Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Wednesday 27th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, perhaps we should leave the reorganisation of the police to another occasion. The first attraction of Amendment 55 is its utter simplicity and simple, clear language. You have no idea how anybody who has had to spend a lifetime looking at criminal justice legislation greets with acclaim a simple piece of legislation, which this is. There is no misunderstanding about it. It does what it says on the tin. Nobody can reconstruct it afterwards or say Parliament had a different intention—it is there.

More importantly, the argument is irrefutable. I had prepared quite a long speech to make today—long by my standards—but I will not make it. We have heard the arguments. This is a special, national problem—full stop. The best solution to a special, national problem is for it to be dealt with nationally. I therefore support this amendment.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, first, I have absolutely no doubt about the Minister’s commitment to dealing with the sorts of offences we are talking about today, particularly violence against women and girls. I also have absolutely no doubt about the Government’s commitment to tackling those issues. This makes the Bill even more puzzling. We support all the amendments in this group, but I want to look at this from a slightly different angle.

This group of amendments is intended to ensure that certain categories of crime are always included in the serious violence duty. It raises the wider issue of what this whole chapter of the Bill is about. Crime and disorder partnerships—noble Lords will know from previous debates that I am quite keen on these—have for many years been responsible for a multiagency approach to preventing and tackling crime and disorder in their areas, including serious violence. They have the advantage of being able to assess what local needs are and prioritise the crime and disorder that is a particular problem in their areas.

In light of these well-established existing partnerships, one must ask why there is a need for an additional serious violence duty. There has been much concern about knife crime in recent years and Scotland has demonstrated how successful a public health approach to the problem can be, where police enforcement is just part of a multiagency, multipronged approach to tackling knife crime. There may be characteristics of the knife crime problem in Scotland and solutions tailored to tackle them there that may not be completely transferrable to other parts of the UK, but the general principle is sound: law enforcement is only one of many approaches that need to be brought to bear on a problem.

If the Government were focusing solely on this type of serious violence, one could understand, in the face of the growing public concern, that a public health approach to knife crime might be mandated—but that is not what the Bill says. However, there are clues in other parts of the Bill that that is what the Government were initially thinking. For example, we will shortly come on to offensive weapon homicide reviews and serious violence prevention orders, which are all about knife crime.

The Bill talks about serious violence generally, including threats of serious violence but excluding terrorism. It goes on to talk—in Clause 12(4)—about a list of factors that must be taken into account, such as: the maximum penalty that a court could impose; the impact on the victim; the prevalence of the violence in the area, and the impact on the community. Presumably, other factors could be considered when the local area is considering its own serious violence. This effectively makes any violence serious—for example, hate crime. Hate crime should be considered serious violence because, by definition, it has a serious impact on the victim.

Amendment 55, from the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, says that domestic abuse, domestic homicides and sexual offences should always be included in the serious violence duty. As the noble Lord, Lord Polak, said, how can any of these offences not be considered serious violence? If the Government do not accept this amendment, can the Minister say what types of domestic abuse, domestic murder or sexual offence are not serious, or in what areas they are not far too prevalent? Amendment 56 also includes stalking, for the reasons that my noble friend Lady Brinton so powerfully argued.

Amendment 57, from the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, includes all violence that results in emergency hospital treatment, or GBH—for very good reasons. As I mentioned in discussion on an earlier group, as the noble Lord did just now, the Cardiff model—that of sharing depersonalised accident and emergency information on knife and gun crime with the police—has proved invaluable. Furthermore, as the definition of serious violence includes threats of serious violence, my noble friend Lady Hamwee is quite right to point out that social media and other electronic communication—the impact of which may go beyond the geographic area for which the authorities that have a serious violence duty have responsibility—require a duty that goes beyond a single area.

In defining serious violence in such a wide way, the Government must either accept that all violence has the potential to be serious, or risk being accused of saying that violence associated with hate crime, violence against women and girls, domestic violence, and almost any other form of violence, is not serious, or should not be treated as serious in every police area.

