Secretary of State is responsible for the National Crime Agency budget, but police force budgets will be under the control of the police and crime commissioner, so one could argue that the Secretary of State has an interest in the outcome of a decision over who should be paying what in any compensation that is required.
Our amendments provide for an independent advisory panel, rather than the Secretary of State, to arbitrate payments, which is not going down quite the same road as the amendment that has been moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. Certainly, the objective behind our amendment—perhaps the Minister will have an alternative solution—is to say that the Secretary of State, having responsibility for the National Crime Agency budget, could be deemed to be an interested party. Therefore, the Secretary of State should not act as final arbiter over disputes, but some other means should be used to make that decision. Some other body, organisation, procedure or process should be used to resolve disputes that arise, rather than it being in the hands of the Secretary of State, for the reasons that I have mentioned.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, perhaps I can use this moment to ask if—possibly not immediately, but shortly—the Whips could clarify how far we will go on this evening. I was told that we would finish after disposing of Amendment 78, but the Annunciator is talking about Amendment 107A, which may cause some of us a little panic.
Earl Attlee
It would cause me a heart attack. Let us wait for some clarity to arrive.
Baroness Hamwee
I thank the Minister. Perhaps we should calm down, or even, “Calm down, dear”.
I do not suggest, with my amendment, that there should not be a backstop if the parties cannot reach agreement, but it is better to have a formula. My amendment does not specify the detail of the arrangement because I was doing the Government the courtesy of allowing them to put that into the framework document when they come up with it. I have heard what the noble Earl has said and beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Baroness Hamwee
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I will speak also to Amendment 38. In Committee I sought to understand the relationship between Schedules 6 and 7. Paragraph 1 of Schedule 7 provides that,
“This Part of this Act”—
I will come back to those words in a moment—
“does not authorise or require”,
disclosures which would be prohibited by the Data Protection Act or Part I of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which are importance provisions. Among other things, I did not then, and still do not quite, understand whether the regulations that may be made under paragraph 5 of Schedule 6 could override primary legislation. These amendments are in response to the noble Earl’s assurances that neither of these Acts is affected. However, we still have a provision in paragraph 5(5) of Schedule 6 that the Secretary of State can make regulations regarding the disclosure of information which, under paragraph 5(6), may,
“modify any provision of Schedule 7 in its application to such a disclosure, or … disapply any such provision from such a disclosure”.
I would be grateful if, in the light of the permissive arrangement under Schedule 6, the Minister could confirm that it does not mean what it seems to when we get to paragraph 1 of Schedule 7.
My second question concerns,
“This Part of this Act”.
Can the Minister confirm that that means Part 1 of the Bill rather than Part 1 of this schedule? I think it is that way round. Given that “This Part” could refer to part of the schedule or the main part of the Bill, it would be helpful to have it confirmed. I would also like to give my thanks to those who have corrected the annunciator. My blood pressure and that of the noble Earl have come down considerably over the past five minutes as a result. We will see how many noble Lords get caught out by how swiftly we are going to move from Amendment 38 to Amendment 78.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Hamwee for explaining her amendments. I am sure that she would be pleased to know that we both want the same thing, namely that nothing in Part 1 of the Bill enables the National Crime Agency or others to override or modify the application of the Data Protection Act 1998 or the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 in relation to the disclosure of information.
The aim of the restrictions on disclosure set out in Schedule 7 is to ensure that any onward disclosures by NCA officers will, among other things, be subject to the existing safeguards in data protection legislation. The current wording does not provide any powers to amend existing primary legislation and therefore inserting “modify” is unnecessary. Without the provision in paragraph 1 of Schedule 7, the information gateways provided for in Clause 7 could be read as being capable of overriding the provisions of the Data Protection Act and RIPA.
