Illegal Immigration

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, the UNHCR was not disregarded by the Court of Appeal; that was really the subject of the Supreme Court’s decision. It very much took the court at its word. As I already said, the Government have made a lot of effort to pre-empt the Supreme Court’s decision by doing some of the things that were suggested by the Court of Appeal. Having said all that, we of course maintain close co-operation with all our international partners whether they be states, NGOs or whatever.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, on 15 November, last Wednesday, the Home Secretary told Parliament in the other place that the Government have

“for the last few months”—[Official Report, Commons, 15/11/23; col. 649.]

been working in Rwanda, building capacity—of decision-makers, I presume—and trying to amend the agreement with Rwanda. Since the Appeal Court decision in June this year, the Government have known that our courts thought there was a real risk of claims being wrongly determined in Rwanda, resulting in asylum seekers being wrongly returned to their country of origin. Can the Minister help me? Where in our deliberations on the then Illegal Migration Bill was either the House of Commons or our House told that this training was going on because the Government thought that real risk needed to be engaged with, or that the treaty that had been entered into was being renegotiated? If we were not told, why not?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I was not present in all the debates regarding the Illegal Migration Act so I cannot honestly answer that question: I do not know whether we were told. I do not know whether the subject came up, whether it was a subject for discussion or any of those things. I am not sure it was relevant to the debates—maybe it was, maybe not; I do not know. I will endeavour to find out and come back to the noble Lord.

Pakistan: Evacuation of Afghans

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I have already made that commitment that the Government will move all those people to the United Kingdom by the end of this year. After the noble Baroness asked the last Question, the policy changed: we are no longer shipping people only when they have accommodation already approved. The object of the exercise is to get them out as quickly as we can.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, on 18 October, during the Question of the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, on the ARAP scheme, I and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, raised the need for an urgent review of the rejected or rescinded approvals of settlement applications of members of the Afghanistan Commando Force 333. I understand that some of these applicants sought refuge in Pakistan, and their forced return to Afghanistan may, quite simply, mean a death sentence for them. I commend the Minister on his continued engagement with me after that Question. If he is now in a better position to answer our respective questions, can he confirm that all rejected applications or rescinded approvals are now being actively reviewed, considering the true context of CF 333’s relationship with UK forces and policies?

Afghan Interpreters

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My noble friend raises a very good question. We estimate that currently, there are around 3,000 ARAP and ACR-eligible individuals in Pakistan. I am of course aware of the actions of the Pakistan Government regarding undocumented illegal immigrants in their country, but the Government are accelerating the arrival of ARAP-eligible individuals currently in Pakistan and we are doing our very best to move them into suitable accommodation as fast as possible.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, the Afghan Special Police Commando Force 333 was created, trained, mentored and funded by His Majesty’s Government, initially in support of British counter-narcotics objectives, but later for counter-insurgency and counter-terrorist duties. It is now clear that several deserving members of the force and their families were wrongly refused under the ARAP process and, as a direct consequence, several have been murdered in Afghanistan. Can the Minister provide assurances that the new director of the defence Afghan relocations and resettlement team will be given full support, including from the Home Office, to ensure that all previous 333 refusals are reviewed?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I have no knowledge of the circumstances the noble Lord describes, but I obviously very much regret them if they are as he says. It is worth pointing out that, as it says on the GOV.UK website,

“The Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) is for Afghan citizens who worked for or with the UK Government in Afghanistan”—


these are the key words—

“in exposed or meaningful roles”.

Given what the noble Lord has said, I will pass his concerns on to the Ministry of Defence and make sure it is aware of his desire for a review of these circumstances. In total, more than 24,600 people have been brought to safety. Work is continuing at pace, but I will make sure the MoD is aware of those special circumstances.

National Crime Agency: Fraud and Economic Crime

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what is the total number of National Crime Agency staff dedicated to the prevention or investigation of (1) fraud, and (2) economic crime.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

My Lords, due to operational sensitivity and flexible deployment of resources in response to demand, it is not possible to provide a precise figure of staff allocated to a particular type of criminality. However, the NCA’s National Economic Crime Centre, the NECC, leads the response to economic crime, including fraud. As of 1 August 2023, the headcount for the NECC, which brings together law enforcement agencies, government departments, regulatory bodies and the private sector, was 123.5 full-time equivalent. Many other teams across the NCA also contribute to the investigation of economic crime, in addition to the NECC.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, the only way to assess the adequacy or otherwise of resources devoted to battling fraud, which was assessed last year to cost this country £219 billion, and economic crime—I understand that the Government’s own assessment is that this costs the country between £300 billion and £350 billion—is to look at the results. Will the Minister tell the House how many investigations the NCA has conducted in each of, or even one of, the last three years? How many cases of fraudsters targeting the UK from abroad have resulted in any criminal justice outcome and how many in any form of disruptive action? If he cannot do that, can he tell us how many investigations the Government expect it to conduct this year?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Significant resources are being allocated to the NECC to improve its investigatory capabilities. It will end up with an additional 400 new officers dedicated to tackling fraud; some of those will go to the NCA, some to the City of London Police and some to regional and organised crime units. They will be recruited by March 2025. There are also 475 new highly trained financial crime investigators, partly funded by the economic crime levy, who will also be spread across intelligence, enforcement and asset recovery at key agencies. I will not speculate as to their likely success, but I certainly hope they have some.

