Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 14th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak on Part 1 of the Bill concerning the police covenant, which I am pleased to support but which I believe needs a little improvement, and on Chapter 4 concerning pre-charge bail provisions. There are, of course, other very important parts of the Bill—most notably on restrictions to protest, which I will oppose.

I declare my interests in the register and my honorary membership of NARPO, the National Association of Retired Police Officers. I am pleased to see the inclusion of the police covenant report, which will show the state of the health and well-being of police officers and, importantly, those who have retired. As president of the Police Treatment Centres, which I have spoken about before, I am only too aware of how mental health issues have impacted on the care we give to officers, both serving and retired.

Being a police officer, and the situations and experiences with which they often have to deal, has a significant impact on an individual’s mental health, particularly after they have left their force. It is therefore absolutely vital that the police covenant recognises this and that appropriate measures are put in place to ensure that the necessary mental health support is available for individuals’ physical and mental well-being. I intend to table an amendment in Committee to reflect this concern, which I hope the Government will consider, and I will be doing it virtually.

I support the increase in penalties for assaults on emergency workers. We have seen during the pandemic the quite disgraceful assaults they have endured, and I hope more imaginative sentences can be given to those who carry out these crimes. Simply applying financial penalties will not necessarily stop the perpetrators.

I have long argued for special constables to be given access to membership of the Police Federation, and I warmly welcome this proposal.

Part 2 of the Bill talks of collaboration with others delivering public services which relate to reducing and preventing serious violence, as we have heard. Since I first became chair of my own police authority many years ago, with the support of the excellent Association of Police Authorities we devised collaborative agreements with other forces and the public sector—so this is not new, but from time to time it needs reinforcing.

Chapter 4, which I have referred to, deals with pre-charge bail provisions. In 2016, when we were dealing with the Policing and Crime Bill, I offered a number of amendments—none of which was accepted, of course—so I am trying again. I am once again grateful to the Police Superintendents’ Association, and in particular to its president Paul Griffiths, who alerted me to the concerns it again has about this issue. Had our suggestions been taken on board then, we would not still be in this situation today.

In essence, the association recommends that, should a suspect be arrested and then released on police bail, a summary offence, punishable by a fixed penalty or fine, should be levied for any breaches of the conditions. Under the current proposals, when a suspect breaches their police bail, they can be arrested and brought into custody, but the only action police can then take is to release them on the same bail conditions; there is no punitive aspect to the breach, only a power of arrest. There is no deterrent, so the conditions to protect the public are meaningless. I hope the Government will look again at this, because it seems to me to be making a mockery of the justice system, and I do not understand what the resistance is to this fairly simple and long-needed improvement to police bail.

There are indeed things to welcome in this Bill, but, as I said at the beginning, there are also some completely unacceptable restrictions, many of which will impact disastrously on particular minority communities. I look to the Government to take note of the amendments which will be tabled in Committee and which will address so many of our concerns.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard part one
Wednesday 20th October 2021 Lords Chamber

In this group of important amendments, we seek further clarification from the Government on how the covenant will work and how we will make it a success. We all want the covenant to be what the police services of our country deserve and we can bring that about through the legislation that we pass in this Chamber.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is a very great pleasure to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, to this policing debate and to hear of his antecedents. I added my name to this amendment and, with your Lordships’ indulgence, will speak to Amendments 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, to which I have also put my name. These all deal with the many associated issues in this group, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, just outlined.

I have been extremely concerned at the growing number of police officers and former police officers who have turned up at the police treatment centres run by the charity of which I am president with clear mental health issues alongside whatever physical injuries they might have. In the year 2019-20, we provided 3,600 hours of one-on-one counselling. Some 1,200 patients received well-being support through the psychological well-being programme, well-being weekends and recharge days. This is a 19% increase on those attending in 2018. To facilitate this growing area of work, we have provided a new clinical wing at PTC Harrogate, in association with Police Care UK, another police charity.

In its latest research, Police Care UK found that 90% of police officers will be exposed to multiple traumatic incidents during their career—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker—and that one in five serving personnel are currently living with symptoms of PTSD.

While they do an amazing job at the St Andrews centre, the new clinical wing will be of enormous extra benefit, having two new wings with two floors and adding 20 bedrooms to the estate. It will give four additional counselling rooms, one nursing surgery room, six therapy rooms, three workshop spaces and a community room. Noble Lords can see how necessary these will be; we can only hope that the extra facilities will be enough to meet the increasing demand for well-being provision for the officers who need it.

The impact of trauma is deeply debilitating and for many years officers felt that they could not speak out about it. But we have now seen clearly how damaging that can be. We absolutely must take the mental health of our police officers seriously and give them the support they need by including this requirement in the covenant.

