Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, this Bill is not so much a curate’s egg as a curate’s omelette, with some distinctly unsavoury ingredients mixed in with some reasonable proposals. Before addressing some of the substantive measures included in the Bill’s 200 pages which have emerged, after scant debate, from the House of Commons, it is necessary to complain yet again at the cavalier way in which this Government go about churning out legislation that deals with sensitive aspects of public and social policy even when they impinge on important areas such as human rights and access to justice.

Once again the Joint Committee on Human Rights—which has just four Labour members in its membership of 12—has been driven to express serious concerns not just about some of the Bill’s proposals but about the procedure employed. The committee drew attention to a number of government amendments to the Bill that have human rights implications and to the lack of time allowed to scrutinise them. It is pursuing its,

“concerns about the recurring inadequacy of the time available”,

for such scrutiny,

“with the Leader of the House”.

Can the Minister tell us what has transpired on that score?

Even more pointedly, the committee complains that two pieces of information in relation to controversial matters—in respect of Schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act, and the suggested change in compensation for miscarriages of justice—were promised for 29 July but delivered on 7 October, 48 hours before the committee met to consider its report. What justification if any can the Minister advance for such conduct, and what assurances can he give for the future?

Turning to some of the proposals in the Bill, I acknowledge the importance of the issue of anti-social behaviour. It has been a problem in parts of the ward that I have represented in Newcastle for the last 46 years and it requires a co-ordinated approach from the courts, the police and the local authority, by listening to and working with the community affected. I am currently dealing with a case in which a young council tenant has been subjected to constant harassment by a group of youths not resident in the estate. I well recall how two streets in my ward suffered so badly from the behaviour of a small number of families who moved in after being evicted from their homes in an adjoining ward that, in the end, the streets were demolished. These were at all times private tenants. The Bill extends the procedure to enable such people to be dealt with to other tenures, subject to an authorised procedure. As we have heard, however, it worryingly adopts, in effect, the notion of guilt by association in respect of those who have been participating in riots—not just for the rioters but for their families—so that the innocent householder and their family may be evicted after such a person participates in a riot taking place anywhere, not even in the immediate locality.

As we have also heard, the Bill does little to ensure that the interests of children—both the practical ones in terms of their accommodation, and the legal ones in relation to their human rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child—are sufficiently taken into account when sanctions are imposed on their family. Of course, eviction in such cases may well lead not just to problems for the child but, in the short or longer term, to increased pressure and cost on hard-pressed children’s services. The same reservations arise, as the Joint Committee stresses, in relation to new civil injunctions on children as young as 10, the use of detention for breach of such an injunction for children over 14 and the possible removal of reporting restrictions in relation to children in injunction proceedings.

Moreover, the shift in the case of these new injunction proceedings from the need to show that an order is necessary and proportionate to what is just and convenient, is deemed by the Joint Committee to be incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, not least because the injunction procedures apply to cases where the conduct complained of is,

“capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to any person”.

We have heard that phrase used before tonight. It is a loose, unsatisfactory and highly subjective test.

Another troubling issue is the provision in relation to compensation for miscarriages of justice, under which someone whose conviction has been overturned will, as we have heard, now have to prove their innocence in order to secure their compensation. This effectively reverses the burden of proof. Indeed, it comes close to importing the Scottish “not proven” verdict into English law. By chance, the other night on the radio, I heard part of the serialisation of a dramatised version of an apparently famous Scottish case in which one defendant secured such a verdict—“not proven”—which she described as meaning, “We know you did it but we can't actually find you legally guilty on the evidence”. Effectively, that is now to be applied to those seeking compensation for a miscarriage of justice. It is unacceptable to import such an approach by the back door—not least when, as we have also heard, only a couple of cases a year result in a payment.

Other areas that we will wish to explore in Committee include extradition, about which we have heard something tonight, and the notion that costs in courts and tribunals should not merely be set to achieve full recovery—itself a challenging concept, given what has happened to legal aid and advice—but should also generate a surplus as a contribution to reducing the deficit. This could, of course, be the thin end of a very large wedge. If that principle is applied to the courts and tribunals, why not to the National Health Service or to education? Perhaps the Government already have that in mind. Does the proposal also imply that the Government will further ratchet up the fees for employment tribunals so recently and controversially imposed?

The role of local government does not seem to be adequately reflected in some of the new provisions—for example, in relation to dispersal powers or in the new community remedy approach set out in Clause 93 and the community protection notices in Clauses 40 to 54, which have yet to be evaluated. As the Home Affairs Committee pointed out in its scrutiny report on the draft bill, interagency working is essential if the issues of anti-social behaviour and disorder are to be tackled effectively.

The Bill as it stands is flawed in a number of respects. I hope the Government will listen seriously to the concerns it arouses and respond constructively to attempts to improve it, with the twin aims of tackling significant social and other problems while preserving our reputation for upholding civil liberties and human rights. I am sure that your Lordships’ House will offer many positive suggestions to improve the Bill.