Asylum Applications Backlog

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I do not recognise any of the items raised by the noble Baroness. I can reassure her that there will be no such apologies.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, from my time as Minister for Immigration, I have some experience of the challenges of asylum casework. Indeed, when I was the Minister we had a backlog and the problem of many countries not taking back their own citizens, but they were nothing like this scale. The backlog has increased by 44% over the last year. I recently heard a Home Office explanation for this. Apparently, it is

“due to more cases entering the asylum system than receiving initial decisions”.

Where I come from, in the west of Scotland, explanations of that nature are responded to with the words, “You don’t say?”. This is a description, not an explanation, of failures. My experience in government was that, when there were failures, the best way to deal with them was to change methodologies. Can the Minister honestly tell us whether, in his review of how this came about, the Home Office has identified any failures on its part that have caused this backlog?

Firearms Bill

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 14th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to rise in support of the Bill. Like the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, said, this is a piece of legislation that will pretty obviously improve our weapons controls. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Colgrain, on his customary precise and acute advocacy.

One recurrent concern that I have developed in recent years is that our legislation is reactive far too often. We scrabble to catch up with societal shifts outside this place and pass laws that are no sooner promulgated than they are eclipsed by rapid developments in technology or the attempts of those who are incentivised to find legal loopholes. It is in that state of mind that I listened carefully to the noble Earl’s contribution; I am glad that he raised the issue of 3D-printed weapons. Last year, there was a substantial amount of reporting on the growing threat of such weapons on our streets. I distinctly remember the National Crime Agency publicly stating—I think I quote it accurately—that the current generation of 3D-printed weapons are “credible and viable” compared with earlier versions and that, although they are often single-shot weapons, they are lethal. It seems possible that this issue will need to be returned to at some point in the future because, although I am pleased to hear that the relevant parts of our regulatory authorities are watching this carefully, we will soon need to do more than just watch it.

During my time as Secretary of State for Defence, I grew extremely familiar with Clemenceau’s axiom that generals always prepare to fight the last war. It strikes me that, in our attempts to deal with very serious problems, we sometimes have a tendency to do that too. However, the Bill is not one of those occasions for this reason, which is one of the reasons why I commend it to your Lordships’ House: it seeks to close a loophole in Section 11(4) of the Firearms Act but as part of an incremental process of improving our firearms laws and in response to concerns raised by law enforcement in the firearms safety consultation. I do not want to go back to 3D printing but I hope that 3D-printed weapons will be a significant part of that review.

While the loophole addressed by this Bill talks of “miniature rifles”, the fact remains that these are potentially deadly weapons. It is right that the operators of miniature rifle ranges should be subject to police suitability checks and that the definition of “miniature rifles” should be clarified to ensure that no one should be allowing others to have access to deadly weapons unless they themselves hold an appropriate licence.

Noble Lords may recall a disturbing image that emerged from a Scottish shooting event at Eskdalemuir a couple of years ago. It showed participants shooting at targets through a hatch that was daubed with misogynistic slogans. It is an unfortunate truth that misogyny and guns very often go together. I remember, when I was in America, going to an open sale of guns. There is an entirely different culture—in Florida, in this case—from the one we live in. The amount of misogyny that goes on the T-shirts of the people who are buying the guns was really disturbing. I do not wish to stray further into that territory, because it is well outside the scope of this Bill, but this fact should give us pause to reflect on wider regulation of firearms.

Noble Lords will recall the tragic events in Plymouth in 2021, where a shooter killed five women, including his own mother. The investigation found that the shotgun was legally owned and that the perpetrator had subscribed to incel content and uploaded his own material to incel forums. In an inquest earlier this year, the co-ordinator for firearms licensing on the National Police Chiefs’ Council said that if the mandatory checks had been properly conducted, they should have revealed that his firearms licence

“should never have been issued”.

While thinking about that appalling case, I note that there has been a surge in the number of temporary permits for firearms as a direct consequence of increasing backlogs in the system.