In supporting Amendment 2 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, I declare an interest as an honorary member of the National Association of Retired Police Officers—NARPO. Why should former police officers not receive help and support and access to training when they require it? Many go on to do valuable work in other careers and the community and often need help with access courses.

My Amendment 6, which is an amendment to Amendment 5, as we have heard, seeks to insert the National Association of Retired Police Officers to the oversight board. I believe it is essential, as many of those former officers still need support. I have spoken on a number of occasions about the impact of being a police officer on an individual’s mental well-being, both during their time in the force and when they have left. The Bill will make it mandatory for the Home Secretary to publish a report on the police covenant each year outlining the work that has been done to protect officers and ensure that they are properly supported following the sacrifices they have made to be part of the force.

It is important that this report is considered by an independent oversight board, which can hold the Government to account on the work that they are doing around the police covenant, and they are not simply left to mark their own homework, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has said.

Among those organisations that oversee the report, there must be an organisation which represents the police officers of the past, who, as I said, often continue to live with the effects of their job long after they have departed. Police officers bear witness to some of the most traumatic events and sacrifice so much, placing themselves in danger in order to protect society. It is therefore absolutely vital that their contribution is also acknowledged and any support that they need is given throughout their life. Placing the National Association of Retired Police Officers among the organisations giving oversight to the covenant ensures that officers past and present are supported in the continued challenges that a life in policing can bring.

Finally, I turn to Amendment 7. Every year, it costs £5 million to operate the two police treatment centres; 89% of that income is generated by donations from serving and retired police officers. The remainder comes from various sources: fundraising events, legacy donations, hospitality and lottery money. Noble Lords will note that not only do the PTCs save the NHS huge amounts of money by treating our police officers who present with trauma injuries; they treat psychological trauma as well. The PTCs are a charity—they do not get any money from the Government or the NHS. There should be some acknowledgement that the work that they do not only saves the NHS money but enables police officers to return to work much more quickly than they would otherwise have done if they had had to wait for NHS appointments—for physiotherapy, in particular. Have your Lordships tried to get an appointment with an NHS physiotherapist recently? Officers may also need mental health services appointments urgently. My amendment addresses those concerns and urges the Government to tell health providers that they must address the needs of police officers and ensure that they get the same recognition for treatment as that for members of the armed services.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Wednesday 20th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, Clause 3 enables special constables to be represented by the Police Federation, which is an important and welcome acknowledgment of the role played by specials in police forces—but it does not go far enough. I have been surprised at the lack of knowledge among those I have discussed the amendment with surrounding the role of special constables, who are sworn servants of the Crown with all the powers and responsibilities of a regular police officer. The only difference is that special constables are unpaid volunteers whose only recompense is to be paid expenses. I have also been surprised to learn how widely special constables are now used across a range of policing duties.

When I was a serving police officer, specials were generally treated quite badly by regular officers, who referred to them as “hobby bobbies”. It was almost seen as a punishment for a regular officer to be paired with a special constable on patrol—a liability rather than an asset. Such attitudes were unfair and, in most cases, unjustified. As the devastating cuts to policing continued at the end of the coalition Government, special constables came to be increasingly relied on to perform an extensive range of duties, including being trained in public order to be used in the front line on potentially violent demonstrations. Special constables carry warrant cards, handcuffs and CS spray, can exercise force and make arrests, unlike police community support officers, who are unable to do any of those things. Their uniforms have evolved over time so that today they are barely distinguishable from a regular police officer.

To all intents and purposes, and as far as the law and the public are concerned, special constables are in every way the same as regular police officers, except they are unpaid volunteers. That equivalence has been recognised in Scotland, where they are considered to be members of the police force, but it is not the case in England and Wales. While I welcome the recognition that this Bill proposes to give special constables in allowing them to be represented by the Police Federation, I am at a loss to understand why they are not also to be considered members of police forces to which they belong in England and Wales, as they are in Scotland.

Special constables have a vital and increasingly important role to play. In many places, the visible policing presence on our streets has all but disappeared; specials could help to fill that gap. The nature of policing is changing, with increasingly complex and technical crime being committed, such as online fraud. While police forces cannot compete with tech giants in terms of salaries for those technically qualified and experienced, there are opportunities for those with technical expertise to devote some of their spare time to serving their fellow citizens by becoming special constables dedicated to cybercrime, for example.

If I recall correctly, the Labour Party would seek to recruit significant numbers of special constables, were it to be in government—but that requires more than a statement of intent. Being a special constable has to be an attractive proposition to potential recruits, and recognising them as full members of police forces would send a clear message as to how important and valued they are. Can the Minister explain to the Committee why special constables cannot be members of police forces in England and Wales when they are in Scotland? I beg to move.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, this amendment, proposed by my noble friend Lord Paddick, is one that I wholeheartedly support. Many years ago, when I was a magistrate, it was one of my happiest duties to swear in the new special constables. It was fascinating to hear their reasons for wanting to serve their communities voluntarily and to learn about their day jobs. Whatever motivated them, whatever their background, they shared the same driving commitment to help to keep us safe. They put themselves in as much danger as a full-time officer, and they do it voluntarily.

