Public Order Bill

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 14th March 2023 Lords Chamber

Honestly, it is a completely and utterly disproportionate clause. Really, it should be wiped out of the Bill, but we have failed; the Government will not listen. Perhaps they will listen to Motion B2 and at least we will have some more proportionality in it, but we will see. With that, I beg to move.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has not disappointed me. I am sorry for the Lib Dems and Labour that they have not tested the opinion of the House on Clause 11, although I understand entirely why: constitutionally, it is fairly straightforward. What the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said is exactly correct: stop and search without cause can be useful when there are dangerous conditions. We have had Section 44 of the Terrorism Act to protect certain places, so that rather than going through a great process of “Can I look in your jacket?” and all the rest of it, at Parliament, a nuclear defence establishment or wherever you happen to be, you could search without cause. Now, under Section 60 of the Public Order Act, you can stop and search without cause where there has been serious violence; when a senior officer declares it for a certain period of time, you can stop and search without cause.

There are two reasons for doing it. The principal reason is to deter—to stop the carrying of knives in a certain place—and the other is to detect, if somebody is silly enough to carry on doing it. On the point that the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, picked up, for which I am grateful, my view is that communicating to the public, at the point at which they enter an area, that they are liable to be stopped and searched without cause can help the conversation. This is never easy when you are a police officer because you have to say to someone, “I am going to stop and search without cause”, which causes you two problems: “Why did you stop me?” and “Why do you want to search me?”. Your short answer is, “I don’t know. I am trying to deter other people if you have done nothing wrong.” It can be useful at the most dangerous times if it is limited by time and properly monitored.

When people are protesting in a democracy, it is quite often when they are at their most emotional and they can get angry. They do not want the police to interfere in that at all. Usually, they are people who have never had any contact with the police in any way, so it really leaves the police officer in a pretty vulnerable place. These are generally the people you want to keep onside, not the criminals you have to challenge because that is what the law says.

It is a contentious power and we should be really careful before we give them that power, but not because I think the police are waiting to go out and have a go at people. As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, there have been times—I acknowledge this—when the power has been disproportionately used against minorities, particularly in this city. That history alone is a reason why I would be very careful, particularly in London; this is the place where this power is most likely to be used, because people will be protesting outside Parliament. Of course, they will be protesting in other places as well, but this place is probably more likely than most to see it used as a power and to be challenged to be able to use it.

I accept that it will not go any further. The changes proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, are reasonable attempts to restrict it. I worry a little about the practicality of 12 hours, as opposed to 24. Quite often people start travelling, particularly to London, at very early hours, usually by coaches or however they travel. That could be at 4 am if you are going to have the stop and search power. They do not usually leave the street until probably 6 pm to 8 pm, so it is getting a bit tight. You may say that we do not want it to be allowed to be used at all, but if you are going to have it, it has to be practical, and 24 hours is probably more sensible.

I say this again about some senior officer colleagues: you cannot always get hold of chief superintendents 24 hours a day. You are supposed to be able to, but they are not quite as available as inspectors, who are always there. I have seen at least one or two people who have had that experience in the past. They are the ones who are always there, 24 hours a day. They are the senior people, particularly around the rest of the country—probably less so in London—whom you would probably be able to get hold of to exercise the power. For that reason, I dispute using the chief superintendent, but I understand why that proposal was made.