Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley of Knighton and Lord Harris of Haringey

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard - part one): House of Lords
Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

I, of course, defer to the extensive knowledge of the noble Lord, who was born many decades before the Taser was invented. He is right that of course there are alternative methods, but pinning somebody against a wall and pushing them hard and repeatedly with a NATO shield is also a fairly violent response. We are not talking about nice situations; we are talking about a situation where something major in terms of an intervention is needed to save somebody’s life. Under those circumstances, I think a blanket proscription which says you must not use a Taser is a mistake.

There are also questions about why this amendment refers simply to mental health wards. There are violent incidents every night in accident and emergency departments. Are we saying that we would permit the use of a Taser in an incident in an accident and emergency department, but if exactly the same incident occurred in a mental health ward that would not be the case? The noble Baroness may actually be saying that Tasers should not be used at all. That is fine—it is a perfectly legitimate argument, and there is a debate to be had, but it seems a strange anomaly to make a distinction between one type of hospital ward and another.

The issue that has to be addressed is why so many incidents get out of hand in mental health wards. If that can be resolved—and I suspect it will mean staffing and may mean improved training and a lot of de-escalation—concern about the sheer number of times the police are called out to incidents of this sort would be diminished. The fact is that that is the problem, and that is the problem that must be addressed. A blanket ban on Tasers does not solve that problem; it just creates other problems, which is unsatisfactory.

The noble Baroness also referred to the overuse of Tasers elsewhere in the community, the probable discrimination and the fact that black people are more likely to be tasered than others. That is a real concern. I am aware that in London, at least, the mayor’s office requires that on every single occasion that a Taser is drawn, an individual is red-dotted when a Taser is pointed at them or a Taser is discharged, the circumstances are recorded and it is reported to the Mayor’s Office for Policing And Crime. I assume that the Minister has those figures to hand. It would be very interesting to know—it is quite a substantial number of cases. It is also interesting that often the mere act of red-dotting an individual—pointing the Taser at them—is enough to de-escalate the situation without discharge. It would be interesting to know whether those statistics tell us in how many instances Tasers were used in a mental health ward. I assume that the detail that is collected would enable that; I hope it does. It is certainly important that whenever a Taser or any other force is used, it should be properly recorded together with the circumstances and the ethnicity of the person against whom it was used. I understand that that is included in guidelines which are emerging from the College of Policing. I strongly welcome them because that will enable us to have a baseline to be able to see what is happening and to deal with issues where there is discrimination or overuse of force under whatever circumstances. By “overuse of force”, I do not mean just Tasers; I mean all forms of force.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I do not think any noble Lord wishes to see Tasers used in hospital settings except under the most extreme circumstances. However, I am very persuaded by what I have heard from other noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Dear. I would like to put the position slightly from the point of view of the patient. When I was a young man, I had quite a lot of experience of psychiatric wards—not, I hasten to add, as an inmate—and they can be terrifying places of extreme violence.

This amendment would mean that police officers could not use a Taser. I can foresee circumstances where somebody gets hold of a kitchen knife, for example, and is in a volatile state—the kind of volatile state that people who have not seen this kind of mania find hard to imagine. It is truly terrifying. We have to give some credit to people who are managing the situation. Given the information we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Harris, I would like to think that the police are acting responsibly, so we have to assume that somebody assesses the situation and decrees that it is so dangerous that the best way of not harming the mental patient any further is to use a Taser. I really cannot see how we could stop the police having that possibility at their disposal.

My concern is very much from the point of view of the patient, but there are occasions when a Taser just might be in the best interests of the patient.