Mike Veale: Police Conduct Report

Lord Bach Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. Not only do I personally feel very honoured, but it is an honour for the House as well. As regards someone being up for investigation and now having a case to answer for alleged misconduct while drawing their salary, someone who is still innocent of misconduct is still able to draw their salary until it is proven otherwise. I can understand my noble friend’s frustration, but that is the case.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness as well. I remind the House that I have been a police and crime commissioner for Leicestershire. Does the Home Office really have nothing to say regarding the behaviour of Leicestershire’s current police and crime commissioner in bringing in Mr Veale—unvetted, I believe—on his first day in office and continuing to employ him on high remuneration as his chief adviser, even though the local police force was embarrassed and many in Leicestershire are offended? The Home Office is not often shy about giving its opinion. Why is it so shy in this case?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his kind words. We are not shy. It is important that the various legal proceedings are followed before the IOPC and, indeed, the Home Office make a comment.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Bach Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Wednesday 27th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches want to probe whether Clause 13 needs to stand part of the Bill. Can the Minister explain to the Committee why there is a need for legislation to allow a local policing body, presumably a directly elected mayor or a police and crime commissioner, to assist in preventing or tackling serious violence?

I could understand if the clause stated that local policing bodies must assist or monitor what specified responsible authorities were doing and must report their findings to the Home Secretary, but that is not what it says. It says that such assistance, monitoring and reporting are voluntary, in that these bodies “may” assist, “may” monitor and “may” report.

Subsection (4) states:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision conferring functions on a local policing body”.


Does that mean that, although in primary legislation—the Bill—all this is voluntary, the Secretary of State can by regulation make it compulsory?

Subsection (5) states that the functions contained in regulations

“may include provision ... for a local policing body to arrange for meetings”.

Why does the Secretary of State need to pass regulations for a directly elected mayor to hold a meeting? Can the Minister explain why Clause 13 needs to be part of the Bill at all? We on these Benches are struggling to understand why.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for this stand part debate. If the Committee will forgive me, I will say, as quickly as I can, a word or two about how I perceive the role of police and crime commissioners up until now.

Clause 13 is clearly an important element in establishing, from the Government’s point of view, a serious violence reduction duty on a more statutory basis—if I can put it that way—than exists presently. This obviously involves police and crime commissioners in particular. It is important to remember—I think this is what the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, was getting at, in part—that police and crime commissioners have, in their nine-year existence, voluntarily worked hard to establish partnership working and commission partnership services. In many cases, they have taken a lead in those partnerships.

There is a fundamental misunderstanding—not, I am sure, in this Committee—that, somehow, the only real role for police and crime commissioners is to hold their police force, and the chief constable in particular, to account. That is a crucial part of their duties, but I point out—the Committee does not need this pointing out—that they are not just police commissioners but crime commissioners as well. At the very least, they should have a significant duty to find ways to prevent crime and its effects on victims and society, working alongside partners, of course.

This is not about dealing with crime that has taken place, whether it is antisocial behaviour or serious violence. It means dealing with what has become a hackneyed phrase but is crucial here: the causes of crime, going back to early childhood development and early intervention. It is always about poverty and its effect on crime. It is about bad and lousy living conditions, and it always involves looking after the vulnerable, whoever they may be—we are all vulnerable at some stage or other in our lives. Above all, it is about preventing lives being thrown away, whether they are those of victims or perpetrators. I have to confess—noble Lords may have already realised that this is what I am about to say—that this kind of work or duty, as I call it, gave me and many other police and crime commissioners the greatest buzz of all.

It was crucial to achieving anything that one worked with partners, local and national, very much including government. To their credit, the Government set up violence reduction units, changed their support—I do not mean that in any bad way—and became very keen on the public health approach to dealing with these matters. That was a huge and important change, and many of us were convinced by the work that we did and seeing what happened in Scotland that this was the right course to take.

Where I was police and crime commissioner, we have what we call a violence reduction network, rather than a unit. I argue that it has achieved quite a large amount already, with great projects. My predecessor as police and crime commissioner for Leicestershire ran and started an office of the police and crime commissioner-run strategic partnership board, or SPB, which, by the time I left office, included all—I mean all—of the main public services in the area covered by the force, from local government to health, education, the police, fire and ambulance services and more.

