Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) (Amendment, Surrender and Compensation) Order 2024

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, in 2021-22, 282 people lost their lives to knife crime—the highest number of people killed with a knife in over 70 years. The biggest increase was among boys aged between 16 and 17, going from 10 in the previous year to 24. Approximately four in 10 of all homicides were committed using a knife or a sharp instrument—the highest annual total since the homicide index began in 1946. There were 69 homicides where the victim was a teenager; in around three-quarters of those, the method of killing was a knife or sharp instrument, compared with 41% of all homicides.

Campaigners have been calling for a ban on zombie knives for several years, but progress on achieving one has been slow and several high-profile incidents have occurred since it was promised. These include the tragic killing of 15 year-old Elianne Andam, who was stabbed on her way to school in Croydon in September with what was believed to be a large zombie knife.

Meanwhile, this is the Government’s third attempt at banning zombie weapons since 2016. Bizarrely, the Offensive Weapons Act 2019 banned zombie knives only if they had threatening words on the blade. This proved a major loophole. Can the Minister explain why this loophole was not addressed sooner? Where was the sense of urgency then and where is it now? This ban will not come into effect until September, by which time, tragically, more lives may have been lost.

The Policing Minister, Chris Philp, told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme that although some swords will come under the new rules, some will not qualify owing to the difficulty of differentiating between those that could be used for violence and those kept for historical or religious reasons. He said that

“a regular sword, like the sort a historic soldier might carry, would probably not qualify. It would depend on the design”.

Is this still the case? If so, why could these swords not be included, given the availability of the historical importance defence? In any case, is not a sword, historical or not, capable of being used in violence?

Reducing the circulation of these weapons is not just about bans and sentences, important though both are. It is about cracking down hard on the sale of knives and swords of all kinds. Campaigners rightly want tech companies to introduce safety measures to stop knives being advertised online, so can the Minister update us on the progress of the relevant measures included in the Online Safety Act? How many prosecutions have there been in this area so far and how has this been policed?

I also want to speak about youth services, which have been cut by 77% over the last decade, despite the fact there is overwhelming evidence to show that youth centre closures are closely linked to youth crime. In 2020, the APPG on knife crime focused on the impact of youth centre closures across the country and found that each reduction in the number of youth centres corresponded to an increase in knife crime. This trend is confirmed by recent work from the University of Warwick, which reviewed London youth centre provision and found that crime participation among 10 to 15 year-olds increased by 10% in those London boroughs affected most by youth centre closures between 2010 and 2019.

Increasing jail time and banning zombie knives are welcome to increase deterrence and give police more tools, but they do not address the reasons why children and young people are carrying knives in the first place. As the representative of a Bristol school that had lost two of its teenage pupils due to knife crime said:

“Halving knife crime will not be achieved by banning machetes or … zombie knives. You can kill someone with a knitting needle or a screwdriver. You’ve got to deal with the anger, the fire, the rage, the angst, the trauma inside the person”.


That goes to the heart of this, and I hope that the Minister, as well as answering my specific questions, will also address himself to that challenge, because this is about tackling not just knife crime but the causes of knife crime. The British public and so many grieving families are looking to the Government to do both.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I have only a few things to mention. I support the legislation. It is necessary for all the reasons that the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, went through in the statistics about violent crime, and because these weapons are terrifying. I am not sure that they are always the most effective weapon at times because they are the hardest to hide. There probably are more effective weapons, but for anybody who sees them, particularly in a public place or if it is repeated in social media, they are just terrifying. Any attempt to restrict their availability and possession is a good thing.

The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee raised a few questions about the process, but I did not think it was fair to make the point that only nine prosecutions may be expected next year. That does not mean that this type of knife would be used nine times if it remained on the non-prohibited list; it is clear that they are being used far more often and not only when the police are involved. There is a far bigger case than the nine prosecutions anticipated in the response of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. My question is, in part, about the compensation scheme and, in part, about the effectiveness of this part of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

I think I have answered the questions. We keep offensive weapons legislation under review. We always seek to strike the correct balance between targeting criminals and respecting the activities of law-abiding citizens, but our abiding concern has to be the protection of the public, so by restricting the supply of zombie-style weapons, we are acting in service of that critical aim. The order before us is a proportionate, sensible measure that will further strengthen the Government’s efforts to prevent bloodshed and keep people safe.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

Would it be possible before the Minister sits down to ask two questions? My question about the value of a weapon was about whether manufacturers, retailers and wholesalers will be paid the wholesale trade value or the retail value of the weapon, if that is known. More importantly, they will have lists of people who had weapons sold to them, so will they be asked, encouraged or told that they must share their customer list with the police, who in my view should be expected to follow up on that?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

On the first part of the question, I do not know the answer. I will have to come back to the noble Lord. I think I tried to answer that when I was talking about the guidance. Obviously, the guidance has yet to be published. The noble Lord is 100% right, of course, that they should have those lists and they should consult them, but, as he knows, operational policing remains independent. The guidance will be published in June, and I think the noble Lord makes a very good point.