I make my next point not from a partisan perspective but as a question of safety. Can the Minister describe how the decision-making process in granting a temporary permit, as opposed to a regular permit, differs? If there is a difference in the rigour of background checks that are required, it may be that we need to operate on the presumption of refusal of them, save where there is a demonstrable need in terms of work—for instance, in the agricultural sector. In addition, I understand that the Government have committed to consulting on the question of application fees for firearms licences. Presently, very often they do not cover even half the cost of processing the applications. At a time when the public finances are, to put it lightly, rather overstretched, that would be a very welcome development. Alongside the measures contained in the first clause of this Bill, I also welcome Clause 2, which introduces a new offence of possessing component parts of ammunition with intent to manufacture and provides clear definitions and sentences.

In closing, I make the point that this Bill is not an attack on shooting as a sport. Thanks to careful drafting, Clause 2 will not criminalise those who already possess ammunition or component parts of it and Clause 1 merely requires the owners and operators of rifle ranges to possess a firearms licence and to restrict themselves either to lower-powered air weapons or to .22 rim-fire rifles. These are hardly insuperable barriers to operating such a facility. This Bill is a valuable contribution to our firearms regulatory regime, and this debate is a welcome opportunity to draw the Minister’s attention to some other issues. I shall support this Bill as it moves through your Lordships’ House.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with everything said by the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, but it is already a very serious offence to manufacture a pressure-bearing component of a firearm. We have the legislative framework and officials are looking at it very closely.

Fighting Fraud (Fraud Act 2006 and Digital Fraud Committee Report)

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Friday 30th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is an enormous pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, who opened this morning’s proceedings with the lucidity that also characterised her inclusive chairmanship of the fraud committee, on which I had the pleasure to serve. The report that we are here to address is a powerful piece of diagnostic work and is testament to her energy and commitment, as well as the hard work of the excellent committee staff.

As we heard, there is an extraordinary disjunction between the seriousness of the offence of fraud and the resources we devote to its prevention and to the pursuit and prosecution of those responsible. Fraud accounts for 41% of all crime against the individual, while only 1% of our law enforcement focuses on economic crime.

I welcome the Government’s pledge, in their recently published Fraud Strategy, to create a new national fraud squad comprising 400 specialist investigators, but I should be grateful if the Minister would share some specifics. The committee’s report shows the extent to which digital fraud has increased, with 80% of fraud now cyber enabled. How will these new officers be equipped to deal with the complexities of online fraud, including fraud which takes place on the dark web or through blockchain? Those tasked with such investigations will need either to be drawn from sectors where these skills already are both essential and scarce or, to put it mildly, to be put through some extensive training.

One of the recurrent themes in the report is an inclination to be tentative about the data on which conclusions are based. That is a function of a wider problem, with the absence of consistent measurement in government statistics. In 2010, the National Fraud Authority, an executive agency of the Home Office, first published its Annual Fraud Indicator. Its authors assessed the UK’s total loss to fraud to be £30 billion per year. In 2011 it was £38 billion, and in 2012 it had risen to £73 billion—a rise of about 150% at a time when reporting of fraud dropped off the crime statistics.

That year, Theresa May, then Home Secretary, transferred responsibility for fraud to the NCA. In 2017, at the request of the NCA, the same academics who informed the national fraud indicator published a national fraud indicator figure of £190 billion per year. A month ago, the same experts published an annual fraud indicator for 2022. The total annual loss now stands at £219 billion, £8.3 billion of which was fraud on individuals. That figure was £3.5 billion in the 2010 indicator.

So, after a further unexplained hiatus in transparency reporting, the situation has again markedly deteriorated. It is little wonder that about six months ago the NAO said about fraud that the Government do not have the data they need and are unable accurately to measure the impact of their policies. This inability persisted up to and including the publication of the fraud strategy. It would be useful to know on what basis we can judge the likely effectiveness of the measures therein in the absence of consistent and reliable data on which to base such judgments. Perhaps that explains why the gleaming promise held out as a measure of success for this strategy is a reduction of fraud by 10% in time for Christmas 2024—it appears conveniently close to the last date on which a general election must be held, one might think. This is hardly a Napoleonic ambition, given that the best data we have now suggests that the Government in one form or another have presided over an increase of more than 550% in total fraud since 2011.

In focusing on the scale of the problem, I emphasise that the victims of fraud range across vulnerable individuals, major corporations and small businesses as well as the public sector, and the Government themselves account for a significant amount of the total. I recall the powerful testimony we heard from the Bank of England, making it clear that fraud directly affects and undermines consumer confidence. Under successive Governments an attitude has prevailed that fraud is an unfortunate by-product of our strengths. Apparently, fraud has become so prevalent in the UK because of the widespread use of the English language, our position as a digitalised global financial hub, our adoption of the faster payments system, and the emergence of crypto assets. These are all said to be pull factors for fraudsters. Every element of this description could be applied to the United States, and yet UK residents are exponentially more likely to be victims of fraud than their US counterparts. This is a British problem, and its scale demands that it be a national priority. The answer is not to dilute those strengths but to ensure that they are hedged about by clear preventive mechanisms and appropriately severe financial penalties for those found to have enabled fraud. I do not wish to move on to the ground more properly covered in the Online Safety Bill or the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill but merely note that some of these questions are being covered as they journey through your Lordships’ House.