The other example I give is that I was the chairman of the East Midlands criminal justice board. Other police and crime commissioners were chairs of their local boards or whatever they chose to call it. Clearly, if Clause 13 and other parts of this chapter pass into law, there will be—I am guessing that this is how the Government will put it—more statutory backing for this way of approaching the serious violence reduction duty. I am not against that in principle, but my one concern is that, in my experience, police and crime commissioners are a little bit like elected mayors: if they are good, they are very good, and they can make a huge difference, but if they are not so good, they can make a huge difference the other way.

I was lucky in that I had a brilliant team working for me in my office. As it happens, it has been decimated by my successor, but that is for another day, certainly not for today. Also, when I was there, other police and crime commissioners, whatever their party politics or lack of it, seemed to me to be able people who wanted to do the right thing and were very committed. As the noble Baroness and the Committee will know, many new police and crime commissioners were elected in May this year, which is no doubt a good thing, and many more of them were women—it is about time, too. It is too early to say whether they will grab these extra opportunities, but I hope that they will.

There are two big issues as far as the future is concerned in the real world. One, of course, is data sharing, which the Bill is very concerned about, and so it should be. So often, people of good will get together on behalf of organisations that are not prepared to share data. That has to change in this area, otherwise there will be no achievement. The second issue—I hate to mention it but it is the usual one—is funding. If we are going to fund all these exciting proposals, it will require government to take a leading step in that.

I am grateful to the Committee for listening to my speech. I thought it might be useful in terms of this clause.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her explanation of government Amendment 59. She said it makes a minor clarifying change, and we have no concerns to raise on it. However, I look forward to the Minister’s replies on the questions and issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and my noble friend Lord Bach. I am not sure whether I have fully understood this issue, and if what I am going to say now indicates that I have not, I apologise in advance.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, indicated in his explanatory statement, which he repeated, that he has tabled the Clause 13 stand part Motion so that he can

“probe how the provisions of this Bill and the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 will work in practice; and the relationship between Crime and Disorder Partnership and Police and Crime Commissioners.”

As I understand it, Clause 13 provides that local policing bodies, such as PCCs and the Mayor of London, may assist authorities in delivering the serious violence duty, monitor how authorities are exercising their duties, report back on their findings to the Secretary of State and be given authority by the Secretary of State to assist the duty in specific ways, such as providing funding or convening meetings on the duty. It also provides that authorities must co-operate with local policing bodies. The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 created community safety partnerships, and that raises the issue of how this duty will interact with the existing duties on CSPs.

The Government have published draft guidance on the serious violence duty. It says:

“In order to comply with the duty it is not necessary to create a new partnership, instead the specified authorities should use existing partnerships where possible and with appropriate modifications.”


It goes on to say:

“The Duty is an opportunity to simplify and add focus to existing partnership arrangements rather than add any additional complexity to the current multi-agency landscape.”

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Bach Excerpts

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

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak briefly to this group of important amendments, and declare my interest as a vice-president of the LGA.

The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blake of Leeds, set out the reasons for these amendments, and I fully support them. Those responsible for providing housing have changed over the years, from the time when it was solely the purview of local authorities to now, when it is a mix of elected councils that hold housing stock themselves through to housing associations and registered social landlords providing a mix of accommodation for couples, families and, less frequently, single people living alone.

Whatever their circumstances, tenants all deserve to feel safe in their home and free from violent attack. Women and young people are often the target of violence, sometimes with catastrophic consequences. Some of this will be domestic violence; in other cases it will be gang related. Whatever the cause or outcome, it is essential that the housing providers have a robust strategy in place—first, to prevent violence in the first place and, secondly, to deal with the aftermath once it has occurred.

Housing provider co-operation with the police is essential in dealing with violent abuse. Relying on GDPR protection to avoid releasing information is unhelpful at best and, at the other end of the spectrum, borders on ignoring the violent act itself. Of course, this release of information on behalf of the housing providers does not extend to medical professionals, the subject of the previous group of amendments.

Violence is abhorrent and prevents people enjoying the safety they should feel in their home, whether that is a bedsit or a three-bedroom family home. Local authorities will receive complaints about the behaviour of their tenants from neighbours. This might be about noise or anti-social behaviour. In more serious cases, the complaints will be about violence suffered by children and women, and sometimes men, living in a nearby home. It is difficult for local authority housing departments and RSLs to take action on what might be a malicious complaint, but I believe that where a robust serious violence reduction strategy is in place, officers will have the confidence to act before the violence ends in a tragedy, as in the case study the noble Baroness, Lady Blake of Leeds, mentioned.