There is no need to extend these statutory restrictions to cover the whole Bill as we are dealing here only with the information gateways available to the National Crime Agency and its law enforcement partners, as provided for in Part 1 of the Bill. My noble friend is correct that we are referring to Part 1 of the Bill. I hope my noble friend is reassured that paragraph 1 of Schedule 7 is necessary to prevent any overriding of the important safeguards in data protection legislation and, on that basis, would agree to withdraw her amendments.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for that. I still have a feeling that one should issue Hansard as an annexe to the Act when it is published to explain that, but I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hamwee
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 72. These amendments take us back to freedom of information. At the previous stage, I sought to include the National Crime Agency in the freedom of information regime, fully acknowledging that the exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 would quite often have to be called into play. At that time, the Minister acknowledged that exemptions would apply, but reminded me—or reminded the House, as I was aware of it—that SOCA and CEOP are not within the FOI arrangements. The NCA is about more than the constituent bodies. It is more than the sum of its parts, one might say. Police forces are within the freedom of information scheme, and it seems to me that the NCA will need to consider many of the issues considered by police forces, such as recruitment policies and budgets. Those issues can very often be dealt with in public and be subject to freedom of information requests, with answers being given without jeopardising national security.
The Minister was concerned that the operational effectiveness of the NCA would be endangered and said that the confidence of the NCA’s partners would be threatened if the NCA were subject to freedom of information. I thought that that latter argument was weak. The NCA’s partners should be confident that the NCA will use the exemptions available to it. Freedom of information arrangements are important. I am well aware that in practice it is not always comfortable when one is on the receiving end of freedom of information requests. That does not mean that the regime should be chipped away at by organisations not being subject to it. The Minister also said that organised criminals are very sophisticated. Is it a counsel of despair to think that they are more sophisticated than the NCA and our law enforcement agencies? That amounts to a failure to acknowledge the proper balance in an advanced and open democracy.
My amendments take a slightly different approach to dealing with the exemption by describing it as,
“only to the extent of information relating directly to the crime-reduction function or to the criminal intelligence function”.
Both those terms are defined earlier in the Bill. This is a matter of some principle, and I look forward to the Minister’s defence of the Bill’s position. I beg to move.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My Lords, the Government take their own view on issues, although we, of course, respect the Joint Committee and all its works. I am very grateful to my noble friend for raising this issue. She cares greatly about the responsibility of government to provide transparency and the Freedom of Information Act is just one thing that can be used to provide transparency.
As the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, said, my noble friend Lord Henley dealt with this at the Committee stage. We are committed to ensuring that the National Crime Agency will be open and transparent to the public which it has been created to protect. That commitment is clearly set out in Clause 6. The intention is that this organisation will be fundamentally more public-facing than its predecessor organisations and open in its relationships with the public, partners, the media and, of course, Parliament. Indeed, in the framework document, under the second bullet point in item 10, noble Lords will note a duty to publish information in accordance with publication arrangements that will be set out in a future annexe. It is really designed to indicate in the framework document itself the importance that the Government attach to this. We want the public to be able to access as wide a range of information about the NCA as possible provided it does not compromise in any way the NCA’s effectiveness in fighting crime. We expect that this will include information on what the NCA is doing to tackle serious and organised crime, what it is spending and how well it is doing—so performance indicators as well.
I want to reassure noble Lords that the decision to exempt the NCA from the FOI Act was not taken lightly. We considered this carefully, having particular regard to the fact that some of the precursor functions transferring from the NCA have been undertaken by bodies that are currently subject to the FOI Act. That has been pointed out by both noble Lords. The agency’s largest precursor, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, including CEOP, has not been subject to the FOI Act since its inception. However, we have analysed the FOI requests made to other precursor bodies, such as the NPIA, and we are confident that the agency can balance being FOI-exempt with proactive publication to ensure that there is no loss of public transparency as a result of the approach being taken in the Bill.
I recognise the efforts made in this amendment to apply a partial application of the FOI Act. However, we remain of the view that a blanket exemption is the most appropriate arrangement, not for administrative convenience but to ensure full effectiveness and as a critical operational safeguard. We are talking about a fully integrated, crime-fighting, operational agency that will be charged with spearheading the fight against some of the most dangerous and pernicious criminals and crime groups that impact our communities. Some information about the discharge of those functions will be fit for release into the public domain; some will not. The distinction does not come from an arbitrary line drawn in legislation that seeks to differentiate some of the NCA’s functions from others; it comes from a deep understanding of the types of information that no one would want to fall into the wrong hands. I firmly believe that the National Crime Agency will be able to make this distinction.