What the Government should have done, and what they should do now, is go back and look at crime and disorder partnerships, which are already established and responsible for preventing and tackling all forms of crime and disorder—as their consultation on this issue said they should. They should look at where crime and disorder partnerships need to be strengthened —whether, perhaps, to include partners not currently involved—or where legislation needs to be changed to facilitate co-operation and the exchange of information, instead of mandating others to provide information to the police to enable a police-led enforcement approach to tackling serious violence—whatever that means. Of course, we will support all the amendments in this group for as long as the Government continue with such a broad definition of serious violence.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, like other noble Lords I await with interest the Government’s response to all the amendments in this group. My name also appears on Amendment 55, which, at the beginning of this debate, was so ably and comprehensively moved, as we knew it would be, by the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin. This issue was raised by the shadow Minister for Policing in the House of Commons, and I only hope it receives a more enthusiastic hearing from the Government in this House, given that it is being presented with such strong cross-party support across the House.

The serious violence duty introduced by this Bill, as we know, requires local authorities, the police, fire and rescue authorities, specified criminal justice agencies and health authorities to work together to formulate an evidence-based analysis of the problems associated with serious violence in a local area and then produce and implement a strategy detailing how they will respond to those particular issues. Prison, youth custody and education authorities may also need to work with these core partners.

As more than one noble Lord has said, the amendment is clear and straightforward in its intention, which is to make clear in the Bill that the definition of serious violence for the purpose of the serious violence prevention duty includes domestic abuse, domestic homicide and sexual offences. That begs the question of why this amendment is necessary. As the noble Lord, Lord Polak, said, and he was not the only one, is it not obvious that domestic abuse, homicide and sexual offences must come within the definition of serious violence? Apparently it is not. Despite domestic abuse representing one-third of violent crime recorded by the police and despite 20% of all adult homicides and 50% of adult homicides where the victim is female being domestic homicides, the Government’s serious violence strategy does not recognise domestic abuse and sexual violence as forms of serious violence.

No doubt, that is one explanation why between April 2014 and March 2020 the annual number of domestic abuse-flagged cases referred to the Crown Prosecution Service by the police fell by 37%, with similar declines in prosecutions and convictions. No doubt, it is also one explanation why over the same period of time the annual number of prosecutions in rape-flagged cases fell by 55% and the annual number of convictions fell by 44%. No doubt, also, it is one explanation why in the year ended March 2020 only 9% of domestic abuse-related crimes and 1.4% of rape-flagged cases recorded by the police led to a charge or summons.

This Bill’s proposed serious violence prevention duty places a requirement on public authorities to collate and plan to prevent and reduce serious violence. While Clause 12 explicitly includes some named forms of violence, such as violence against property and threats of violence, to ensure that they are regarded as a form of violent crime across the board, violence against women and girls is not put in the same category, even though rates of domestic abuse and sexual violence, as so many other noble Lords have said, are consistent across England and Wales and do not vary greatly from one area to another.

Instead, intended Home Office guidance simply says that local areas can consider violence against women and girls as part of the new duty if they choose to and not that it is expected. Clearly, the Home Office is not too fussed one way or the other what areas decide on this very serious issue. There are attacks on statutes, and the Home Office gets very troubled. There are violent domestic attacks on human beings, particularly women, and the Home Office, however different the reality may be, appears so laid back that it wants to leave it to other people to make their own decisions on whether to regard these attacks as serious violence. It appears to want to leave it to other people to decide whether these dreadful attacks come within the scope of the serious violence prevention duty and the requirement on a range of public bodies, including local statutory agencies and the police, to work together to prevent and tackle serious violence with the aim of reducing the numbers of victims and perpetrators of such dreadful crimes.

Explicitly including domestic abuse, domestic homicide and sexual violence in the sexual violence reduction duty and its multi-agency approach would send a clear message to the police, prosecutors and a range of statutory agencies, including local agencies, that violence against women and girls is just not acceptable and that they all have to play a crucial role in tackling it.

At the moment there appears to be a distinction within the criminal justice system so that violence that takes place in the home or at the hands of an intimate partner is regarded as less serious than violence perpetrated in the public sphere. Only around one-half of police forces, as I understand it, have opted to take up Women’s Aid’s Domestic Abuse Matters specialised training on domestic abuse. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, said, only eight of the 18 violence reduction units established in police force areas, which are funded by the Home Office and considered forerunners to the new violence prevention duty, name domestic abuse in their strategies.