Fraud is not merely a serious offence; it is a direct enabler of far more serious offences. Organised crime, drugs, arms and human traffickers, kleptocrats and fugitives from justice all use money gained by fraud to fund their activities or to escape justice. To some extent, we have the appropriate mechanism for punishment already in place. The committee’s report examined the Fraud Act 2006 and found it to be effective, although greater maximum sentences would be desirable, but our ability to use the provisions in that legislation have been weakened by a significant decrease in the number of prosecutions of fraudsters, outdated disclosure procedures, and court backlogs. Recent data from the Law Society of England suggests that the Government’s promise to reduce the backlog is sitting rather awkwardly alongside figures that show it to be rising, so I suspect we may waiting a little time for that problem to abate.

In coming to the end of my remarks, I am conscious that I have painted a somewhat bleak picture, but none of this is inevitable. I note the Government’s acceptance of five of the committee’s six principal recommendations, in part or in full, and I hope to see the resources made available to ensure that that acceptance is matched by action. Fraud is not a victimless crime. As has already been said, it targets the most vulnerable, reduces the financial resilience of millions of households across the country, diminishes their confidence in the institutions on which they are supposed to rely and can drive them to desperate measures. Earlier this week, Ipsos released data showing that 7% of 18 to 75 year-olds have been driven to such straits that they have used an illegal moneylender in the past three years. We have all heard the rhetoric around predatory capitalism, but the fact that loansharking has become one of this country’s few growth industries renders satire redundant. This report shows a critical need for cultural change, it outlines the necessity for clear lines of accountability and enforcement and, most of all, it testifies to the need for far more effective preventive measures. I look forward to hearing how the Government intend to translate these needs into action.

National Crime Agency Investigation: Javad Marandi

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Wednesday 17th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I would be very happy indeed to meet the noble Lord to discuss his amendment. I remind noble Lords that, as I say, any suspected breaches of the law are a matter for the Electoral Commission or the police. It is not appropriate to comment on individual cases or ongoing investigations, but if a donation is from a permissible donor, it is for the recipient to decide whether or not they want to accept that donation.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware of Operation Branchform, the Scottish police investigation into the finances of the Scottish National Party. What he will not be aware of is that earlier today, Alexander Burnett, the Conservative Whip in the Scottish Parliament, wrote to the Presiding Officer demanding a parliamentary inquiry into that while that investigation is going on. In a published statement, he said that such a new committee would

“give the public confidence that the whole truth around this increasingly murky affair involving Scotland’s ruling party will be laid bare once and for all”.

What advice would the Minister give his parliamentary colleague, who speaks for the party: that maybe he should have removed the plank from his own eye before suggesting that, or that this is a good idea, and what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Lord will not be surprised to know that I was not aware of the Scottish dimension to this subject, so I will refrain from further comment.

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th May 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I add my thanks to everyone who has put so much effort and work into this issue over a significant amount of time. I thank everyone for their contributions, which have given powerful testimony of those who have suffered. We should note the fact that so many noble Lords in this Committee alone personally know people to whom this has happened.

I confirm that we support this amendment and I look forward to the Minister’s comments about the request for creating an office for whistleblowers. As has been said throughout the debate, it is clear that facilitating whistleblowing would go a significant way to tackling economic crime, whether fraud, money laundering or other crimes. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, in particular for her comments about the importance of the earliest possible notice of wrong- doing, which is a key point in this discussion.

I emphasise that the stakes remain too high for an informed insider wanting to blow the whistle. This amendment would be a good starting point. I am not convinced that it will solve all the problems, but we need to see some progress. Too many people are suffering and we need to recognise those individuals as well as the impact on the businesses involved. As the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, said, the sad truth is that too many people wait until they are leaving a company—either moving on to another or, in the case she mentioned, retiring—before finding the courage to stand up.

I understand there is going to be a review, but surely we have an opportunity now, with this Bill, to make some bold change. I thank the charity, Protect, for its briefing under Speak Up, Stop Harm, which has some very important information that we should all consider. To reference the debate that took place in the Commons, there was strong cross-party support, encouraging support and advice for whistleblowers. I am concerned that the government line remains that taking these important steps is too expensive. I really cannot understand that line of argument. Surely, we should regard this as an investment and not a cost. Tom Tugendhat MP promised more discussion on these matters as part of the debate. Can the Minister inform us where this has got to?