I recognise the argument that the scope of the exemptions provided for in the FOI Act could potentially apply to much of the material that the National Crime Agency is seeking to protect. However, as my noble friend Lord Henley said, this is not the only consideration. First, the National Crime Agency will depend on the absolute confidence of its partners to provide the backbone of the agency’s superior national intelligence picture. If those partners believe that sensitive information held by the agency could be subject to public release, they are likely to be more inhibited about sharing that information with the NCA in the first place. Chief among these concerned partners are those in the private sector and overseas—partners who are perhaps not as familiar with FOI as we are.
Secondly, intelligence shows that organised criminals are increasingly sophisticated in their methods and seek to exploit any avenues possible to further their criminal activities. The FOI Act offers them an opportunity to acquire information about the NCA’s operational tactics, to disrupt its operations and to evade detection. While the exemptions might apply to some of this information, the risk is that it might not always be the case.
In short, we remain resolute in our decision to maintain the NCA’s exemption from the FOI Act. To do otherwise would jeopardise the NCA’s operational effectiveness and ultimately result in lower levels of protection for the public. While partial application of the FOI Act might, at face value, look attractive, it is simply not a viable option for an integrated crime-fighting agency. In the mean time, the whole purpose of the duty to publish will be to provide the public with as much information about the organisation’s activities as possible. For these reasons, I urge my noble friend to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I opened the debate on these amendments by saying that some of our colleagues might be surprised by how quickly the next amendments are dealt with. I could, of course, deal with that, giving them warning by dividing the House, but that may not be possible and I think I see signs that the Whips have the matter in hand. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, that what is worse than being illogical—to my mind and, I suspect, to his as well—is to betray one’s values.
I anticipated most of the Minister’s arguments, not surprisingly because they largely repeated, and were consistent with, what we were told at the previous stage. Noble Lords have been directed to the duties under Clause 6, but the problem with reports such as this that are in the hands of the organisation which is the subject of one’s concern, is that that organisation itself determines the content and the depth of information and the level of detail. The use of freedom of information requests puts the impetus in the hands of the person making the request. There is quite a different balance in this. The provisions in the Bill are to be subject to whatever is in the framework document and what the annexe to the framework document has to say will be extremely important. I look forward to seeing what that may be.
I remain disappointed, but the Minister probably anticipated that. He will not be surprised by my last remark, which is that the freedom of information regime should not be optional. Having made that point, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Justice and Security Bill [HL]
Baroness Hamwee Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Baroness Hamwee
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames added his name to this amendment. Grouped with it are Amendments 9, 10, 11 and 12. At the previous stage of the Bill, we debated the procedure of the ISC. I acknowledge that it can determine its own procedure, subject to any specific provisions in the Bill. That is why my first amendment makes specific mention of two of the proposals in this group of amendments. The group is broadly about the interface with the public or, at any rate, about the face presented to the public and, to pick up a term used by the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, earlier this afternoon, the credibility of the committee. Given its remit, there is bound not to be that much of an interface, so it is even more important that means are sought to relate it to the public, where that is proper, in order to create trust and confidence. I am thinking about the direct relationship—putting the agencies into the public domain, so far as that is possible—and of the ISC itself, so that it is able to do its job properly.
Amendment 9, the first substantive amendment, is about pre-appointment hearings or, as they are also known, confirmatory hearings. I am flattered that the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, has picked up the amendment I had at the previous stage word for word. In fact, after that stage, I decided that one word could be improved on. It is not necessarily wrong, but it could be bettered. It is to change the word “may” in what the ISC can do to “shall”. The public increasingly expect more to be known about senior public sector figures—what sort of people they are, what their aspirations are, how they see the job and how they expect to spend the budget—and to be able to observe their body language on occasions. I say that having watched, on screen rather than in person, a confirmatory hearing in another part of government. I was fascinated by the way that after only a very few minutes of questioning, the person being questioned relaxed so much that the way he was sitting, the way he slumped in his chair, crossed his legs and generally looked far too much at ease for the occasion told me an awful lot about his approach to his relationship with the people who were questioning him. I do not know whether they read it in the same way.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that every year there is a debate, usually in the Moses Room, about the annual report? Has she been able to attend any of those?
