Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 17th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, as a former police officer, I must tell the House that leaving the failure to abide by such a duty of candour to the police misconduct process, as the Government are asking us to do, is inadequate, as the decision on whether to investigate or take misconduct proceedings will be left in the hands of the police themselves.

If it is in the interest of the police that something is covered up, they will not investigate and they will not take action against the officers responsible. As the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, has just explained, her experience of the inquiry into the Daniel Morgan murder demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt the need for this amendment, and we support it.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I have not thought an awful lot about this, but the principle, which seems unarguable, is that police officers should have a duty of candour. They are not the only ones who should; many other groups might want to adopt a similar approach, but so far as the police service is concerned, which is what this amendment is about, it is rather unarguable. How it works ought to be clearly thought through, which I guess is why the Government are consulting on it. The only question I had, which I have just discussed briefly with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, is how this would work with the criminal disclosure process and how that would impact on any ongoing prosecution or, obviously, any separate public inquiry. However, that is a matter of implementation rather than of principle. In general terms, I see no reason why it should not be implemented for the police; perhaps others may consider it too.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, in the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, one of the challenges we faced was that the police were investigating the police—they were marking their own homework. Although Kent Police did a fantastic job, nevertheless there were areas where they could not quite press hard enough. They were very good in what they did, but it was not adequate, and therefore we proposed in the Stephen Lawrence inquiry that, whenever there is an incident, it should be investigated by an independent body.

This amendment would enhance that on the whole question of duty of candour. Again, during that inquiry we were given all the papers. There was no hidden stuff, so for that I must again congratulate the Met. However, this amendment is vital in order to support independent police inquiries, whenever there are areas of great concern. I hope nobody sees this as either intrusive or doubting that most of our police forces really want to do the best for their communities and places. Nevertheless, a duty of candour would impose a very good way of saying what concerns some people about the police, so I support the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I suspect I am going to be in a small minority of people who are supporting the Government tonight. Regardless of that, I think the police should have an opportunity to make something of their case. The only, or main, reason we are debating this tonight is because of the disruption that was caused at Oxford Circus, Heathrow airport and on the M25, some of which the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, referred to. It was dangerous at times and deeply disruptive to normal work around London and in other places where it took place. The police were criticised, and I must admit that at times I wondered why they were not using some existing powers around Oxford Circus, which looked like a fairly straightforward case of obstruction. I think they have made a case since, although they have gone a little quieter as the debate has approached, about the sort of help they need.

One of the things they needed help with is locking on. The law is not at all clear that just by locking on to something you have committed an offence. If you do not damage it, what is the problem? Well, it is fine until it disrupts the business or what people are trying to do, so I think there is a need to consider a change of law. If you are going to look for equipment that is going to be used for locking on, there is not much point unless you have a stop and search power. How are you going to find it? There is no power of prevention for these things. This is a power to try to prevent people arriving at a point where they can use the locking-on materials. People are worried about the random nature of stop and search without cause, but it is limited by geography, as it is for a limited area; by time, for a matter of hours; and by the seniority of the officer giving the authorisation. The Section 60 power already exists. Some people do not like it, but it is now relatively rarely used. Most stop and searches are under Section 1, where cause has to be given.

I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, that the class of the person you are about to stop and search is relevant in any way. The law should be equal for everybody, and whether people are middle-class or whatever their background, it not relevant in deciding what the law should be and whether we should intervene in people’s life.

On the power around the road network, the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, said that Labour would prefer that we should target only motorways and major highways. But some hospitals are on side roads. Some ambulance stations are also on quite minor roads, so they can be disrupted, as can police stations and fire stations. So I do not think the quality of the road is relevant for this purpose; it is the intent and the disruption that is caused by the protest when it occurs.

My final point is that it was said by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, that HMICFRS had called for the law to be changed to make sure that there is a proper record of public order skills around the country. I do not think that is a matter for law. It may well be that there is a need for more recording of skills, but, frankly, I do not think that is going to get us through this problem; you are going to have to have numbers of officers with the right powers.

The very final thing I shall say about these prevention orders is that the harm that these prevention orders are trying to remedy—

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

Given the noble Lord’s criticism of what I said, which he was perfectly entitled to make, does he agree that if the police without suspicion wrongly stop and search people who normally support the police very strongly and obey the law, it will diminish the respect in which they hold the law?

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

If someone is stopped and searched without good cause, either maliciously or for any other reason, I do not care whether they were a criminal in the past or a good person; it is a bad thing. Regardless of their background, there has to be a good cause for that stop and search unless the law says that it should be done without cause.

As I was saying about prevention orders, the reason that they were considered was that the rate at which people were being released from bail to return to the protest was overwhelming the ability of the police to deal with the disruption. That is what is being looked at, to see whether there is a possibility of exerting some inhibiting behaviour on the protesters. It would still not be easy. If protesters turn out in sufficient numbers, they will always overwhelm the police—that is the nature of a democracy—but in these disruptions, quite often relatively small numbers have disrupted many people and, frankly, put their lives at risk. So in fact it is a serious matter and the Government’s proposals are fairly reasonable. There may be things that people can argue at the edges, but I do not object to this and I support the Government’s proposals.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps I could deal with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, to begin with. My recollection is that the report on public order from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services showed that many officers did not want additional powers to deal with locking on. That is in the report. My experience is that the police are getting better and better at dealing with locking on, particularly people supergluing themselves to roadways—people are not now glued to the roadway for very long.

On hospitals that are on minor roads, the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, made it quite clear that he wanted the increased penalty of imprisonment for highway obstruction on the strategic road network where there is no realistic way around a blockage that has been put in. A hospital may be on a minor road, but there are other ways of getting to it, and I do not feel that that argument holds water. I will come to the noble Lord’s comments about the serious disruption orders shortly.

The Minister said that these amendments were debated in Committee. That debate started at 11.50 pm. The Minister stood up to make her closing remarks at 1 am. Does she really think that that is serious consideration and debate of these measures?

These government amendments were a hurried response to the Home Secretary’s knee-jerk, populist reaction to Insulate Britain protests at the Conservative Party conference. Consideration of this part of the Bill had to be taken out of order, to give civil servants time to cobble together these last-minute, ill-conceived, badly thought-through acts of desperation, introduced into this House late at night on the last day of Committee without any consideration by the other place. If the Government are determined to bring in these draconian, antidemocratic laws, reminiscent of Cold War Eastern bloc police states, they should withdraw them now and introduce them as a separate Bill to allow the democratically elected House time to consider them properly.

We oppose all these government amendments, for the reasons I set out in Committee—albeit in the early hours of the morning—and I refer noble Lords to the Official Report. Given the hour, we will vote against the most egregious measures: Amendment 151, which is clearly targeted at climate protesters; Amendment 155, which gives police the power to stop and search anyone and everyone in the vicinity of a protest, including innocent passers-by; and Amendment 159, by which the police can apply for an order to ban people from their democratic right to protest, even when they have never been to a protest in their life, let alone been convicted of any offence in connection with a protest. That is the power in these measures—you do not even have to have been to a protest to be banned from future ones. You do not even have to be convicted of an offence in connection with a protest before you can be banned from going to protests.

If the Official Opposition decide to vote on Amendment 148, on locking on, we will support them. We will also vote in favour of Amendment 150A, to restrict imprisonment for highway obstruction to blocking motorways and other parts of the strategic road network.

The anti-protest measures in the original Bill were dreadful. These measures, and the way they have been introduced, are outrageous.