We support the creation of an office to give encouragement and support making reports. We want an ability to provide advice and, most particularly, to act on evidence of detriment to whistleblowers where we know that it occurs. The point in the amendment about making an annual report to Parliament is also important. One area on which I think it would be possible to move is to bring forward the requirement for all organisations to have a proper policy in place as a vital and effective route to preventing crime, which would mean that the courts could use evidence of this as good practice.

As I am sure all noble Lords have seen, 65% of callers to Protect’s confidential advice line say that they have suffered for speaking out, which of course is in direct contravention to the Public Interest Disclosure Act and, therefore, as amended, the Employment Rights Act. This is a very serious issue, which should be picked up and dealt with immediately.

On furlough payments, 41% of clients who contacted the advice line who suspected that fraud was taking place were ignored; 90% attempted to raise concerns with their employer before going to the helpline but, unfortunately, many small organisations still have nowhere to go. It is a matter of how these changes could support businesses that want to do the right thing but do not have the wherewithal to do it.

I look forward to the Minister’s responses to all the points that have been made today. Let us treat this issue with the seriousness that it deserves, as it is an important way in which we can help those who have received information that they want to act on. In the spirit of the Bill itself, it is a vital and effective route to preventing crime.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

I support the amendment and commend the noble Baroness for tabling it, as well as those who support it. I do not intend to go over anything that anybody else has said about whistleblowing, but I agree with them. I am not in any sense an expert on whistleblowing, but I am speaking because I think I have anticipated in two areas what the Government’s response will be. First, I think that we are all conscious that a review of whistleblowing has been instructed. However, I cannot find in any commentary about it or any of the announcements from the Government whether the possibility of that review recommending the setting up of an office of whistleblower is part of its remit. It does not seem to be—and that brings me to the point that I really want to make.

Some of us contributed to the debate on the Private Member’s Bill on the protection of whistleblowing in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer on 2 December—I think its formal title is the Protection for Whistleblowing Bill—and because Part 2 of that Bill related to the setting up of an office of the whistle- blower, we have had the benefit of the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, telling us what the Government’s position is. I expect to hear that the Government’s position is that the existing framework provides 80 prescribed persons to whom people can legally blow whistles, many of whom are regulators, that the very diversity of that framework does not need this overarching body because it would not be able to deal with the complexity underneath it, and that should a new body have such a function,

“it would require significant staffing resources, with diverse expertise across a range of sectors, to enable it to carry out these functions effectively”.—[Official Report, 2/12/22; col. 2044.]

In other words, it is not necessary.

That can be said, and that framework exists, but to test whether that is right, I ask the Minister in response to tell us just how effective the framework is. What do these existing regulators and others actually do? What does the data show of their effectiveness? How attractive are they to whistleblowers? How many successful processes have there been—how much criminal or other wrong activity has been uncovered by them, say in the last five years or so—and just how effective have those processes been?

I spoke in that debate on 2 December and I spent quite a bit of time looking for that data, but it does not seem to exist anywhere—there does not seem to be any data that shows how successful the existing framework is. Does the Minister have the data on the number of cases that pass through the current regulatory system, as well as the data on the impact of that? If that data shows what I suspect it does—but only from anecdotal evidence because there is no empirical evidence—then this process is ripe for complete restructuring.

For all the reasons shared with your Lordships’ Committee by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, so competently and in such an informed way, the obvious restructuring is to follow the success of the United States of America, where the creation of an office for whistleblowing has dramatically improved the effectiveness of whistleblowing to an extraordinary degree.

It seems that the fundamental problem—this is part of the problem we have got ourselves into with economic crime—is that the infrastructure we have in any part, either to prevent, detect or prosecute it, is just not of the scale of what is going on in our country. We need something that concentrates some very special resources in a way that makes whistleblowers comfortable to deal with them, protected by the state when they blow the whistle, and where the information they give is properly acted on so that it has the results that we need. I hope that when, as I expect, the Minister pushes back on this amendment, he will be able to tell us where that is in the existing framework. If it is not there, we need an office for the whistleblower, and when we get it is just a question of time.

This is an opportunity we have now. Most of us in your Lordships’ Committee have experience of just how difficult it is to get opportunities for legislation that makes this sort of fundamental change. We should grasp this one when we have it. If we have to build upon it beyond economic crime later on, so be it, but we should do it now.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade (The Earl of Minto) (Con)]

My Lords, I first draw attention to my interest as set out in the register, as a non-executive chairman of Not Another Bill Limited. Secondly, I want to thank noble Lords for their warm welcome to the hot seat, which is much appreciated.

I am pleased to be able to represent the Department for Business and Trade in my new role as Minister of State. I thank all noble Lords for their inputs into the debates so far and express my pleasure at being able to speak today on this amendment. I also thank my ministerial colleague and noble friend Lord Johnson of Lainston, who is indeed in Hong Kong, for his support in preparation for today’s debate.