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, no, but I am aware of that. I am seeking to push the boundaries a little further. The noble Lord tuts quietly that I have not been there. Last year, I read the Hansard report when I began to take an interest in these matters. I sense a feeling that this would enhance the reputation of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Amendment 11 would be a broader arrangement than could take place in a debate in either House, whatever its venue, given that it provides for giving evidence before the ISC in a session open to the public. Therefore, it is more extensive.
I am very much alive to the danger to which some noble Lords pointed that questions asked in public can be so feeble, as can the answers, that it can have the opposite effect of just appearing to be completely stage managed and uninformative. I believe that we should give the ISC the scope to do the job that it is doing, and is capable of doing, in private to take it as far as it can go.
I have tabled Amendment 12 about access to meetings and I am aware that I take a different view on this from a number of other noble Lords. That is not because I want all or very many meetings with the ISC to be held in public. My point is that it should direct its mind to the issue. At the previous stage, from those with experience of the current arrangements, we heard ideas of what might be considered in public. Those ideas included recruitment to the agencies, issues of diversity, language, and recruitment from all sections of society. I would add to that retention, which generally goes along with recruitment, and a number of human resources matters, such as sickness rates and diversity at different levels of seniority. The noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, told us that today the ISC had been considering certain of these amendments. It might have been quite interesting to hear some of that debate in public. As regards financial matters, the cost of the GCHQ facility was mentioned.
All those issues quite properly can be debated, with care that the mark into dangerous territory is not overstepped. I have confidence that that would be possible and that those debating the issues would be very alert to that. However, it also would be proper that issues of that sort—I am sure that there are others—should be heard and dealt with in public to add to the credibility of the committee. I beg to move.
Lord Butler of Brockwell
My Lords, commenting on what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said at the end of her remarks, perhaps I may say that it was not today that the Intelligence and Security Committee considered amendments. The committee has not had the opportunity to consider the amendments she has put down. Therefore, in offering a comment, it will be personal rather than on behalf of the committee.
I have no objection to Amendment 9 because it is a permissive amendment. However, Amendment 11 states:
“The ISC shall each year call the heads of the Agencies and the Secretary of State to give evidence before them in a session open to the public”.
In principle, there is no objection to that. Indeed, the chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee says that it is the committee’s intention to have a public hearing. The arrangements for that are being considered at the moment. However, one would not want this to be a public hearing that is too staged, which would be worse than useless. I would counsel against passing an amendment which makes it compulsory for the Intelligence and Security Committee to have a public meeting each year. That may well be the outcome but there may be times when the work programme simply is not consistent with it. That is my only cavil against that.
I would not be in favour of Amendment 12, which states that the committee,
“shall conduct its proceedings in public, save when it determines that members of the public shall be excluded”.
There would be so many meetings for which that resolution would have to be moved that it would be a matter of public comment and derision, which would reduce confidence in the ISC rather than increase it.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I do not want to take too long in responding to this. I shall make a couple of comments on the amendments on hearings and access to meetings. On access to meetings, I always envisaged that the committee would be able to take a decision that would cover a number of meetings, and not have the embarrassing situation, on a weekly basis, of the public trooping in and being sent out immediately.
On the annual hearings, it was only when the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, asked me whether I had attended the debate in the Moses Room that it began to come back into my mind that I had read the previous one in Hansard. However, a debate of a committee is, I think, very different from what is envisaged here and very different from parliamentarians undertaking that sort of debate, important as it is.
The point about the agencies, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, was covered. Sub-paragraph (d) in Amendment 9 refers to persons other than the three heads of the services and Clause 2 of the Bill envisages the extension of the work to other parts of government.