For many years, as my noble friend Lord Paddick, has said, full-time officers derided them. Fortunately, they began to see their worth and special constables are now, almost, fully integrated into the workforce and finally treated properly. I am delighted that my noble friend has brought forward this amendment and I support it totally.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very happy to discuss Amendment 12, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. It is really interesting and certainly gives us cause to think about the issues he has raised about special constables being members of police forces in England and Wales, as they are in Scotland. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s response as to why that is not appropriate, or whether the legal difference between England and Wales and Scotland with respect to specials is an important difference and there is some logical reason for it. It is certainly something for this Committee to think about. We are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for bringing this amendment forward.

We also very much support the provisions in Clause 3, which allow special constables to join the Police Federation. This is a long overdue change, so the Government are to be congratulated on bringing that forward.

It is really important for us to put on record—given that our proceedings are read by many outside and watched by others—what will be the Committee’s unanimous view of the importance of specials and the work they do. All, or many, of us will have been out with our local police forces on the beat. I have at times been out with the specials. It is important to remember that, when a special turns up at an incident in a uniform, with the full powers of the police constable, the people to whom he or she is going do not ask them whether they are a special or whether, because they are special, they do not somehow put themselves in danger in the same way that a full-time police officer would. They are just grateful that a police officer—a uniform—has turned up to support them.

It is really important for us to state in this Committee debate that we support the specials and value the work that they do across communities up and down the country. It is also worth reiterating the evidence given to the Bill Committee in the Commons by John Apter, who said that special constables

“stand shoulder to shoulder with my colleagues. They have exactly the same powers and they carry exactly the same risks.”

In that short phrase, John Apter has completely summed up our view of the work that they do. Alongside that, Chief Superintendent Paul Griffiths, president of the Police Superintendents’ Association, said that special constables

“epitomise the relationship between the public and the police”.— [ Official Report, Commons, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill Committee, 18/5/21; col. 26.]

It is important, in this short debate on the amendment, to put that on the record. I know it will be the unanimous view of the Committee, but I am also interested in the noble Baroness’s response—sorry, the Minister is the noble Lord; I will get it right. I have been in the Commons for a long time and it takes a little while to get used to—I am nearly there.

The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, raises an important issue on which we need some clarification, and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Monday 1st November 2021 Lords Chamber

My noble friend Lady Harris of Richmond has Amendment 110A in this group. The Police Superintendents’ Association quite rightly points out that if someone fails to surrender to police bail or fails to comply with the conditions imposed by the police, there is no sanction against the individual. I support this amendment in principle, although I believe there needs to be something in any amendment about the bail and any conditions imposed having to be necessary, proportionate and reasonable before an offence could be proved. I beg to move.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, my Amendment 110A is grouped with my noble friend’s amendments, as we have just heard, and is about bail principles. I bring it forward at the suggestion of the Police Superintendents’ Association and thank it for its help in doing so. In particular, I thank its president Paul Griffiths, with whom I have worked over a number of years, including on this issue in a previous police Bill; sadly, nothing has changed.

At the heart of every investigation is the requirement on police to collate, review and examine the evidence that is gathered. This should be without prejudice and the police are expected to pursue lines of inquiry that gather the facts, whether the facts support the victim’s account or that given by any suspect. For those investigations that require CPS authority, the information presented must allow the full-code test to be applied so that a decision can be made by the CPS as to whether or not the case progresses through the criminal justice system.

To ensure that the investigation is effective and efficient, it should be free from interference from factors that would seek to pervert the course of justice or cause a victim, witness or suspect to provide false evidence to the police, whether under duress or otherwise. The imposition of proportionate, appropriate, legal and necessary pre-charge police bail allows for the protection of the victim, suspect, witnesses and the general public, Correctly applied and checked, police bail is vital in ensuring that the investigation can progress fairly and comprehensively. It should be used only to protect and never to punish. Its imposition should be subject to appropriate review and audit procedures to ensure that the system is fair and maintains public confidence.

Currently, as we have heard, the breach of pre-charge police bail does not constitute a separate offence for the purposes of the PACE custody clock. If a person is arrested for breach of bail, the police will have to use the remaining time on the custody clock which relates to the substantive events for which they were bailed.