Moving on to the Bill itself, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, for raising the important matter of whistleblowing. As a former co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Whistleblowing, she has continuously highlighted the important role that whistleblowing plays in shining a light on wrongdoing. The Government have a significant interest in ensuring that our whistleblowing framework is robust. An effective whistleblowing framework is a vital part of the UK’s ability to tackle corruption and all forms of economic crime and illicit finance. As these acts are by their very nature often covert, those working for an organisation can be a key source of intelligence for authorities.

My concern with this amendment, however, is two-fold. First, these reforms risk duplicating elements of the existing framework, leading to a confused landscape, and potentially at considerable cost. As I understand it, this position was explained by my noble friend, Lord Callanan, during Second Reading of the noble Baroness’s Protection for Whistleblowing Bill in December last year. So I will not go into detail here but, just to recap, the Government are concerned about how such an office would interact with the role of regulators. As has been mentioned, a new body could also come at a considerable cost, as it would require significant staffing resources, with diverse expertise across sectors, to enable it to carry out these functions effectively.

Secondly, it would be premature to make legislative change ahead of the review of the whistleblowing framework, which everybody has mentioned. The review, which the Government launched on 27 March this year, will examine the effectiveness of the whistleblowing framework in meeting its intended objectives—that is, to enable workers to come forward to speak up about wrongdoing and to protect those who do so against detriment and dismissal.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Kramer and Lady Altmann, asked whether the review will consider the merits of establishing an office for the whistleblower. The review will consider evidence related to the effectiveness of the whistleblowing framework in meeting its intended objectives. This is to enable workers to come forward to speak up about wrongdoing, and to protect those who do so against detriment and dismissal. As the right reverend Prelate explained, proper protection is needed against terrible misery and personal risk.

The review will consider a number of topics that are central to the whistleblowing framework. These include: how workers are defined for whistleblowing protections; the availability of information and guidance for whistleblowing purposes; and how employers and prescribed persons respond to whistleblowing disclosures, including best practice. The research for the review will conclude in autumn 2023. The full terms of reference for the review are published on GOV.UK.

There have been a number of very specific questions. I think that I have written down all those on data so, if it is all right with noble Lords, I shall respond swiftly in writing to some of the specific questions that were asked. There is no doubt that there is a lot of data behind this amendment; it is important that proper answers are provided.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for giving way. On 2 December, I asked the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, whether he could provide the data on the performance of regulators and other prescribed persons in relation to whistleblowing, specifically asking the same question that I asked the Minister. He did not answer it then and he has not written to me. Does this data exist? I suspect that it does not.

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

I do not know whether it exists; if it does, I shall find out and let the noble Lord know. I think it must exist, but we will have to see. The other important issue was the expense of going to a tribunal, which is a very serious issue. My understanding is that the review will certainly take that into consideration.

Not long after taking office, my ministerial colleague the parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Kevin Hollinrake MP, committed during the Public Bill Committee in the other place to get this review moving. We have followed up on this commitment and continued to deliver on whistleblowing policy. On 17 October last year, the Government laid before Parliament the most recent update to the prescribed persons order. This came into force in December and is a significant improvement to the framework, adding six new bodies and all Members of the Scottish Parliament to the list of bodies and individuals that a worker can blow the whistle to. I hope that demonstrates to noble Lords that the Government are very serious about whistle- blowing.

I welcome the continued constructive engagement on this topic, and I know that Minister Hollinrake has valued the discussions to date with parliamentarians and organisations representing whistleblowers in preparing for this review. However, this amendment could create a confused landscape for whistleblowing, potentially at considerable cost. It would also pre-empt the ongoing review of the existing framework. I therefore respectfully ask the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, to withdraw it.

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[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, in this part of our debates on the Bill because I recently corresponded with him about many of these issues. It was prompted by the publication on 30 March 2023 of the National Audit Office’s report, Tackling Fraud and Corruption Against Government. He helpfully drew my attention to some aspects of that and persuaded me that there is an opportunity in this Bill to take advantage of a degree of cross-party co-operation and leadership in an area of public policy, the like of which I have never seen in 25 years in the other place and your Lordships’ House.

The degree of informed cross-party leadership in the House of Commons is unique, in my experience. I do not think that I have ever seen so many well-informed people who have spent years working in this area leading together, in an utterly non-partisan way, the revision and improvement of a piece of legislation. It has been an utter pleasure to be able to contribute a small amount to your Lordships’ Committee and to listen to genuine experts in this Committee talking both about their experience and how it can be brought to bear to improve the Bill. I have no doubt that the Minister welcomes the fact that there is such support for the Government’s ambition.

