King’s Speech

Lord Borwick Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Borwick (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the three Peers who gave excellent maiden speeches.

Every year for the last 30 years, I have had the privilege of spending some time in San Francisco with friends. It seems to me that San Francisco, a wonderful hilly city of which it has been said “If you’re tired of walking round it, you can always lean against it”, is slowly dying. This has happened before, starting in 1906 with the famous earthquake and fire, but so far it has always recovered. What worries me is that I see certain similarities with what is happening in London.

A few years ago, San Francisco’s mayor, Mrs London Breed, effectively decriminalised shoplifting for thefts under $950, making it a misdemeanour rather than a crime. This change has been blamed for the decision by Nordstrom and subsequently Westfield to close their shopping centres on Market Street, previously one of San Francisco’s main shopping streets. For Westfield, one of the most admired property companies in the world, just to surrender its property to the lenders suggests that the problems are severe. This is explained by a comment, attributed to Nordstrom, that there were more people coming through its doors to shoplift than to purchase.

This matters over here because cities are inherently efficient. Economic progress has so often come from urbanisation, for example in China. Moving from a rural economy to an urban economy works for us humans. We gain more choices, more surprises and more serendipity. This may have been economically efficient, but there are groups wanting to reverse it. I do not argue that cities are the only place to live—there are many happy people living in the countryside—but those trying to make cities fail, whether intentionally or inadvertently, are normally called criminals. However, for criminals, shoplifting is normally considered a pretty low-level crime.

Shoplifters and violent demonstrators have in common a disregard for others and a determination to undertake their activities in cities. Demonstrations, to the extent that they are part of the right to protest, are protected, but it is part of the protesters’ aim to cause the most disruption and hence gain the most publicity. Incidentally, according to the Metropolitan Police, there were more than 4,000 big events that needed their presence last year, more than 10 a day. That suggests to me that it is time for a change of tactics by the demonstrators, who are in competition with each other for publicity. The biggest disincentive to both shoplifters and violent demonstrators is the fear of being caught. Like any child, it is not the potential long-term punishment but the fear of being caught that drives a decision not to do harm. This is why we must do as much as possible to enable the police to do their job.

The question of real-time face recognition software has been raised with me, and my immediate reaction was negative. Is it not part of the Big Brother state and a step, with artificial intelligence, towards a dictatorial state? But what is the difference, morally, between a policeman with good facial recognition skills watching a CCTV screen continuously and face recognition software doing it? If we have the number of CCTV cameras showing the public roads that we do, that was the point when a decision was made to intrude on the citizen’s privacy.

It is important that safety protection is built into the system, and I believe this now happens. There are four key aspects, in addition to certification of the system’s accuracy. The police do not keep your data; if there is no match, your data is immediately and automatically deleted. The police are not building one big watch-list; the watch-list is bespoke to the deployment, based on the intelligence case, and deleted afterwards. Facial recognition is not deployed on all CCTV cameras across the capital. The police will deploy only when there is an intelligence case to do so and a police response at the ready. It is not a computer making the decision to stop and engage with someone on the back of a potential match. There will always be a human in the loop to make that decision. I understand that this is the current state of the police system, and I think it is too restrictive on a good system. We must make the back streets and underpasses safe again, and live facial recognition is the best and cheapest way to achieve this.

Good facial recognition software, properly analysed to prevent inadvertent racial bias, can help identify ringleaders, which is important for dealing with crime prevention. If there are shoplifting kingpins, let us find and arrest them. I gather that there are now people who regularly shoplift from charity shops, a pretty despicable act. Equally mean are those who assault shop workers, a rising type of crime. We need to protect the innocent by making sure that the right people get arrested as soon as possible. Small shopkeepers are often closing, and shoplifting is an unnecessary cost that causes many to shut up shop.

I have one further thought on this subject: one of the many effects of Covid has been a pressure to de-urbanise the United Kingdom. Those working from home may as well have their home in the beautiful countryside, if commuting is a rare feature of their lives. This has the effect of emptying out the cities, which is not good for their efficiency. I am not sure that a civil servant working from home is nearly as efficient as one working in Whitehall, perhaps especially if his home is in South America. On 22 October, the Daily Mail reported a rapid rise in midweek dinner parties being held, which is much easier for a couple working from home in the countryside than for a couple commuting to the city, as in the past.

This emptying out of the city is revealed in empty office buildings and causes people in San Francisco to move out of California, perhaps to Texas, Florida or Arizona; for many, it is a permanent move. I am not sure what the comparable move from London might be, but I hope we do not find out.