Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Faulks Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks (Con)]

My Lords, this Bill, in 14 parts, will need a great deal of scrutiny. While I would like to address a number of parts to the Bill, your Lordships will be relieved to know that I do not propose to do so.

As a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, I have had the opportunity to look closely at the Bill. Many noble Lords will have seen a copy of our report, which includes the Government’s human rights memoranda and their lengthy responses to the various questions we posed.

As a committee, we looked at the Bill primarily through the prism of the Human Rights Act, but even if there were no such legislation, it would still be important closely to examine the scope of the Bill where it concerns the tension between civil liberties and the capacity of the police and other agencies to exercise control over anti-social behaviour. Much has been said already—and I expect will be said again—about the need to protect children and vulnerable adults from the potentially oppressive exercise of powers under this Bill, when their liberty can depend upon what is inevitably a subjective interpretation of what constitutes a nuisance and annoyance. This is a source of potential anxiety.

However, it is important to focus on the reason behind the legislation: the acute need to protect the victims of anti-social behaviour. It is in reality the poor, the mentally ill, the aged and the most vulnerable in society who are usually the victims of anti-social behaviour and whose lives can be made intolerable by it. They look to the police and other agencies to protect them. The Bill attempts to improve on existing powers and to provide better protection for them. It was to meet this need that the party opposite introduced ASBOs, and it was significant that during debate in the other place there was no suggestion from any members of any party that powers of this sort were not needed. With respect, Members of the other place, being in touch with their constituents, are in a good position to help on these issues. In fact, the shadow Home Secretary said that she thought that the provisions were “too weak”.

Although there are areas which will need careful examination, I broadly welcome the Bill. Of those areas that cause concern, one is clearly the expression “nuisance and annoyance”. It is considered by many to be too low a threshold, even though it has a pedigree in the housing context. I, along with many other noble Lords, have been lobbied by the Christian alliance, naturists and other not very homogenous groups who are concerned about the potential for their lawful activities to offend someone and thus fall foul of the legislation. The Minister will need to reassure your Lordships about this. The amendment suggested by our committee was not to scrap the clause, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said, but that the definition should be amended so as to refer to conduct that “might reasonably be regarded” as being capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to any person. This imports a degree of objectivity into the definition and might, together with reassurances given by the Minister in the other place, serve to allay some anxieties.

Removing people from their home is a drastic step and the committee was concerned that there were adequate safeguards in this regard. I am not at all convinced of the need for the power to evict those involved in riots. I do not doubt for a moment that rioters such as we had in the summer of 2011 should be dealt with firmly and swiftly—but that is precisely what happened. Evicting them seems a step too far. The current sentencing powers are quite sufficient.

I would like to say something about forced marriage but I will wait until Committee. Similarly, miscarriages of justice and their compensation may benefit from a prolonged debate, which they did not have in the other place. It is an exquisitely difficult problem, which noble Lords will have to confront, that successive courts have tried vainly to come up with a satisfactory definition of a miscarriage of justice. The proposal in the Bill has the benefit of clarity. The question for your Lordships’ House is whether its clarity and simplicity will in fact work an injustice in some cases.

Finally, I come to stop-and-search provisions. It was the committee’s view that the statutory power to stop, question and search travellers at ports and airports was not inherently incompatible with Articles 5 or 8 of the European convention. In our view, the Government had clearly made a case for a without suspicion power to stop, question and search travellers at ports and airports, given the current nature of the threat from terrorism. The question is whether there is a need for more intrusive powers being exercisable without reasonable suspicion and whether these powers should be exercisable only after an examiner or officer reasonably suspects that the person has been involved in terrorism. The Minister will be well aware of the evidence that the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, David Anderson QC, gave in this regard to the committee. Your Lordships’ House will need to be satisfied that the powers need to be quite as extensive as they are in the Bill.

Nevertheless, I am concerned about a wholesale challenge to the anti-terror powers—those, incidentally, exercised in the Miranda case. I know, as the Minister said, that the Government are awaiting a report on the Miranda case from Mr Anderson. The case that concerns me is one brought by a Mr Malik, who is apparently seeking to strike out these provisions, which originally come from Schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act 2000, and has obtained permission to go on to a full hearing—this whole-scale challenge being entertained by the Strasbourg court, notwithstanding the fact that the Home Office has made it clear that Schedule 7 examinations have produced information which has contributed to long and complex intelligence-based counterterrorist investigation. We as a committee found that there was a clear case to retain those powers, albeit that their extent might be questioned. Can the Minister reassure us that the Government propose to contest Mr Malik’s case?

There is a great deal to say about this Bill, and there are areas which we covered in our report and will cover in Committee. Your Lordships’ House is well equipped to examine the Bill carefully and I look forward to taking a prominent part, or at least a part, in the process.