The current proposal in the Bill is that the custody clock will pause if a suspect is arrested for breaching police bail. In the majority of cases, the police will not be in a position to make a decision about whether that person on bail is charged for the offence for which they are on bail. The outcome is often release from custody with the same conditions, simply with a reiteration that the bail conditions should not be breached. Currently the police have less time to investigate the offence, and the risks to the investigation remain. The police would ask that any breach be regarded as a separate offence that can be charged on its own merit, if appropriate, using the established rules of evidence for offences.

Imposing pre-charge police bail can be significant in its impact on the human rights and liberty of a suspect and, as such, there must be a process that allows challenge and review. The primary decision-maker should always be the custody sergeant, as they are independent from the investigation. They are also responsible for the welfare and treatment of detainees, and they work on systems that allow for a clear and auditable rationale to be recorded and scrutinised.

The suspect and/or their legal adviser should always have the right to object to conditions, as they do with PACE reviews or extensions, and to have these objections noted on the record with the rationale clearly communicated. They should also have the conditions altered or amended if circumstances change, and that can be done in writing to a custody inspector. The suspect should always have the right to ask the courts to review bail conditions that they feel are inappropriate.

We have previously discussed appropriate authority levels for the time that a suspect remains on police bail. That should reflect the requirements of modern-day investigations such as forensic and e-forensic evidence.

I reiterate that pre-charge police bail should be imposed only where it is necessary and proportionate and protects individuals, the public and the investigation. Police should ensure that it is for the minimum time necessary to complete the investigation, that the rationale is clearly communicated to parties as appropriate and that an appeals process is in place—in addition, with a review process to ensure that the investigation is being carried out diligently.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, the two noble Lords who have spoken have fully introduced their amendments. Amendment 110ZC, from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, would provide that a bail period could be extended only for a period of six months at a time, and not nine, so it would reduce the potential extension period before referral to a magistrates’ court.

I remind the Committee that I sit as a magistrate, and I occasionally do those hearings where I am asked to extend pre-charge bail. It is an interesting process for a magistrate because you see far more serious cases than you would in the normal course of events; it is the extremely serious cases where the police are looking for an extra period. They are often computer-based cases, in connection with child pornography-type offences. One common scenario that I see as a magistrate is that the police have made no progress in their investigations. That may be through a lack of resources or through them having other priorities, but, either way, there are often requests to extend the pre-charge bail period, sometimes for a matter of years, where the court or the magistrates making this decision are not given a particularly good reason. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response to that amendment because it would inevitably put further pressure on the police to make progress on any individual case before it was brought to the magistrates’ court.

The noble Lord’s Amendments 110ZA and 110ZB would require custody officers to record case-specific reasons why bail and bail conditions were necessary and proportionate. I recognise the scenario that the noble Lord gave, of a cut-and-paste approach, and I would be interested in the Minister’s response to the points that he made. The final amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, is Amendment 110B, requiring the police to publish annual statistics on the number of people released under pre-charge bail and the number released under investigation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Harris, spoke to her Amendment 110A, which would create an offence of breaking the conditions of pre-charge bail. It would supplement the powers of arrest available where conditions were broken, and the offence would be a summary offence. The noble Baroness went into some detail, which I thought was persuasive. She quoted the Police Superintendents’ Association, which said in evidence to the Commons Committee that

“bail conditions are imposed and then suspects continue to breach those bails. Of course, those bail conditions would be there to protect victims or even the wider public. It could be extremely useful to us for that to be an offence in its own right.”—[Official Report, Commons, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill Committee, 18/5/21; col. 31.]

This matter was raised in the House of Commons, where it was spoken to by my honourable friend Sarah Jones in the context of Kay’s law, a well-known domestic abuse case where an abusive partner killed Kay while he was on pre-charge bail. I will not rehearse the speech that Sarah Jones made but it was very powerful.

The Minister’s response to the request, which we see here in Amendment 110A by the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, was that she wanted to look at a wider review of civil orders that could potentially be put in place as well as greater data collection, rather than specifically making an additional criminal offence. It is interesting to note that the Centre for Women’s Justice came out with a specific proposal whereby a breach of a bail condition triggers the presumption that the police will impose a domestic abuse prevention notice and apply to court for a domestic abuse prevention order. Of course the breach of a DAPO would be a criminal offence, so it would effectively create a “two strikes and you’re out” process.