Emergency Services Network: Critical Communications System

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I obviously cannot answer that question as precisely as the noble Lord would like. Yes, 2029 is an aspiration, partly because of the functionality of Airwave, to which I have already referred. However, some aspects of ESN are already live. Three ESN products have gone live in the past two years: 4G data connectivity for vehicles, which is called Connect; push-to-talk and messaging capability on smartphones, Direct 1 and Direct 2; and a device that can monitor and assess coverage on the move. Significant work has gone into the EAS, which is blanket coverage across the country, while much of the hardware has already been put in place. The noble Lord draws far too bleak a picture.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest, including having carried out a review for the Home Office, part of which the Minister has referred to, which is the recommendation to refer to the monopolies commission. As he explained, Motorola purchased the legacy system and was paid around £250 million, while for the new system that it was about to deliver it would be paid £50 million. There was no financial incentive to deliver anything, and, perhaps consequently, it has not.

The only thing that reassures me at the moment is that the Government are going to look smartly at whether to discriminate between the radio system and data production. The big problem is that, nowhere in the world, at pace and at scale, has anyone shifted a radio system on to a telecommunication system. That is the fundamental problem. The transmission of data is not the issue—we do that on our phones all the time—but we probably need to carry on delivering the radio as it was and separate the data off. If we continue to try to combine them, I worry that it will become even more undeliverable than it has been to date.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a good point and I thank him for his perspective. He is right that the radio supply over the networks remains critical. As I understand it—and this answers one of the earlier questions from the noble Lord, Lord Harris—the technology is more proven than it was when the PAC last commented on it. It is being rolled out in other parts of the world; from memory, Korea is one of the countries where it is being tested. So some of those aspects at least have been dealt with.

Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 13th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Manningham-Buller (CB)]

No, this is what I want to establish. Just saying that he has been intercepted will lead that person to wonder how, so we cannot act covertly if there is any danger of sources being revealed or future operations being compromised.

Additionally, it raises the question of why Members of legislatures should have the privilege of being told that they have been subject to interception when members of the public never are. It is wrong, as it was, to treat parliamentarians as a particularly special case. Of course, such cases are highly sensitive, hence the triple lock; hence, I suggest, the rarity of this, but I think Amendments 50 and 54 are potentially damaging. I will shut up now.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise that I did not speak at Second Reading, but I was here. Perhaps for the same reasons, I strongly support what the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, has just said. It is secret that telephone interception is in place. If someone is aware, directly or indirectly, that the only way the Security Service or the police will discover a certain piece of information is by a telephone call, then it could be revealed, so it would require the law to be changed.

I have four worries about this amendment. First, at the point at which an interception is stopped, it is very difficult to predict whether the investigation will continue and/or be resumed. If the suspect is advised of the existence of the investigation, it gives them the potential to destroy evidence, which may frustrate the investigation in the long run, so I do not think it is wise to advise any suspect that they have been under investigation.

Secondly, there are two types of investigation: overt ones, where the person knows they are under investigation, and covert ones, where they do not. There is a general convention whereby if an investigation concludes without a charge, we have never told the person that they were under investigation. I am not sure why we would breach that principle merely because intrusive surveillance was in place.

Thirdly, as the noble Baroness mentioned, why would we do that only for Members of the legislature? It could be put in place, but there have to be some strong reasons. I do not think Members of a legislature can just say, “We deserve extra protection”. There has to be a stronger reason, because, otherwise, the rest of the public could rightly say, “Well, why can’t we have that protection?” For that reason alone, you would have to think very seriously about it.

Finally, sometimes Members of the legislature might be under investigation for things in their private capacity and sometimes for a mixture of the two; it might overlap into their legislative acts. Before anything like this was considered, I would take an awful lot of persuasion and I do not think the argument was made for why this needed to happen only for Members of the legislature.