However, my sense is that the government machinery resists being helped too much in relation to this legislation. I was an enthusiastic amateur in relation to the first part of the Bill because I have no expertise in the workings of the Companies Act. There were a number of people in the Committee who were able to inform me about how the process worked. The whole point of those debates on Companies House was to change culture; the whole point of this legislation seems to me to be to change culture in all aspects and areas that it touches in relation to economic crime. The culture that we want is one of transparency and accountability, which is why it is called the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill. It seems utterly ridiculous that the visa report is in the hands of the Home Secretary, who now has responsibility for a large part of the Government’s policy given the changes in government structure that took place not so long ago. She is holding on to an important report—a review of how we got into the position where this well-intentioned visa process became a machinery of deep corruption in our society at high levels because the money for corrupt purposes was moving quite significantly up the ladder of those who make decisions into the policy world.

What justification can there be, when the Home Office substantially has responsibility for a large part of this Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, which is designed fundamentally to change our approach, for one of the principal Ministers in charge of this area of law to be sitting on this report without explanation? There is no explanation. We are entitled to conclude that there must be something that she does not want the light of transparency to reveal. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, has already suggested what that could be—it probably is that.

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While the Government are not able to support this amendment, the noble Lord should be commended for raising this important issue. The Government remain committed to holding the perpetrators of corruption to account. Ownership of international treaties and jurisprudence sits with the FCDO, and I know that my ministerial colleagues there have noted the interest in this amendment and would welcome further exchanges with the noble Lord to consider the options available to accelerate international action.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

I am conscious that I did not contribute to the debate on this, but is it too late to get the word “anti-corruption” into the communique for the pending G7, which takes place between 17 and 23 May in Hiroshima? That word is nowhere in the Foreign Ministers’ communique on 19 April after they met, I think, in Japan. The communique covers almost everything in which one can imagine we would be interested in involving those countries that share our values, but that is not there.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Lord will not be surprised to know that I do not know, but I will ask.

The Government will endeavour to update your Lordships’ House on their plans for progressing international action on corruption in due course. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and the noble Lord, Lord Oates, on his behalf are reassured by the Government’s commitment to combatting corruption. We look forward to further discussions on this subject and to setting out our plans in further detail at an appropriate time. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

Turning to Amendment 106A, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, the Government care deeply about tackling tax evasion and avoidance. My ministerial colleagues continue to work closely with the various sub-committees that sit within the UN’s Economic and Social Council. However, standard-setting powers on tax currently sit within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s inclusive framework and global forum, and the UK believes that this is the mechanism best placed to deliver consensus-based reforms aimed at tax avoidance and evasion.

The inclusive framework and the global forum have wide and diverse memberships of more than 140 and 160 countries respectively. Furthermore, the OECD holds strong technical expertise in matters of international tax avoidance and evasion, and a potential UN convention on global tax evasion as envisaged by this amendment would duplicate and be likely to hinder the OECD’s work. This would delay the co-ordinated global response and effort to address tax evasion and avoidance and combat harmful tax practices, as well as creating divergence in international tax standards.

Having said that, the UK will engage constructively with the upcoming report by the UN Secretary-General. We want to find ways to improve international co-operation, as I have said, but to do that we want to ensure that this captures the full range of existing mechanisms for international tax co-operation and considers creatively how they could be improved better to meet developing countries’ needs. We have submitted evidence to the UN Secretary-General demonstrating these points.

Having said all that, obviously I ask the noble Baroness not to move her amendment.

Police: Restoring Public Confidence

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd May 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is an honour and a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lexden. I congratulate him on an excellent opening speech for this debate and agree with almost every word he said. I pay tribute to him for once again affording us the opportunity to examine the current state of the relationship between the police and the public in our country and, more generally, for his indefatigable work on, and commitment to, this area of policy.

This relationship is fundamental: a nation state in which trust between the police and the public has broken down is itself broken. Max Weber suggested that the defining feature of the modern state is its possession of the monopoly on the legitimate use of force, and in that definition “legitimate” does a lot of heavy lifting. If we are to continue to operate according to the nine Peelian principles that underlie our model of policing, power is legitimate only where it is perceived by the public so to be. Public trust is not merely desirable but an essential precondition for our policing system to work effectively.

To focus on the Met just for a moment or two, it is evident that across large swathes of London the Metropolitan Police no longer enjoys that trust. To supplement the statistics on polling of the public that the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, shared with the Committee, a recent YouGov survey commissioned by the BBC found that 42% of those surveyed either somewhat or strongly distrust the Met as an organisation, that 43% thought more negatively of it compared with the same time last year—so this is a deteriorating relationship —and that 73% felt that some groups were treated differently from others. Perhaps most worrying, however, is the absence of surprise that has greeted those alarming statistics. They were a dismal confirmation of what we already knew rather than an unwelcome surprise.