The Minister, Victoria Atkins, whom I have always found very helpful when I have spoken to her about these and related matters, spoke about reviewing a greater array of civil orders, such as a stalking protection order or sexual risk order. It would be helpful if the Minister could say how long that review is likely to take and whether we are going to get any proposals at later stages of the Bill. I acknowledge that there are a number of potential ways of closing this loophole and that the amendment put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, is a particular proposal and there is a wider context. However, there is an urgency to this issue. There is an opportunity in the Bill to address that lacuna, if I can put it like that, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

Tabled by

[Baroness Harris of Richmond]

110A: Schedule 4, page 213, line 39, at end insert—
“35A After section 46A (power of arrest for failure to answer to police bail) insert—“46B Offence of breaking conditions of bail(1) If a person who has been released on bail under section 30A(1) breaks any of the conditions of their bail without reasonable excuse they are guilty of an offence. (2) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (1) is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or to a fine or to both.(3) In any proceedings for an offence under subsection (1) a document purporting to be a copy of the notice given to the person under section 30B and to be duly certified to be a true copy of that part of the notice is evidence of the conditions imposed.(4) For the purposes of subsection (3) the copy of the notice is duly certified if it is certified by the custody officer who took the decision or a constable designated for the purpose by the officer in charge of the police station from which the person to whom the notice relates was released.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would create an offence of breaking conditions of pre-charge bail. It supplements the powers of arrest available where conditions are broken. The offence would be a summary offence.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am immensely grateful to my noble friend Lord Paddick, who has absolutely perfectly put my case again, and to the Police Superintendents’ Association. I will reflect on what the Minister has said but I am really disappointed because we have been here before. However, the Home Office is going to get more data, which is a very good thing. I will put this to the Police Superintendents’ Association to see what it has to say, because it has been banging on about this for a very long time. In the meantime, I am not moving my amendment.

Amendments 110A and 110B not moved.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Wednesday 17th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, a couple of hours ago I received apologies from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, who is unable to be with us for personal reasons and has been unavoidably detained. I hope noble Lords will allow me to read the comments that she would have made. As I say, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, apologises to the Committee, noble Lords and the Minister for not being here this evening to move this amendment. She has been, as I said, unavoidably detained and I know the Committee will forgive her absence.

Amendment 265 aims to ensure that access to restorative justice services improves over time, for the benefit of victims and to reduce crime. The amendment would require the Secretary of State to prepare an action plan on restorative justice and for that plan to be laid before Parliament, alongside a report on the progress made in implementing earlier government action plans. In doing so, it is the hope of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, that the Government will consider restoring ring-fenced funding for restorative justice.

Between 2013 and 2016, restorative justice received support from the Ministry of Justice via ring-fenced funding to PCCs. Since the change in 2016, in which the ring-fence was dropped, access to RJ has reduced in some areas to below 5% of previous levels. The APPG on Restorative Justice reported in its inquiry published in September this year that this

“has led to a ‘postcode lottery’ for victims of crime”,

with access varying hugely depending on which PCC or local authority area the victim happens to be in.

In 2014, the coalition Government made a commitment in their restorative justice action plan that every victim of crime should be made aware of RJ services. The plan committed to developing

“a more strategic and coherent approach to the use of restorative justice in England and Wales.”

In the Conservative Government’s 2018 update of the plan, the top priorities remained ensuring equal access to restorative justice for victims at every stage of the criminal justice system and improving awareness of RJ, how it works and how to access it. The APPG inquiry found that there was a lack of understanding of restorative justice and what a victim was entitled to, not only among the public but among professionals in the criminal justice sector.

I ask the Minister whether the Government hold statistics on how many victims have been offered restorative justice as part of their experience of the criminal justice system. What actions have been taken towards the priorities outlined in 2018 and when do the Government plan to publish an updated action plan? So often in this Bill, our debate has turned to the importance of prevention, and stopping offending and reoffending to break that cycle. The current Secretary of State for Justice listed preventing reoffending as one of his top priorities for keeping the country safe. Evidence has shown that access to quality restorative justice programmes is effective in reducing reoffending. In 2016, the Home Affairs Select Committee found that

“there is clear evidence that restorative justice can provide value for money by both reducing reoffending rates and providing tangible benefits to victims.”

I will not keep the Committee but, in coming to a close, will say that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, particularly wished to highlight that this amendment does not propose anything new or radical. It merely seeks to return to the funding arrangements and strategic direction in place prior to 2016. I look forward to the Minister’s reply, which I hope will be encouraging on the Government’s commitment to restorative justice. I beg to move.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 265. I am very sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, is not able to be in the Chamber.

Many years ago, when I was a magistrate and at the same time chair of my police authority, I wondered how we could bring in the concept of restorative justice. It was not an option for us then as it did not appear in our guidelines—that might have changed, I do not know. It was apparent, though, that repetitive cautions given to young offenders simply were not working. Something needed to change.

I became interested in restorative justice because of a remarkable chief constable, Sir Charles Pollard, who was then chief constable of Thames Valley Police. He had been advocating restorative justice for some time. He was extremely well supported by the chair of the police authority, Mrs Daphne Priestley. I thought it was a very interesting and potentially life-changing intervention for some young offenders, and so it has proved to be.