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the points the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, made about Amendment 50 regarding the revelation of whether someone who is in a legislature has been tapped. I do not think that is possible. I think it has all sorts of practical difficulties which she rightly outlined, and that situation is something that I could not in any way support.

I want to come back to the issue of “unable” or “unavailable” with regard to the Prime Minister. I think that it is right that it should be “unable”, because of the gravity of the business of tapping the phone of a Member of Parliament or a devolved legislature. I suspect that such a possibility is hugely remote; it might not happen for years and years. However, when it does happen, it is exceptionally serious, because you are not only depriving that Member of Parliament of liberty—you are in many ways saying that the person who has been elected by his or her constituents as a Member of Parliament or of the Senedd, or whatever it may be, is now in some doubt as a public representative. That is hugely serious, so the triple lock is important, but the word “unable” is more serious a word than “unavailable”, and I support changing the word in the Bill.

I also very much agree with the noble Lords, Lord West and Lord Coaker, about the nature of the Secretaries of State who should be the substitute for the Prime Minister if the Prime Minister was unable to perform his or her duty with regard to tapping the phone of a parliamentarian. I tapped phones for three or four years almost every day, except at weekends—occasionally at the weekend, but mainly on weekdays—and I took it very seriously. I knew that I was depriving someone of their liberty and privacy; generally speaking, they deserved to be deprived of their liberty because of the horrible things that they might do. Sometimes, although very rarely, I would not sign them, because I was not convinced of the argument put to me.

Someone who has the experience over the years of dealing with warrants has an idea of the nature of the act of signing the warrant and how important it is. It is not simply about reading it and putting your name at the bottom—you have to think about it very seriously. Your experience develops as time goes by. In fact, when I was unable or, more likely, unavailable to sign warrants as Northern Ireland Secretary—if I was on the beach somewhere in the Vendée, as I occasionally was—somebody else would sign the warrants that I would normally have signed. It was generally the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, who was then the Home Secretary—and when he went on holiday somewhere, I signed his. The point about that was that, technically, almost every member of the Cabinet—because by then nearly every member was a Secretary of State—could have signed. But I knew, when the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, signed mine, that he knew what he was doing—and vice versa, I hope. Therefore, there should be some way in which we designate Secretaries of State who are used to signing warrants to be a substitute for the Prime Minister.

The other issue, on which I shall conclude, is that the debate so far is evidence of why it is so important that the Intelligence and Security Committee puts its views to this House, through the noble Lord, Lord West, and that the committee should look carefully at these matters.

Abortion Clinics: Safe Access Zones

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am afraid that it has not started yet; it will start imminently—and I mean imminently. The draft is ready; it is just a question of bureaucratic dotting of “i”s and crossing of “t”s. As soon as that is done, I will come back to the House to update your Lordships on the precise timelines of the consultation.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I am assured by the Minister’s own commitment to this legislation; he has made a clear statement. However, the concern that I have—having argued and voted for this legislation—is that the victims are still worried. They are already terrified sometimes when having this treatment and are further intimidated by some of the protests. Does the Minister agree that the consultation, important as it is, should not take so long? It is not very complex to implement; we have implemented greater criminal changes far more quickly.

Metropolitan Police: Operational Independence

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Lord invites me to speculate on what the Home Secretary thinks, which obviously I am not capable of doing. I refer him back to the comments that I have just repeated, made by the Prime Minister, and the fact that I have restated the policing protocol, which governs all these responsibilities very clearly.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, first, I apologise that I did not hear the Minister’s Statement—I was unaware that it had begun until I came into the Chamber.

To some extent, I will repeat what I said in last night’s speech. It is disappointing that all this debate is taking place in public. These are difficult decisions for politicians, as I have acknowledged in the past, and for police officers, to decide where they draw the line about either preventing protests or allowing a protest that might cause offence. It is not at all easy, particularly with such an emotional issue as the Cenotaph and Remembrance Day. There is an awful lot of passion involved on all sides.

However, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said, the process is that the police should decide whether they can police this march and whether they can apply conditions which would make the march less of a problem. Only if that will not work could they then consider having a ban, providing that it meets the high threshold of serious violence. What concerns me is that the making of these fine distinctions and wise judgments is taking place in public. It seems that rocks have been hurled across the press, when I would hope that these conversations could be had privately, for better effect and for the reassurance of the public.