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[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches want to probe whether Clause 13 needs to stand part of the Bill. Can the Minister explain to the Committee why there is a need for legislation to allow a local policing body, presumably a directly elected mayor or a police and crime commissioner, to assist in preventing or tackling serious violence?

I could understand if the clause stated that local policing bodies must assist or monitor what specified responsible authorities were doing and must report their findings to the Home Secretary, but that is not what it says. It says that such assistance, monitoring and reporting are voluntary, in that these bodies “may” assist, “may” monitor and “may” report.

Subsection (4) states:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision conferring functions on a local policing body”.


Does that mean that, although in primary legislation—the Bill—all this is voluntary, the Secretary of State can by regulation make it compulsory?

Subsection (5) states that the functions contained in regulations

“may include provision ... for a local policing body to arrange for meetings”.

Why does the Secretary of State need to pass regulations for a directly elected mayor to hold a meeting? Can the Minister explain why Clause 13 needs to be part of the Bill at all? We on these Benches are struggling to understand why.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for this stand part debate. If the Committee will forgive me, I will say, as quickly as I can, a word or two about how I perceive the role of police and crime commissioners up until now.

Clause 13 is clearly an important element in establishing, from the Government’s point of view, a serious violence reduction duty on a more statutory basis—if I can put it that way—than exists presently. This obviously involves police and crime commissioners in particular. It is important to remember—I think this is what the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, was getting at, in part—that police and crime commissioners have, in their nine-year existence, voluntarily worked hard to establish partnership working and commission partnership services. In many cases, they have taken a lead in those partnerships.

There is a fundamental misunderstanding—not, I am sure, in this Committee—that, somehow, the only real role for police and crime commissioners is to hold their police force, and the chief constable in particular, to account. That is a crucial part of their duties, but I point out—the Committee does not need this pointing out—that they are not just police commissioners but crime commissioners as well. At the very least, they should have a significant duty to find ways to prevent crime and its effects on victims and society, working alongside partners, of course.

This is not about dealing with crime that has taken place, whether it is antisocial behaviour or serious violence. It means dealing with what has become a hackneyed phrase but is crucial here: the causes of crime, going back to early childhood development and early intervention. It is always about poverty and its effect on crime. It is about bad and lousy living conditions, and it always involves looking after the vulnerable, whoever they may be—we are all vulnerable at some stage or other in our lives. Above all, it is about preventing lives being thrown away, whether they are those of victims or perpetrators. I have to confess—noble Lords may have already realised that this is what I am about to say—that this kind of work or duty, as I call it, gave me and many other police and crime commissioners the greatest buzz of all.

It was crucial to achieving anything that one worked with partners, local and national, very much including government. To their credit, the Government set up violence reduction units, changed their support—I do not mean that in any bad way—and became very keen on the public health approach to dealing with these matters. That was a huge and important change, and many of us were convinced by the work that we did and seeing what happened in Scotland that this was the right course to take.

Where I was police and crime commissioner, we have what we call a violence reduction network, rather than a unit. I argue that it has achieved quite a large amount already, with great projects. My predecessor as police and crime commissioner for Leicestershire ran and started an office of the police and crime commissioner-run strategic partnership board, or SPB, which, by the time I left office, included all—I mean all—of the main public services in the area covered by the force, from local government to health, education, the police, fire and ambulance services and more.

The other example I give is that I was the chairman of the East Midlands criminal justice board. Other police and crime commissioners were chairs of their local boards or whatever they chose to call it. Clearly, if Clause 13 and other parts of this chapter pass into law, there will be—I am guessing that this is how the Government will put it—more statutory backing for this way of approaching the serious violence reduction duty. I am not against that in principle, but my one concern is that, in my experience, police and crime commissioners are a little bit like elected mayors: if they are good, they are very good, and they can make a huge difference, but if they are not so good, they can make a huge difference the other way.