Restorative justice aims to foster individual responsibility by requiring offenders to acknowledge the consequences of their actions, be accountable for them and make reparation to the victims and the community. Initially for use with young offenders committing minor crimes, it quickly caught the imagination of communities, which liked the idea of a victim being able to confront their offender, who was made to realise the impact of their criminal behaviour. It is done with seasoned practitioners who have a wealth of experience in this discipline, as it needs to be a formal procedure. They have to ask the right questions in the right way for there to be a successful outcome, which would be when the offender realises the harm she or he has done and makes some sort of reparation to the victim. Meeting face to face, where both sides agree to that, can be a formative solution to an otherwise potentially serious punishment, even jail.

In London trials, 65% of victims of serious crime said that they would be happy to meet their offenders and talk about how that had affected them. The impact of this intervention has far-reaching benefits for everyone involved. Over the years, the success of the restorative justice model has worked alongside police forces, local authorities, the Prison Service, courts and schools. It has helped reduce permanent exclusions in schools, and in a sample case in Lincolnshire, in the first year of using this system the restorative service, as it is called there, worked on 53 cases. This was extended subsequently to 135 cases and became an integral part of the Behaviour Outreach Support Service there—BOSS—in which restorative justice sits with its partners.

Restorative Solutions, established by Sir Charles Pollard and Nigel Whiskin in 2004, is a not-for-profit community interest company that I think the Government need to contact for help with understanding just how important restorative justice can be to the benefit of victims of crime, and its potential to reduce criminal behaviour. It needs properly financing, of course, and to date that has not happened, so if the Government are really intent on reducing crime and helping victims, as they say they are, I suggest that this is absolutely the right solution for them to promote.

[Viscount Brookeborough (CB)]

My Lords, I support this amendment. I apologise for not speaking on the subject earlier. The Bill is far too complicated for me as a whole. I saw this in the paperwork today and, surprisingly, I am here so I thought that I ought to say something.

I was on the first Northern Ireland Policing Board. One of the subjects that came up to us was restorative justice as it was being practised in Northern Ireland. The origins of it are very important. In our case, it came under the two communities and terrorism. Post the peace process and ceasefire, these local communities were trying to police themselves—partly because they rejected the police completely. Yes, they dealt out punishment beatings, kneecappings and far worse, but what was interesting was that, although the communities might not have liked the punishments, they began to see a reduction in bad behaviour on the streets.

When it came in front of the policing board, we looked at other countries. The fact that it came out of terrorism in Northern Ireland is not an indication that it would be no good or would not fulfil its true potential in England, because we looked at Australia, Canada, New Zealand and America, where it had been really very successful.

There was then the idea of how to get this to be more in line with justice, because, naturally, the Department of Justice and—I am not accusing them of this—judges, and to a certain extent senior policemen, were reluctant to see anything that was outside their immediate world taking over something of it. We went down the line of bringing it into being an official practice, and that took quite a lot of nerve.

But it is extraordinary, if you actually go and visit, to see what is going on. The most important thing is that restorative justice is victim based, not perpetrator based—that it is not a soft touch for the perpetrator. I will not speak for long on this, because I have not even prepared. But it is not just a way of solving things; it does a lot more. The victims are incredibly satisfied with restorative justice. A survey produced when they were doing a seminar on the EU day of the victim in February 2019 said that 85% of victims were satisfied with the outcome, and 69% of perpetrators did not continue. The bonus for society is multifaceted: fewer people get convictions for what may, at times, be on-the-spot bad behaviour or, as we have seen, 69% of them do not misbehave again, so they have a clearer record for future employment. It keeps them out of short periods of detention. It was used originally for youths, and we do not have enough well-supervised room for youths in detention. So restorative justice helps the victims, helps the perpetrators remarkably, and is very good for society.

In the 2016-17 Session, the House of Commons Justice Committee came out with its report on restorative justice and supported it. The committee particularly supported looking at Northern Ireland. It is really nice when we can say that you should look at something positive from us in Northern Ireland—however, do look somewhere else.

While we have been in this Committee, because I was panic-struck about having anything to say, I googled “restorative justice”. We hardly need this debate. There is not a bad word about it, and there are so many pages I gave up after two or three and wrote down a couple of notes on it. But this is something that successive Governments—including Labour when they were in power—have not given true support to.

What about our prison population? What about sending people into detention, the “college of crime”, when restorative justice has the potential to be such a success? As I said, I think this debate is unnecessary. Every single person in your Lordships’ House and everybody outside can google it and have a look. If the justice side, judges and some senior policemen are still slightly careful about it because it seems to be out of their hands, they may need a bit of persuading.