National Crime Agency: Fraud and Economic Crime

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, has the time not come to simplify the investigation of fraud? As the noble Lord, Lord Browne, suggested, the crimes are massive and the response is weak, even with the investment the Government are about to make. The problem with local forces investigating is that violence always trumps theft, so resources are devoted more to violence. At the moment, the complex nature of the crime—crypto, cross-jurisdictional, online—is complicated further by a 43-force response, regional units, NCA, SFO; I could go on. Surely the time has come to have one force dedicated to prevention, detection and the recovery of assets.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord will be aware that the City of London Police partially fulfils that function. It prioritised investigators to the City of London as part of its recent increase in the numbers of police. Angela McLaren, the commissioner there, has a strong background in economic crime and its investigation, and the City of London Police runs an economic crime academy. The noble Lord makes an interesting point about having just one agency, but that agency is the National Economic Crime Centre, which co-ordinates all the various activities across the various police forces, including regional organised crime units.

Public Order Act 1986 (Serious Disruption to the Life of the Community) Regulations 2023

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Tuesday 13th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, raises some important broader questions to consider but I think she has overcomplicated what is a more straightforward problem. These instruments were brought into this House by the Government on Report, which was extraordinary enough in itself; the Government lost, and they have come back again. We are told that they have to come back because something really dramatic has happened: there is a whole new set of circumstances and the police do not have the powers to police this really difficult situation. Then, we find out that the new tactics are basically a load of people walking slowly in the middle of the road. People think, “Why don’t the police just arrest them, then?” They have a huge amount of power under public order legislation.

I was speaking at a meeting the other night and somebody said, “Why are the police not using the Highway Code to stop people walking slowly down the middle of the street?” It makes no sense that the only way the police can deal with this is if a statutory instrument is brought in that, constitutionally, completely warps the way the law should be made.

There is a serious danger that the law, and secondary legislation in particular, is being used because there is somehow a failure of the police to police and a failure of the Government to ensure that the police police. The frustration in all this is that while the police say that they do not have the powers to stop people marching slowly in the middle of the road, blocking everyone off, they suddenly spring into action rather quickly as soon as a member of the public gets frustrated and starts pulling down the barriers, dragging that person off, arresting them and so on. You can see that this is a mess. The Government have made the situation worse, and using the law in this way is discrediting in every possible way.

I saw somebody waving a placard at me on the way in that said, “Kill the Bill”, and I agree. I want this Bill to go away. I would love it to disappear. I hate everything about a lot of the things that were brought in through that policing Bill. Any civil libertarian does not want to lose liberties in the way we did; I agree with all of that. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, has said—and I take her at her word—that she has not brought in her fatal amendment lightly. She has lost sleep over it. That is fair enough; she is doing what she thinks is right in good conscience.

In the end, if the Government are behaving constitutionally irresponsibly and tearing up conventions, I am not prepared to imitate them. As far as I am concerned, the only way that we can behave, in good conscience, is to condemn the Government for what they have done, call on them to get the police to do their job and stop using the law inappropriately, and ultimately express our regret. We should not imitate them by unconstitutionally asserting in an unelected Chamber that we overthrow the elected House.

I so often disagree with the elected Members up the Corridor that it is boring. Who cares what I think? I am here not through the electorate or the public. We are all here because somebody put us here—goodness knows, that is a controversial enough matter—and we have no more legitimacy other than that somebody somewhere thought we were a crony at some point. They made a mistake there with me, let me tell you.

I am afraid that we should not put a fatal amendment through. However, this should be condemned absolutely through the regret amendment. I support the Labour amendment.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I will be very brief, your Lordships will be grateful to know. I support the regret amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, which I think is the right thing. I think the arguments made by the noble Lords, Lord Reid and Lord Rooker, are profound. The vote last night was clear. The Commons had the chance to get rid of it and did not.

The comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, made me think that it is important to remind us of just one thing. All the criticism of the police has been that, in the past, they have done too little when protestors have been doing too much. They have not done that just because they were being incompetent—although some may argue they were—but because the Supreme Court made a decision a few years ago which left them with some dilemmas. It said that obstruction of the highway was not merely a simple offence anymore. Obstruction of the highway requires no intent or recklessness. It is an absolute offence; you either block the road or you do not. But the Supreme Court said that far more than that has to be considered when making a decision about arresting someone. Is there an alternative route? Is there something else you could do to avoid this obstruction? That is fine if there is a planned protest. It is not fine if, at 5pm today, some poor inspector is confronted with a problem and has to resolve it. That is why this Act has been really important.