I have only one caveat: the Government should ensure that local authorities, whose budgets have been slashed over recent years, have sufficient funding to be able to produce and implement a violence reduction strategy and not be expected to fund additional work on their already overstretched budgets.

Society is becoming immune to the level of violence experienced by some communities. This has to be reversed. A serious violence reduction strategy for each community living in social housing, whoever the provider may be, is a step in the right direction towards raising the profile of the damage that such violence causes and beginning to tackle its reduction. I fully support this group of amendments.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I support these amendments absolutely; they are practical and in the real world. From my experience as a police and crime commissioner over five years, it is quite clear that serious violence has a huge amount to do with place and a lot to do with housing in those places. If we are to have the partnership that is presumably behind the Government’s proposals on serious violence, it is absolutely essential that housing and those who control it have a vital role; without them, all sorts of disasters will occur.

When I was a police and crime commissioner, I would hear from police officers or citizens day by day about the problems in areas where they lived and the mismatch, sometimes, between those responsible for housing and their ability to talk to the police and get things done, on either side, as quickly as possible. These are very important amendments, and I hope that the Government will listen carefully to them.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, we support these amendments. It is not just victims of domestic violence who need help and support from housing authorities in escaping serious violence. Young people groomed and exploited by criminal gangs also need and deserve to be urgently rehoused in certain circumstances, as the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, so clearly set out.

Again, this needs to be a truly multiagency approach to reducing serious violence and not a police-led enforcement approach. The police need to provide information to housing authorities where they believe that someone is being coerced into criminal activity and is threatened with serious violence if they do not comply, and that taking that person out of that scenario by rehousing them can reduce the risk of serious violence.

I repeat that option 2 of the Government’s consultation on the serious violence duty is the best option and the one preferred by the greatest proportion of respondents to the Government’s own consultation—that of enhancing existing crime and disorder partnerships. These are the existing and well-established mechanism, where local authorities and police forces work together to prevent and tackle crime and disorder and where the local police chief and the local authority chief executive are equal partners in doing whatever each partner and others can do to reduce crime and disorder.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Bach Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 14th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I too look forward very much to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst. He comes to this House with an outstanding legal reputation and we are lucky to have him.

Clearly this is a major and massive Bill with important proposals in it, but am I alone in worrying slightly that the Government should be dealing today with all these matters when it seems, to me at least, that some urgent issues around the criminal justice system are causing it sometimes to be in a state of near crisis? Actually, the civil justice system is, in my view, in a real crisis of many years’ standing. Surely the Government and Parliament should be discussing and debating those issues. If that means getting rid of some of the no-doubt worthy clauses in this Bill, perhaps that would be a price worth paying.

There are issues around case delays, trial delays and the endless desires, wants and needs of victims. Then there is remuneration and legal aid. In the case of civil legal aid, if I may say so, the effects of the LASPO Act—arguably the worst piece of legislation passed in the last 10 years—have been baleful. It has denied, and continues to deny, a large number of our fellow citizens any access to advice and justice. This Bill cannot be a cover for lack of action in those areas.

I have just stood down as a police and crime commissioner, which I did for five years. Day by day, I witnessed policing at fairly close quarters. I believe I am firmly of the view—I think I am persuaded—that the case for raising the maximum penalty for assaulting emergency workers is made out. Every Monday morning, week after week, I would hear of the extraordinary number of police officers who had been attacked and assaulted over the previous weekend, albeit sometimes in a minor way, if there can be such a thing as a minor assault. Of course the prospect of higher sentences—I do not like it in principle, actually; I suspect that the House does not either—is nowhere near a total solution but, if it deters some from offending, it is worth at least trying because the level of assaults on emergency workers is just not acceptable.

I oppose the changes to the policy on the policing of protests. The proposals seem vague and risk undermining the balance between freedom and control that is so vital to our free society. I urge Her Majesty’s Government not to use the police as a cover for these changes. Police officers are members of the public too; this is very much in the Peelite tradition. They, for the most part, treasure and support the freedoms that we enjoy in this country. In my experience, albeit anecdotally, the police are at the very least sceptical about some of these proposals.