But funding is an issue, and I have just heard—because I have not looked at it—that the funding was reduced. This is madness. We know that budgets are a problem, especially after everything we have been through. They are a problem for the police, for social events such as this and for justice. But this is madness. This is cutting off a not very great budget which would be saving us. The figure is that every £1 spent has saved £8. I do not think that is very well substantiated, but there is a big payback, and the young people of this country—and we are moving on to adults in Northern Ireland—earn the support for a system that is socially good and good for our population.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Monday 22nd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

The two amendments I have tabled in this group are not on such a weighty issue as the sexual crimes we have been discussing. But they are on an issue of democracy, and I thank the Government on this occasion for making the Bill so gigantic that these two amendments come within scope. There are two distinct issues in my amendments. Amendment 278 focuses on the abolition of police and crime commissioners, and Amendment 279 is about abolishing the £5,000 deposit needed to stand as a candidate in police and crime commissioner elections.

Under the referendum idea, each police area would have its own referendum held on the same day as the next police and crime commissioner election. The question would be whether to keep police and crime commissioners or return to police authorities made up of a committee of local councillors. Importantly, for a referendum, my amendment also includes provision that the Secretary of State must then implement the result by statutory instrument, because this is intended to be a binding referendum, not an advisory one with no legal consequence.

The Green Party does not believe that police and crime commissioners have been a success. They have replaced a democratic, committee-based system with a directly elected position subject to very little scrutiny. Most normal people do not pay much attention to politics, and that is true across the board, but when you get as far down the pecking order as police and crime commissioners, even many political boffins probably could not name their local PCC. It was an unnecessary political experiment, and local people should be given the option to return to the old system of committee governance.

We have one former Met commissioner here, and he might be able to agree with me that the Metropolitan Police Authority and the assembly committee charged with holding the police to account worked extremely well. I am not suggesting something that has not been proved to work in the past.

Amendment 279 is about deposits and is limited to PCC elections due to the scope of the Bill, but election deposits should be abolished completely for all elections. Supposedly, they exist to deter joke candidates, allowing only serious candidates to stand for election, but it is obvious that this does not work. There are plenty of joke candidates who are not deterred by the deposit. One only has to think back to the Prime Minister’s election battle against Lord Buckethead, Count Binface, and a person dressed as Elmo. All three lost their deposits and seemed thoroughly to enjoy doing so. The 2019 general election saw 1,273 parliamentary candidates each lose their £500 deposit, totalling £636,500. The figure included 465 Green Party candidates, 136 Liberal Democrats, 165 Brexit Party candidates and 190 independent candidates.

Therefore, joke candidates were not deterred, and neither were very committed candidates who wished to stand for election to help improve their local area. However, the outcome was that the established parties—the Conservative Party and the Labour Party—kept most of their deposits, with anything that they did lose a drop in the ocean of their overall party budgets, while the smaller parties and independent candidates suffered a huge financial disadvantage. Election deposits are nothing more than an election tax on people who want to participate in the democratic process, and they should be abolished. I beg to move.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I have added my name to these amendments, which are indeed timely. Back in May 2011, during the passage of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, I tabled an amendment which effectively scuppered the then Government’s wish to bring in police and crime commissioners. It was a pyrrhic victory, of course, because when the Bill went back to the other place, almost everything that the Government wanted was reinstated. They got their police and crime commissioners. However, it was very much a cross-party effort to bring forward hundreds of amendments, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, will recall.

Looking back on those amendments, it is quite clear that we were right in our condemnation of moving from police authorities, which had 17 or 19 members, to a stand-alone police and crime commissioner. I declare my interest as a former chair of a police authority and as a vice-chair of the former Association of Police Authorities. Much of what we warned has come to pass. Commissioners are political creatures. Hardly any have been independent, which was the wish of the former Prime Minister, David Cameron. We said that this would happen, and it did. We also said that there would be some good commissioners, which there have been, and others varying from not so good to downright terrible.

This has been borne out in my own area of North Yorkshire. Allegations of bullying brought against our first PCC, among other strange decisions that she made, lost her the support of her political allies, so they got rid of her. We had another expensive by-election, which was of course won by the Conservative candidate. Within a very short time, public opinion hounded him out of office because he made incredibly damaging and insensitive remarks following the murder of Sarah Everard. We are shortly to find out who will succeed him, as we have yet another election, the third in 10 years. Up and down the country, PCCs have been found wanting, which I simply do not recall happening in the days of the old police authorities, when checks and balances were shared by having local councillors—elected representatives from different parties—magistrates and lay people to help in the governance of their local police force.

Most Members of your Lordships’ House recognise the dangers inherent in politicising the police. Amendment 278, which proposes a referendum on the abolition of PCCs, or having local councillors to hold the police to account, as was the case for many years before the PRSR Bill came into being, will allow for the governance of policing to be brought back into greater local accountability, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, has said. Amendment 279 would remove the need for an election deposit of £5,000 for PCCs, thus enabling a wider selection of people to apply to become commissioners. Amendment 292D is also timely, as we have at present at least one PCC who has been convicted of a crime.