Part of this conclusion is about the definition. I agree entirely that this is the wrong way to include this definition. I do not think anyone, even the Government, argued that it is the right way. That is why I support the regret amendment. Providing an increased lack of clarity for the police is likely to lead to more problems rather than less. The problems were not just around the lack of clarity from the Supreme Court decisions but due to some of the protests that were taking place and the disruption they were causing—for example, around Heathrow and many significant things we need to keep our people safe and secure. The law was being abused in a way that was hurting too many people.

For all those reasons, I support the regret amendment put forward by Labour. I cannot support the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, although in my humble view it was the most powerful speech she has made while I have been here—though I am sure she has taken other opportunities that I have not seen.

[Noble Lords]

Front Bench!

Coronation: Policing

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Thursday 11th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

As I understand it, an operation called the Police Powers Unit wrote to five protest groups to inform them of the changes to public order legislation. It is obviously right that people who may fall foul of changes in legislation should be warned. As to who signed it and where that unit sits, I am afraid I do not know but I will find out.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, in general, would the Minister agree—I think he has already said this—that the operation seemed to go really well? I think over 11,000 officers were deployed. Hundreds of thousands of members of the public were able to attend and people were able to protest. There was a collection of heads of Government from many countries across the world, including our own, which always invites security issues, as well as protest and all the other things that go with it. The fact that so few people were arrested is pretty remarkable. If individual cases need looking into, people should take the opportunity to make a complaint or take civil action. That should not detract from the overall operation, which seems to have gone so well, together with the great ceremony on the day.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Well, I absolutely could not agree with the noble Lord more.

Public Order Bill

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 28th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, gave us a passionate reminder of the reason why there is so much public hostility to a lot of the types of tactics that have been used by protesters over the last year, which have undoubtedly fuelled support for the headlines associated with this legislation. As it happens, those arguments have been well rehearsed in this Chamber by all sides. It seems that, despite that, the demand for stop and search without suspicion will do absolutely nothing to tackle the problems that are described. I want to state that again: stop and search without suspicion. It seems extraordinary to me that anyone would imagine that that would have any impact whatever on the protesters that the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, described, but it will definitely have a chilling impact on protest in general.

As it happens, the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, is incredibly reasonable. It does not fly in the face of anything the Government are trying to do. It asks for some checks and balances, which, having read the report of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, you would think that the Government would welcome. In all seriousness, anyone reading that would have to think, “Oh my goodness—what happened?” To have a balancing amendment, which is what Motion A1 is, seems very sensible.

Finally, on Sunday, a group of women, some of whom I know, went to Speakers’ Corner as part of the Let Women Speak campaign. They were kettled and mobbed by hostile opponents. Regardless of what you think of that event, I mention it because the police stood by and did nothing. At one point, when things got really hairy, they walked off, leaving those women facing a lot of aggression.

The difficulty is that the police have acted inconsistently, erratically and almost in a politicised fashion when policing different demonstrations. I would like the police to use the powers they have—goodness knows, they have plenty of them—to police this country and protect those under attack. We do not need to give them new powers that they do not need to police this country or to police any aggressive demonstration that disrupts the lives of everyone, as noble Lords have said. We just need the police to do the job that they are paid to do. They do not appear to be doing so, and that is what the Casey report shows.

It is worse than that. We will do damage to the reputation of the police if this House, just for headlines, thinks that the Government will improve things—they will not. I urge your Lordships to support the police by not being disproportionate, and to support the public by asking the police to do their job without bringing in suspicionless stop and search, which is draconian in any country.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, having been mentioned by both Front Benches, I thought I ought to speak for myself, just to make clear my position.

We are not debating whether there is suspicionless stop and search but the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. To make clear my position, I support smart, effective stop and search, done according to the law, but it can cause problems, as the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, mentioned, and sometimes it causes a problem disproportionate to the benefit it produces. For as long as I was involved—certainly in London, but wherever I have worked—I have always supported its being used wisely.

In 2017, after the riots London experienced, one of my conclusions was that one of the causes or aggravating factors was the amount of stop and search being carried out. Over the two preceding years, people had either been stopped and searched or, as the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, mentioned, stopped and accounted around 2.6 million times. Bearing in mind that, at the time, there were only 8.4 million people in London and the vast majority stopped were men, that was an awful lot of times that some people were getting stopped. For that reason, we reduced stop and search by about two-thirds, and Section 60 searches—the suspicionless option—by 90%, and yet we arrested more people and reduced crime. So it is entirely possible to do it better and less. I support stop and search when done properly; that is my broad point.