I was lucky in that I had a brilliant team working for me in my office. As it happens, it has been decimated by my successor, but that is for another day, certainly not for today. Also, when I was there, other police and crime commissioners, whatever their party politics or lack of it, seemed to me to be able people who wanted to do the right thing and were very committed. As the noble Baroness and the Committee will know, many new police and crime commissioners were elected in May this year, which is no doubt a good thing, and many more of them were women—it is about time, too. It is too early to say whether they will grab these extra opportunities, but I hope that they will.

There are two big issues as far as the future is concerned in the real world. One, of course, is data sharing, which the Bill is very concerned about, and so it should be. So often, people of good will get together on behalf of organisations that are not prepared to share data. That has to change in this area, otherwise there will be no achievement. The second issue—I hate to mention it but it is the usual one—is funding. If we are going to fund all these exciting proposals, it will require government to take a leading step in that.

I am grateful to the Committee for listening to my speech. I thought it might be useful in terms of this clause.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. Clause 13 provides a power for a local policing body—namely, a PCC, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, or the Common Council of the City of London in its capacity as a police authority—to assist authorities in meeting the requirements of the serious violence duty. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, was absolutely correct, as was the noble Lord, Lord Bach—as I always say, we are immensely lucky to have Parliament’s only PCC in our place; the benefit of his experience is incredibly useful.

Local policing bodies have an important part to play in convening partner agencies. PCCs and the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, as elected local policing bodies, are the voice of the local community in relation to policing and crime. This is reflected in their current functions in relation to community safety partnerships. Local policing bodies are responsible for the totality of policing in their force area—the noble Lord, Lord Bach, pointed out some of the things that they get involved with—as well as for services for victims of crime. They will therefore have shared objectives in relation to the prevention and reduction of serious violence. That is why this clause provides local policing bodies with a discretionary role in supporting specified authorities with the preparation and implementation of their strategies, as well as monitoring their effectiveness and impact on local serious violence levels. I underline that the PCC role is discretionary and that it cannot be mandated through regulations.

The PCC, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, and the Common Council of the City of London will not be subject to the serious violence duty as specified authorities. However, as with the existing functions of these local policing bodies in relation to community safety partnerships, they may choose to collaborate with local partnerships. They may also take a convening role to support effective multiagency working.

Regulations made by the Secretary of State may provide further detail on the ways in which local policing bodies may assist specified authorities, including convening and chairing meetings, requiring certain persons to attend such meetings and providing funding to a specified authority to support the implementation of the local serious violence strategy. They will also have a power to require information for this purpose, as set out in Clause 16. In undertaking their monitoring functions, local policing bodies may report their findings to the Secretary of State to ensure compliance with the duty.

Specified authorities will have a duty to co-operate with local policing bodies when requested to do so. However, we have made clear in the draft support guidance the need for the relevant local policing body to consider the proportionality of additional requests and anticipated costs to specified authorities before making any such requests.

The overall objective is to provide additional support and leadership, if and when required, and not to place additional burdens on those authorities subject to the duty. The approach is very similar to arrangements in place for CSPs. There has been a mutual duty on PCCs and CSPs to reduce offending since the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011. I am sure noble Lords will agree that, to engender an effective multiagency approach to preventing and reducing serious violence, we must ensure that all relevant parts of the system play their part and have sufficient support in place to enable them to do so. We believe that local policing bodies, including PCCs, are best placed to provide that support. I take also the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, about funding.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

I have just a couple of questions. First, what aspects of Clause 13 are local policing bodies currently not allowed to do that the clause allows them to do? Secondly—and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for articulating what is in the guidance—my understanding is that crime and disorder partnerships could be the mechanism chosen to deliver on the serious violence duties in a particular area, or it could be a different mechanism, and the police and crime commissioner might want to be part of that or might not. That does not appear to provide the clarity of leadership and accountability necessary to deliver a serious violence strategy. Perhaps the Minister can explain how this all works.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I shall try to. At the moment, PCCs and other local policing bodies have the powers to work with the specified authorities to support multiagency working. The serious violence duty is a new duty, and the legislation clarifies how it will fit together. PCCs are the elected bodies; they work with local forces. The multiagency working can be through the CSPs, or there is flexibility around how the local partnerships are constituted. Because it is a new duty, it is definitely worth clarifying in legislation how it might work out.