Much of this debate has centred on pre-appointment hearings and whether they might be televised. A couple of weeks ago I was sitting reading my Blackberry, which possibly I should not have been doing during a debate, but an email came in which said, “Just seen you on live television”. I thought there was a complaint coming about what I had said. The Commons had gone home so we were on prime time. The email went on to say, “How do you fit into the Hamwee family? I was once very good friends with someone called Hamwee”. One never knows what people will take from what they see.
We have been told that this will become a political exercise and that it should not be political. Throughout the debates on the ISC, I have been hearing that there is huge resistance to it becoming a political and a party-political exercise. I would envisage that continuing with pre-appointment hearings. I would like to hear the ISC debating whether it should have pre-appointment hearings.
I am encouraged by what the Minister has said about discussions continuing on how to make the work more open, but the way it is, is not the way it has to be. I can tell that the mood of the House is not to provide for mandatory requirements, but there is considerable support for a permissive clause. So I shall not move my Amendment 10 but I hope that the noble Baroness will pursue the matter of permissive arrangements which are encompassed in Amendment 9. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 8.
North Wales Abuse Allegations
Baroness Hamwee Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, one area which has not been mentioned in the Statement is support for the victims. Justice will be one form of reparation, but can the Minister say anything about any other form of support that will be given to individuals?
Quite separately, following the question about what is meant by inquiring,
“whether the Waterhouse inquiry was properly constituted and did its job”,
can the Minister assure the House that for every inquiry—I am not talking only about police inquiries—there will be consultation as to its terms so that the best, most proper terms are put in place? If the remit is not right then the outcome will tend not to be right. In this case, for instance, the involvement of the Children’s Commissioner in the terms of the inquiry seems quite obvious.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I thank my noble friend for her questions. Clearly, the victims are at the heart of this inquiry and providing them with the confidence to come forward is one of the most important things that we can do. I hope that we in this House will echo the wishes of the Home Secretary by giving that support.
The terms of reference of inquiries are very important to the outcomes they produce. I am particularly concerned that we make sure that the original inquiry in North Wales, the Waterhouse inquiry, was indeed set up in such a way. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, asked about that but I did not reply to her. However, my noble friend has given me the opportunity to do so. We must make sure that that inquiry addressed the right issues. We now have an opportunity to revisit the inquiry and to make sure that it was not too restrictive in what it was seeking to do.
Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules
Baroness Hamwee Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Teverson
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, very much for bringing this regret Motion before the House. In fact, if anything, I regret that it is only a regret Motion. I would certainly have followed her through any Lobby if it were more of a fatal Motion because I feel that there are some fundamental issues here.
It is interesting that this regret Motion has been put forward this week. My weeks are often imaged by the cover of the Economist, which I read most weeks. This week it is inaccurate in one way, although accurate in another. It says:
“Immigration. The Tories’ barmiest policy”.
Of course, that is wrong. It is not a Tory policy; it is a coalition policy. It includes my party as well. Its argument is that the policy on immigration very much restricts the economic and financial potential of this country, but here we have pinpointed an area where we are restricting the moral, ethical and family aspects of our society within the UK.
I say to the noble Baroness that I was probably one of the few people in this country to be very disappointed that the leader of the Opposition apologised for Labour’s “migration mistakes” in 2004, which allowed the best talent from the new European member states—which in many ways we had treated treacherously in the settlement after the Second World War—to come to this country, because they were restricted in going to other EU states. They repopulated much of Scotland, and in the south-west, where I come from, they manned much of the tourist industry, which had found it difficult to find talented and energetic workers. Therefore, I regret that that happened.
I understand entirely that sham marriages exist. They are a cancer on the institution of marriage and they are probably growing in number. That has to be stopped by whatever means possible. I also agree that there cannot be limitless migration. However, our society is becoming more and more international. Taking my family as an example, some of my wife’s children live in Singapore and others live in Argentina. Her grandchildren have mixed religious affiliations and mixed nationalities. People meet other people more and more on an international basis, particularly when they are youngsters and in their first areas of work. Therefore, this problem is going to get worse.