On the back of what I just described, I introduced 23,000 officers with body-worn video. It can make a difference. It reduces complaints and proves that either the officer was performing badly or there was a lie being told about the officer. Either way, it should improve police behaviour, and on the whole it has. I go on to say that, at the moment, it is being switched on when there is an event to be filmed. I think there is a growing argument for it to be on all the time.

There are consequences to that, not least in cost and intrusion into privacy, particularly, perhaps, when an officer talks to a family or anybody with a child. The first thing they have to say is just that straightforward discussion that they are going to film it. It is not the best introduction anybody could have, but I think that the wider use of body-worn video is probably wise.

On a point that the Minister raised, I am glad to see the acknowledgement that there might be more communication of this suspicionless stop and search at protests. I do not support suspicionless stop and search in the Bill, and I voted against it, but that was not the amendment that was brought back, so I could not do anything about that. My point in that debate was that the communication should happen at the border of an area that people are about to enter where suspicionless stop and search is about to be exercised. Currently, whether it is a Section 60 or a protest, if you walk into that area, you just do not know. I do not think it is good enough to say, “Well, if you’d consulted the website, you’d have found out. Somebody has published a notice”. It is entirely possible, either digitally or by putting up posters—there are any number of ways. If you say to someone, “If you go into this area, there’s a protest or we have got Section 60 as there’s a lot of violence, and you run the risk of a without-cause stop and search”, I think you assist the officer in carrying out their job. So my point is about communication at the boundary at which you cross and where the suspicionless stop and search might be exercised.

That said, I do not entirely agree with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. There is one part of it which I do, but I am really not sure that this is the right way. I take the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, that this might be a way to send a signal, but I am not sure that this is the way for me.

In terms of officers exercising the powers conferred by subsection (6), the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, has made the point that she would prefer these particular amendments. Actually, within the Bill and the code, I think there is a stronger set of rules for the officer. They have to say what they expect to find, give a reason, explain why they are legally allowed to use the searches—Section 1 or Section 60—and that you can have a record of that search at that time or subsequently, within a year. Now, it seems to me that these are strong powers, and if you want to amend the things the Government have said they want to, the way is to amend the code. If you put these conditions in the Bill, you will end up with Section 1 and Section 60 searches going by the code and the protest ones being covered by the Bill. I think that there is at least a risk of confusion, and there needs to be consistency. The code might be amended in the way described but I am not sure that these powers alone form an awful lot of additional powers or, frankly, reassurance compared with what is already in the code.

The amendment says:

“Within one year of the passage of this Act, all police forces must establish a charter on the use of the powers in this section”


and that must

“be drawn up in consultation with local communities”.

My concern is that that runs the risk that it will be inconsistent across the 43 police forces that cover this country. Then you are going to end up with confusion: if you protest in Birmingham or London, you end up with a different set of charters. I do not think that is a very wise thing; if there is to be a charter, it is perhaps wise to have a national charter. But to have different circumstances in different parts of the country about protest, I just do not understand how that is going to work for the protesters or the police officers.

The amendment also says:

“Each police force must produce an annual report on the use of the powers”.


I think that could be put into the police’s annual report, which is produced each year anyway, but it could be more bureaucracy if we have another report to publish every year. What I do think is a good idea is:

“Within one month of the powers in this section being used, the authorising officer must publish a statement giving reasons”.


That seems entirely reasonable and something that I do not think anybody could object to. In fact, I think it should be published at the time that the power is declared. If you are going to tell the public that this power is going to be used, you can explain why you are going to use it. I think that is a perfectly reasonable thing, but I do not necessarily think that this amendment enhances what is already in place. I accept that it could send a signal, but I am not sure that it is a wise signal to send at the moment.

[Lord Morgan (Lab)]

My Lords, I had not intended to intervene in this fascinating discussion, but I will make one point and one point only. We are talking about the possible dangers of stop and search.

