Police (Detention and Bail) Bill

Lord Dear Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, I support the Bill. I had not expected to be able to attend your Lordships’ House today but my diary changed, and I am grateful to the House for allowing me to speak in the gap. I shall be brief.

I, too, declare an interest in that I served in a senior rank in the police service in England for many years. The noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Thomas of Gresford, kicked the Minister’s shins fairly resoundingly with regard to timing and wasting time. I think that we are all concerned about that point. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas, went on to lay it on pretty thick, if I may say so, regarding what he termed lazy and oppressive police conduct in setting bail. I will come back to that in a moment. I would hope that what he outlined is the exception rather than the rule, but I am concerned on those points.

The real point of the debate today is that we are where we are and the police have a substantial problem, as my noble friend Lord Condon has outlined. The provisions of PACE, as they were understood, are still being exercised on hundreds of occasions every single day. They are part of the necessary working practice of any charge room, sometimes called a “charge suite”. Without certainty in this area, that part of the work of the police will grind very slowly—perhaps even to a complete stop.

I am not particularly concerned about retrospection in this extant case. We are trying to put the legislation back to what was generally assumed, rather than bringing in a new set of circumstances that would then impede someone ab initio.

I am concerned that the Minister has, rightly, found it necessary to talk about the review that will look at excessive and onerous conditions of bail that are being set and have been set in the past—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas—and overdue duration. That has caused me concern for some time, and the review is timely and important. I look forward to a debate, probably in the autumn or shortly after Christmas, on that very point.

On the point that we are considering today, which is putting the world back to what it was assumed to be prior to 19 May, the Bill has my full support.