I say to the Minister that I believe this matter comes down to two important issues. Those are fundamentally moral and ethical, with human rights perhaps coming third. First, it must be fundamentally in the DNA of the UK that its citizens can marry whomever they want. That has to be a basic right of our citizens, who have one of the greatest and deepest histories in terms of being able to exercise individual rights. I also say to my Conservative colleagues—perhaps not the ones who are here but some of the others—that it is absolutely wrong for the state to intervene so strongly in deciding whom you are able to marry and live with. It is wrong that the state should be able to intervene to that degree. If the marriage is a real one—and that is always the important question—then people should be able to marry exactly whom they like and to live exactly where they like.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I confess to a number of areas of confusion, the first being what the rules actually say. Other noble Lords have referred to their complexity. For me, looking at any set of Immigration Rules is a quick route to a migraine. I have been used to reading rather more than glossy magazines in the course of my career, so if I find them difficult—without wanting to be too big-headed—then so will many, many others.
I was reassured, in a sense, by the briefing from the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association but that reassurance is very limited. It tells us that it is running advanced courses for solicitors and barristers on the financial requirements that are a part of these rules and has sent noble Lords an extract from its training notes, just to give us a glimpse of the complexity. Our laws should be accessible. Immigration is so difficult that legal practitioners have to be specially licensed. I, for one, am very grateful to the organisations that have briefed us. They helped me to short-circuit the work for this debate quite a lot, but that is not good enough when you are actually advising individuals.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
That is the decision that was made. The Migration Advisory Committee was asked to look at the amount of money that a couple would require on the single income—the sponsor’s income. Indeed, it is the sponsor’s income that is vital to understanding this case.
My noble friend also asked how the capital should be dealt with. As pointed out by my noble friend Lady Hamwee, the multiplier is two and a half times the shortfall in income, and that, too, I believe, came from the same recommendation from the Migration Advisory Committee.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, while the Minister is on that point, it would be helpful to the House if after today we could have an explanation of what lies behind both that action, which is less of an issue because it is a judgment, and my noble friend’s question about why a spouse’s income is disregarded. Indeed, one could add to that the question of why support from a third party, such as a parent of one of the spouses who would be prepared to guarantee the income, which I am sure is not uncommon, should be disregarded. What lay behind those decisions? What was the rationale? I do not expect the Minister to answer that now.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
It would be much easier for me if I could inform myself before I sought to inform the House on that issue. I have stated the position as I know it to be, without knowing fully the policy development that led to that conclusion.
There has been criticism of the fact that there is no regional variation but, once people are in this country, they are free to move wherever, and it was felt that there could be great difficulties if a regional variation were permitted for that very reason.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, expressed concern about what will happen to people who lose their jobs. We will expect a migrant to be able to meet the same financial threshold when they apply for further leave but, once the migrant is in the UK, we count any income that they earn, as well as money from their sponsor, towards the threshold. That is an important response to the question raised by my noble friend Lord Avebury. In some circumstances, we will allow the migrant to continue at a lower rate on a longer route to settlement to allow that transition to take place. Both the noble Baroness and my noble friend asked about prospective earnings and I will seek to answer that in correspondence, as I promised.
We have also built significant flexibility into the operation of the threshold—for example, by exempting sponsors in receipt of certain disability-related benefits or carers’ allowance. I was asked specifically by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, about the Armed Forces. The Armed Forces are exempt from these rules.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, felt, as did several noble Lords, that the rules were not sufficiently focused on children. We understand the importance of the statutory duty, which goes back to the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act, to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in the UK. That is why we have reinforced our approach by bringing consideration of the welfare or best interests of children into the Immigration Rules. After all, the best interests of the child will normally be met by remaining with their parents and returning with them to their country of origin, subject to considerations such as long residence in the UK, their nationality and any exceptional factors. The new rules lay out a clear framework for weighing the best interests of the child against the wider public interest in removal cases.
The minimum income requirement that we have introduced is, I believe, the most effective way to protect taxpayers and deliver fairness in respect of family migration to the UK. I invite the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, to reflect on my response.