We have every opportunity of examining what is happening right now, not in this country—although we would if we proceeded with this Bill—but in France. In France, the use of extreme stop and search by an undisciplined police force, somewhat similar to our own, has accelerated and accentuated the problems that they have had, with the result that what were in themselves perhaps not objectionable practices turned into something very much worse—gender conflict, class conflict and, of course, very sadly, racial and religious conflict. So we do have on this continent examples of the dangers that could occur. We are choosing, in effect, the most extreme option of how to deal with civil disturbances and, indeed, with the exercise of human rights. I urge the House to act wisely and temperately and show the restraint and scrutiny for which it is justly honoured.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I will not repeat what I said last time, but since last time, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, said, we have had the Casey review. The noble Baroness, Lady Casey of Blackstock, is quite clear about what she thinks about stop and search. In that review, she says, as the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, has already said:

“The use of stop and search in London by the Met needs a fundamental reset. The Met should establish a charter with Londoners on how and when stop and search is used, with an agreed rationale, and provide an annual account of its use by area, and by team undertaking stop and searches”.


It is unfortunate that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, disagrees with the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, in coming to that conclusion. Elsewhere in the report she says:

“Stop and search—”

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

I think I am entitled to my opinion and to make the point which I made. I explained that I could live with a national charter, but I dispute the need for a local one, which ends up with the possibility, even if it is nitpicking, of inconsistency across the country, where we expect consistency. That was merely my point.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

The noble Lord is of course entitled to his opinion, and so am I. I said it was unfortunate that the noble Lord disagreed with the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. That is my opinion.

Elsewhere in the report, the noble Baroness says:

“Stop and search and vehicle stops are justified


—she meant by the police—

“through their compliance with the law, ignoring how such incidents are perceived, the impact on individuals, and the wider corrosive impact of trust in the police.”

The Minister mentioned body-worn video and so does the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. She says that the police want to use body-worn video to justify continuing to do what they have done in the past rather than what she says is needed, which is a fundamental reset. Body-worn video is not the answer. That should not be used by the police to justify continued disproportionality in their use of the power.

The noble Baroness further states:

“Black Londoners are under-protected—disproportionately the victims of homicides and domestic abuse; and over-policed—facing disproportionate use of stop and search and use of force by the Met. A huge and radical step is required to regain police legitimacy and trust among London’s Black communities.”


“Overpoliced and underprotected” is what a black policeman said to the Macpherson inquiry 25 years ago. It was not the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, but another black churchman giving evidence to that inquiry; here we are with another inquiry saying exactly the same thing 25 years later.

The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, cites a Home Affairs Select Committee report from 2021, which reported that, in the previous year, the equivalent of one in four black males aged 15 to 24 in London were stopped and searched in a three-month period. The noble Baroness says:

“The facts relating to stop and search are … around 70 to 80% lead to no further action … the more stop and searches are done, the greater the proportion of no further actions.”


The noble Baroness cites a 2019 research study that questioned the efficacy of stop and search as a tactic of policing. She quotes from that report, as do I. It says:

“Overall, our analysis of ten years’ worth of London-wide data suggests that, although stop and search had a weak association with some forms of crime, this effect was at the outer margins of statistical and social significance.”


The Minister repeatedly says that the power that we are debating today—the power to stop and search without suspicion—is based on the existing power under Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. The 2019 research goes on to say:

“When we looked separately at S. 60 searches, it did not appear that a sudden surge in use had any effect on the underlying trend in … violent crime.”


The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, concludes:

“Stop and search is currently deployed by the Met at the cost of legitimacy, trust and, therefore consent. … It has damaged trust. If the Met is unable to explain and justify its disproportionate use and the impacts of these, then it needs a fundamental reset.”


The majority of stop and search nationally—between 50% and 60%—is carried out in London. The majority—over 60%—of protests happen in London. The majority of times these powers are used will be in London. Stop and search in London needs a fundamental reset, and yet this Government have ignored this House and are giving the police even more opportunity to undermine their legitimacy, trust and, therefore, consent, by giving the police more powers to stop and search.

Without consent, the whole system of policing in this country is undermined, and that is what this Government risk with this legislation. We support the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and will vote for it, but we believe these new stop and search powers should not be part of the Bill. That is what we have always said and what we maintain.

The noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, cited various examples of what I think he called “disproportionate protests”. All the examples he gave are of criminal offences for which people can be arrested. The police do not need stop and search powers in addition to those powers of arrest.

The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, cited the 2017 riots and his view, his opinion, was that they were aggravated by the police use of stop and search. Lord Scarman said exactly the same thing about the 1981 Brixton riots. Will we never learn? I urge this House to vote for Motion A1.

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.