Would the Minister be prepared to see me about an amendment I want to make? It is small but reasonably important, and concerns the unique way in which anyone who wants to be a police and crime commissioner candidate—noble Lords may ask why anyone would want to do that anyway—cannot be one if they stole a Mars bar or scrumped some apples 30 or 40 years ago. The Act we passed 10 years ago makes it absolutely clear that anyone with a caution or conviction for an imprisonable offence is automatically excluded, whether they went to prison or not. That does not apply to the Home Secretary, High Court judges or, if I may say so, bishops. I hope that the Minister will, in her usual courteous way, be prepared to meet me on that matter.

Police and Crime Commissioner By-election

Lord Bach Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I have every confidence that the new PCC, when he or she is elected, will have the confidence of the public.

[Lord Bach (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that, in the opinion of many, the provision under Section 66 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011, which states that

“A person is disqualified from being elected as, or being, a police and crime commissioner if … the person has been convicted … of any imprisonable offence (whether or not sentenced to a term of imprisonment in respect of the offence)”,


is far too wide in scope? It has meant that individuals, however young they were and however minor the offence may have been, are automatically excluded, for life, from being a police and crime commissioner. Of course, it goes without saying that any serious conviction involving actual imprisonment should disqualify an individual. Will the Government look at this issue again, and might they consider a minor government amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which will be debated in your Lordships’ House later this year?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]]

I think that what has happened in this election has thrown up some obvious gaps in the process. On what the noble Lord says about the stringency of standing for office, he is absolutely right—PCCs have the most stringent requirements of all UK elections. But it is right that we should be quite strict about the people who are elected to uphold law and order.

Independent Office for Police Conduct

Lord Bach Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, the IOPC is now completing investigations in just over eight months on average. This is considerably better than the IPCC, which averaged over 11 months in its last year of operation, 2016-17. As I said earlier, the Home Secretary has brought forward a review of the IOPC.

[Lord Bach (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, returning to the vexed subject of Mr Veale, who has already been described as “disgraced”, is the Minister aware that he was recently appointed by my successor as police and crime commissioner for Leicestershire to a senior adviser’s role in his office, as reported by the Times on 8 June? Regardless of the police and crime commissioner will not reveal the salary and responsibilities of Mr Veale, do the Government approve in principle of someone who was twice a senior chief constable and is subject to a serious review by the Independent Office for Police Conduct being appointed to a senior post in the office of a police and crime commissioner?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, without talking about any individuals, some time ago we made clear through legislation that going to a different force or retiring cannot exempt someone from being prosecuted or followed up for an offence for which they are a suspect. That is all I will say on that matter. It is up to the PCC whom they appoint.

Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Lord Bach Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 1st December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will confine my remarks on this Bill to the thrust of Amendment 46. I declare an interest as a former member of the ISC from 1997 to 2001, under the excellent chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, who has just spoken and who equally supports Amendment 46. I am not a lawyer, but I ran with the hounds in the Commons during the Peter Wright affair of the 1980s. In doing so, I developed an interest in authorisation procedures, which I followed up as a member of the ISC.

As I read it, it is uncertainty over compliance with the Human Rights Act, the ECHR and the implied powers therein that is driving legislative reform. The problem is only aggravated by the inclusion of a raft of new bodies, some presumably with marginal quasi-professional experience of covert action. My problem is the inadequacy of post-event assessment. An annual report from the Investigatory Powers Commissioner is not enough. An onerous system of prior authorisation is too much. We need a robust, uncomplicated procedure of prior scrutiny, not authorisation, where the rights of individuals and the state are fully recognised.

I place on record the statement from Andy Erlam, the principal complainant in the Tower Hamlets v Rahman case, which exposes deficiencies in the current CHIS-bases system: “An attempt was made to recruit me as a CHIS some time ago. I had taken a successful election petition against the Mayor of Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Rahman. The police officer who met me was from the Metropolitan Police. He said he was employed by the Department for Professional Standards but that he had a national role in supervising CHISs. He asked me to recruit CHISs, and documentation exists to confirm that this meeting took place. I learned that the officer who had authorised the approach to me was the same officer in charge of the two Metropolitan Police criminal inquiries into Mr Rahman, and that the commission and the City of London Police inquiry all found insufficient evidence. Yet the campaign in Tower Hamlets which I led exposed extensive corruption. I suspect that the police were compromised in some way. I experienced police harassment and an attempted arrest in the middle of the election High Court trial, an election case which I later won. If the use of undercover operations can be justified in some cases, I do not think they should ever pervert the course of justice. I believe this approach was an attempt to compromise me. Police officers who I know informally state that the use of CHISs leads to lazy policing, and it is never clear whether the police are using the CHIS or the CHIS is using the police. The current proposal to extend legal immunity to cover CHISs carrying out criminal activities is a matter of considerable concern.”