Some of the reasons for this are obvious and rightly have received extensive media attention. They are the tragedy of Sarah Everard’s kidnap, rape and murder by a serving police officer; the verdict of an inquest that failures by the Met contributed to three of the four murders by Stephen Port; and the complete absence of appropriate vetting and oversight that allowed David Carrick to rape and sexually assault multiple women while continuing to serve as a police officer. But the Baroness Casey Review, published six weeks ago, makes it clear that there are deeply embedded structural issues that compromise both the ethical standing and the operational effectiveness of the Metropolitan Police.

Reading through the noble Baroness’s findings, one paragraph seems to exemplify these failings. It is rather extensive but I make no apology for reading it:

“There is currently no plan for the workforce beyond bringing people in, and no sense of how the thousands of new recruits will breathe fresh life into the force after years of austerity. The vetting system is broken, there is minimal supervision, training and development is not taken seriously, there are no training records and the Met do not know what their workforce needs. People are doing jobs they are not trained to do. Initiative after initiative keeps everyone busy, creating … teams and moving people around but ultimately gets in the way of the core job of keeping Londoners safe and prevents the development of fully developed plans for change”.


The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, goes on to conclude that, when we measure the Met against the Peelian principles that continue to guide its operation “Public consent is broken”, a finding that speaks directly to the Motion we are debating in the name of the noble Lord.

It is important to widen our focus beyond the Met, to the situation across the country. Police are currently solving the lowest proportion of crimes on record, with, according to the latest Home Office figures, only 5.4% of crimes resulting in a charge. That is equivalent to just over one in 20 offences being solved. As my right honourable friend Yvette Cooper pointed out in a recent debate in the other place, nearly 70% of the public now believe, as a direct consequence of this parlous record, that the police have given up on trying to solve crimes such as burglary or shoplifting altogether. In fact, given that we now know that fraud accounts for 41% of crime on the person and that only 1% of police resources are devoted to it, the Government themselves have even given up on referring to these statistics regarding the amount of crime in the country.

What of crimes that disproportionately affect women? A recent report compiled by the charity Victim Support found that over half of women lack confidence that the police will properly investigate their reports of domestic abuse. This is not merely a measure of confidence but of the lived experience of dealing with the police, with four in 10 women who had reported a crime in the last two years saying they had felt “let down” by the police investigation into their case.

I prepared this speech when the time allotted to us was much shorter than it presently is. I therefore felt forced to adopt a somewhat pointillist approach, adducing specific statistical examples rather than going into this issue more comprehensively. I am even more pleased that I follow the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, because he did that for us, so I will not extemporise on that, but these individual data points, taken together, create a truly sobering image of a police service that is losing trust across all sections of the population.

Disappointingly, the Government’s response to this has been to focus on the recruitment of 20,000 new police officers, to replace a comparable number of officers that they themselves—although they were in coalition—previously dismissed on the grounds of economic necessity. Ironically, quite apart from the fact that the fiscal situation in which we find ourselves currently is, to put it mildly, not appreciably better than that which apparently compelled the Government to institute these mass dismissals, there are also deeper structural implications. This extraordinary staff churn has not only compromised the institutional memory of the police force but exposed the weaknesses of the vetting process which has contributed to the stories of misconduct among serving officers.

Last week, the Policing Minister proudly announced that the College of Policing had just finished consulting on a new statutory code of practice for vetting which “will be adopted shortly”. This should be juxtaposed with the verdict of Matt Parr, His Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary, who said that, owing to weak vetting procedures, there are police officers numbered

“in the hundreds, if not low thousands”

who should have been disbarred but are now serving officers. Instituting a new vetting procedure after one of the most rapid recruitment drives in police history is patently absurd. It is rather like watching a gang of thieves load the last of your possessions into the getaway vehicle and only then deciding to put a lock on your door and investigate the idea of installing a burglar alarm.

While I understand the underlying principle of operational independence, it seems that, in the interests of devolving accountability, the current structure of policing is deliberately fragmented. It is this that has led to so many of the challenges that we are debating. I remind your Lordships that, when first establishing the Met Police, Robert Peel reflected on this issue, candidly admitting that his legislation was driven by his

“despair of being able to place our police upon a general footing of uniformity”.—[Official Report, Commons, 28/2/1828; col. 793.]

I support entirely the call for a specific action plan, and support even more that it be in plain English so that, in terms of accountability for Parliament, we know exactly what to expect of it. However, to conclude, I pose three specific short questions on which it would be helpful to hear from the Minister. First, what work is his department doing to ensure that the structural weaknesses identified by the Casey review are not reflected in other forces across the country that have not have the same level of scrutiny as the Met? Secondly, does he feel that the frenetic drive to meet the recruitment target of 20,000 new police officers is a tacit admission that the earlier austerity-driven wave of dismissals was just a mistake? Lastly, what reflections does he or, more importantly, his department have as to the ability of current nationwide policing structures, including PCCs—I am quite sceptical of them—to ensure uniformity and coherence in policing across this country?