This experiment has not been the success that it was promised to be. As we have heard, most people still have no idea who their police and crime commissioner is, or what the cost is of running a dedicated office. Certainly, I managed with an office of three personnel. Different PCCs run many more than this, although I am happy that the former Association of Police Authorities has come through the changes with relative ease and just a slight change of name. The work that it did for us was phenomenal and I am sure that its successor organisation is equally excellent, but it has its work cut out with some of its members. This is the first time in 10 years that we have had the opportunity to return to a better system of police governance. I hope that we will take it.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 292D is in my name. I hope that noble Lords will indulge me if I respond with a few remarks on Amendments 278 and 279. I will do it all in one go and be as brief as I can. I do not intend to take up very much of the Committee’s time with these issues.

Amendment 292D perhaps should not be part of this group but it is, so I will move ahead with it. It is because of the scope of this Bill that I have been able to table this amendment. I will start with two case histories. The first is about a 19 year-old, who, a long time ago, during the Italia 90 World Cup—which noble Lords in the Committee will remember—was in a public house with a friend, watching the football. An incident in which the friend was involved meant that the police were called. The first individual tried to stop his friend from making an even greater idiot of himself by assaulting the police and, for his pains, he was charged, no doubt properly, with obstructing the police. He was not charged with assault, but he was fined £20. Since then, he has never been in trouble again. He has been a councillor for many years and, ironically, he chaired the community services team—that part of the council which works closely with the police to reduce crime. He also happens to be the regional secretary of a very important organisation covering the whole of the Midlands and, to add irony upon irony, he is just celebrating his 20th year as a magistrate. Public-spirited, he applied to be a candidate for the position of police and crime commissioner in his area some years ago, only to be told that his conviction banned him from doing so.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Lords Hansard - part two & Report stage
Wednesday 15th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, I call the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, who will speak remotely.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare an interest in that my son works in retail. I have added my name to that of my noble friend Lord Dholakia on Amendment 114 in this group. This threshold needs removing from the Anti-social Behaviour Act, and here we have the perfect opportunity to do it.

Retailers keep UK plc going. They provide us with the goods we need to live our lives, no matter what. They are key workers, but they do not have the key support they need. It is shocking that retailers lose £770 million a year to retail crime. Between the 307,000 shops, this comes to an average of almost £2,500 per shop, per year. Noble Lords may say that this amount of money could easily be a sunk cost for our supermarkets —but not for our independent shops. Assuming an 8% margin, retailers such as those belonging to the British Independent Retailers Association would have to make sales of almost £32,000 for a small shop just to make back what they have lost to these criminals. This is while the level of retail crime is still increasing: by 19.1% between 2014 and 2018, compared with 4.96% between 2010 and 2014, before the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act was given Royal Assent.

As only one in 20 of all shoplifting offences are now prosecuted, it cannot be a shock that such odds are likely to give any wily criminal the feeling that their crime does not matter and that they can do what they want with little or no consequence. Is it any wonder that retailers feel that, while they are being punished, perpetrators of retail crime are not? This needs to change. Retailers need to feel that they have the Government’s support and that they are not the ones being punished when someone steals from their shop. I therefore support this amendment from my noble friend Lord Dholakia.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Kennedy. I shall speak to my Amendment 104FB, which would require the Secretary of State a year hence to carry out a review of the adequacy of police resources devoted to assaults on retail workers. Like the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, I always had very good relations with USDAW in my many years as—I suppose you could say “a retail boss”—an executive at Tesco.

I start with an enormous thank you to my noble friend the Minister for arranging a meeting with the retail industry bodies, USDAW and several parliamentarians, including myself, with a star cast of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Attorney-General. We all felt, for the first time, that we were having a high-level and constructive discussion on what could be done across the board about violence and abuse of retail staff. That is against a background of 455 security incidents a day, according to the BRC, and very few prosecutions.

The police response to these incidents has historically been inadequate. We need to ensure that the police have the right resources and can put a higher priority on prosecuting these retail crimes. This is particularly important given the role of retail workers in enforcing Covid restrictions such as masks, but also in addressing knife crime and shoplifting, as the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, explained, which in my experience is often caused by the need for individuals to get drugs, so it feeds into drug crime as well.

At the Zoom meeting, the industry welcomed the fact that the Government had recognised the seriousness of the issue and tabled Amendment 84, which we have heard about from my noble friend. This would mean that the worst offenders could see tougher sentences. The industry also very much welcomed the new relevant instructions from the Home Secretary and from the Attorney-General.

However, it is important to ensure that this new measure has the desired effect in terms of police effort. I believe there should be a regular review to monitor its effectiveness, hence my amendment proposing a review in a year’s time, which I hope the Minister will feel able to support.