Erlam is questioning a whole CHIS-based system. I do not, but on accountability he is right. We need a far more robust system of prior evaluation and scrutiny. In this debate, we have heard demands for prior judicial authorisation, judicial commissioners, the use of prosecutors and judges, and a prosecutorial approach with warrants, and the Government are saying no—although there was a slight movement from the Government in last week’s debate, a hint at reconsideration. Anyhow, whatever the position, the Government will have their way, with their 70-seat Commons majority, so a compromise must be found, and I propose a compromise.

I have two alternatives. First, I propose that the remit of the chairman of the ISC be extended in the way that I have previously suggested during ISC debates, to give him or her prior access to intelligence-based CHIS operational activity—a prior scrutiny role, not an authorising role—in the handling of all CHIS. It would mean restoration of the prime-ministerial lock on ISC chairmanship appointments. Under this proposal, the chairman would be able to release CHIS information to the ISC only where it is agreed to do so with the agency heads, including the wider list of agencies currently being proposed.

It could be argued that to include the Food Standards Agency et al could be stretching the duties placed on the ISC chairman, and potentially in a much limited form on the committee, far too far. I say that as we simply do not know the volume of CCAs. If that was a problem, the Speakers of both Houses could be asked to nominate an agreed alterative person or persons, depending on the volume of CCAs, to carry out the function. I suggest a Member of this House, their role being prior scrutiny of CHIS operational activity, not authorisation. I believe that we have people in Parliament who, as former chairmen of the ISC or other respected Members of this House, are as worthy of access to information in the deepest recesses of the various intelligence communities et al as any agency head.

Another way forward could be to appoint a scrutiny group comprising either two or three persons as part of the same prior scrutiny process. Such a group should comprise at least one member of a legislature of high standing—again, appointed by the Prime Minister but ratified by Parliament. In my mind, a member of a legislature must—I repeat “must”—be party in one form or another to whatever process is selected. In the USA, the defense appropriations subcommittee is, by law, according to Wikipedia, “fully and currently informed” of intelligence activities. This includes being kept informed of covert actions and any significant intelligence failure. I am not even asking for that. Wikipedia goes on to say that, under certain circumstances, the President may restrict access to covert activities to only the chairman and vice-chairman of the committee. I will settle for that. I am asking, in compromise, for a lesser form of accountability under a less onerous arrangement.

Under my second way forward, the second and third persons could be judiciary-drawn and/or departmental accounting officers. To me, the appointments under both options are particularly important in this new world of heightened tension, international trafficking, greater sophistication in fraud and organised crime. We cannot underestimate these dangers.

Equally, we need a commensurate increase in accountability. After over 40 years in public life, I have learned that transparency, by its very nature, influences conduct and thereby, to some extent, control to varying degrees. I support the thrust of the amendments that extend accountability, if not the detail, as proposed in the Committee today.

[Lord Bach (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, whose expertise in this area is well known and has been for many years.

There are many profound constitutional issues in the Bill, and many of them have been debated in this long group of amendments. I speak in support of Amendment 76, in the name of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. My noble friend and I agree that this is not a profound constitutional amendment but we argue that it is important none the less.

Noble Lords will recall the highly effective speech of my noble friend Lord Hunt last week in which he argued that police and crime commissioners should have some standing in relation to the annual inspection of police forces by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner and not just be excluded from playing any part. Of course, I must declare my interest as the elected and full-time police and crime commissioner for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. I will try not to repeat my noble friend’s arguments but will attempt to persuade the Committee to reach the conclusion that, as with all inspections of a police force, it is essential that a police and crime commissioner plays some part.

Why do I say “essential”? Many noble Lords will remember the passage through Parliament of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011. The then coalition Government, in setting up elected police and crime commissioners in place of appointed police committees, were clear that the role of a police and crime commissioner was to represent the public and hold the force to account for its effectiveness, its efficiency and, importantly, its legitimacy.