Slavery
Baroness Hamwee Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Hamwee
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking, to coincide with Anti-Slavery Day, to raise awareness among relevant agencies and the general public of the possibility that individuals they encounter may be the subject of modern slavery.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Taylor of Holbeach)
My Lords, I am sure the House will be aware that today is Anti-Slavery Day, which is an important day. However, human trafficking is not just a one-day issue. As the activity of the interdepartmental ministerial group on human trafficking shows, the Government are not complacent, and cannot be in the light of today’s report. The Government are committed to tackling this issue on a continuing basis.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I welcome the publication of the report, which shows that increasing numbers are being detected. That may of course be because increasing numbers are being reported. There is a widespread view among people that trafficking does not happen in their neighbourhood. What advice do the Government give if one suspects that a man working in a restaurant or a young woman working in a nail bar is the victim of trafficking?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
They should report any suspicions of trafficking to the authorities: either the police or their own local authority. There is a lot of cross-agency working to tackle this issue. I think the noble Baroness is correct: this is an increasing problem and one that will need increasing effort to try to contain.
Extradition
Baroness Hamwee Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I thank the noble and learned Lord for his reinforcement of the esteem with which Sir Scott Baker’s report was received. As the noble and learned Lord will know, it was presented a year ago in 2011. I think it is right that an issue as complex as extradition is properly considered, and I think that if the Government disagree with Sir Scott Baker, they have done so because they have considered the issues that the report raised. The noble and learned Lord implied that perhaps the most important thing is the place in which there is the maximum chance of a conviction being achieved. There is also a matter of justice. Justice requires that people are tried where justice may be seen to be done. It will be for the courts to judge this matter. A Home Secretary will not deal with this matter. I believe the courts in this country are quite capable of determining that.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, this is a welcome Statement. Does my noble friend agree that it is welcome in part because it confirms the importance and relevance of human rights in our law, and that they are not something foreign that is nothing to do with us? The Minister referred to the interests of justice in the question of the forum. Does he agree that that may also raise questions about the burden of proof and prima facie evidence, which were somewhat contentious with regard to the Baker report? Can he confirm that he will use all the expertise of this House, notably on the Cross Benches, as well as in the parties? The Minister referred to parties, but I hope he will agree that in this House “parties” means all sides of the House because there is a lot to contribute on this very difficult issue.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I thank my noble friend for that very important reminder that this House has an enormous asset in the Cross-Bench contributions, particularly from the noble and learned Lords who sit on them. Nobody, not even the Government, is going pass up the opportunity of free legal advice. I am sure that noble Lords will be very carefully listened to on the matters that have been raised. The Government recognise the complexities of the issue, but we feel that there is now an opportunity to change the arrangement and rebuild public confidence that extradition is properly and transparently conducted. It has been troubling the wider electorate, and this is an opportunity to put it right.
Police and Crime Commissioners: Elections
Baroness Hamwee Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I think that is a different matter altogether. Perhaps the noble Lord will forgive me if I do not comment directly on his question. We had good debates on this matter in this House, and we will be scrutinising all Home Office legislation in this House. But after all, at the end of the day, we all believe that an expression of the people’s voice is important, and I hope that Members on all sides of the House will support these elections. Indeed, there may even be candidates from this House standing in these elections.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I, too, welcome the Minister to his no doubt uneventful and boring post. Does he agree that the positive attitude taken by those Labour politicians who are standing is the more constructive one? In other words, is it not better to talk the elections up rather than talk them down?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I am grateful to my noble friend for giving that advice to some Members on the Benches opposite who appear to have rather negative views on these elections. The candidates for these elections are first class; there will be a good choice before the electorate. The role that police and crime commissioners will play is important to bring transparency to the police in this country. That is why the Government have made changes to the law to bring about this arrangement.
Chilcot Committee: Intercept Evidence
Baroness Hamwee Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I do not doubt the difficulty of the subject, but when one looks to see what has been published over the past few years, there is nothing that is recent. Can the Minister give the House any reassurance that progress is being made, perhaps by publishing a further interim report?
Lord Henley
My Lords, it is for the committee of independent privy counsellors, the Chilcot committee, to consider what it can publish. I will certainly look to see whether there is anything that HMG can say, but I am not sure that there is at this stage. We want to get there; my noble friend knows we want to get there since she knows that it is part of the coalition agreement. However, I repeat that it is very difficult.