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[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I have to support what I have just heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, for reasons we began to articulate on Monday evening. Noble Lords will remember we began to have a discussion about what is to be shared and in what circumstances existing duties of confidence and existing professional duties need to be overtaken in the public interest. But who decides? The Minister kindly gave me a very specific answer at one point in our discussion, when she said that it will be decided by the person who holds the data, but, obviously, that can be subject to challenge. That of course is my traditional understanding of professional confidence.

Way before this, and way before the Crime and Disorder Act, that was the traditional position: if the doctor, the teacher or whoever is not minded to hand over to the police the data about a specific person, or more general data, the police will have to go to the courts and try to get a warrant. That is the place for those hopefully rare disputes between professionals and the police, who are coming at this from different positions, to be decided, rather than being decided by direction from the Secretary of State.

Of course, normally, we want the health professionals, the policing professionals and the educational professionals to be working in discussion and collaboration, but, where there is a rare dispute because of their different professional angles and ethics, it really is for a judge to decide and not for the Secretary of State to trump all those existing ethics and duties. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, is nodding at me. That is the concern I hope the Minister can address in her explanation and defence of Clause 17.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to support the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, taking us back to very late on Monday night, if the Minister remembers, when we were discussing Clause 15, on the disclosure of information. The Minister—I think, from memory, although it was late—implied that the disclosure of information was voluntary and that the clause was there simply to facilitate the disclosure of information. In challenging the Minister in that, I quoted from Clause 17.

I can be brief. Clause 17 enables the Secretary of State, if satisfied that a specified authority, educational authority or youth custody authority has failed to comply with the duties to collaborate or disclose information—including, presumably, sensitive personal information and information covered by a duty of confidentiality—to direct the authority to comply and enforce her direction through a mandatory order. That is what Clause 17 says.

I have already explained at length why professionals should use their professional judgment—as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, just said—within existing policies, procedures, practices and protocols, rather than being forced to divulge sensitive personal information when it is not, on balance, in the public interest to do so. For example, there will often be a greater good to be derived from maintaining a relationship between, say, a youth worker and a young person at risk of becoming involved in serious violence than from divulging sensitive information to the police. All authorities dealing with these issues are committed to preventing and tackling serious violence. They may, from time to time, have a different perspective on the problem, or a different view on the best way to achieve what we all are desperately seeking to do.

This clause is one of the reasons why so many organisations believe that the Bill is really about a police-led enforcement approach, because it is the Home Secretary who can force them to comply, rather than the public health, multiagency, multifaceted approach that has been so successful in preventing and tackling knife crime in Scotland. Can the Minister give examples of where public authorities involved in preventing and tackling serious violence have obstructed efforts to achieve those objectives? If not, why is this clause necessary? We believe that Clause 17 should not stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, this group starts with government Amendment 72, which I will say a brief word about. The amendment requires the Secretary of State to obtain the consent of Welsh Ministers—not just consult them—before giving a direction under Clause 17 to a devolved Welsh authority. I understand that the change was requested by the Welsh Government, and we support it on this side of the House.

I turn to the debate on whether Clause 17 should stand part of the Bill, which was tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, who introduced it, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. Their explanatory statement says that:

“The purpose of this amendment is to explore the extent of the Secretary of State’s powers to issue directions under this section and the consequences of failure to comply with such a direction.”


A number of very searching questions have been raised, and I have a few questions myself. It would be helpful if the Minister could give some more information on what a “direction” might be and what it might consist of under this clause. The central point made by both the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, was about the context of police-led enforcement rather than a more equal arrangement between other agencies such as education and the National Health Service.

In the House of Commons, the Minister said that it is envisaged that this power will be used extremely rarely. Nevertheless, could the Minister give an example of when this power might be used and what checks might be in place when it is used? What would the prior steps be before a direction is considered? How would an authority’s progress in acting upon a direction be measured? Further, can the Minister say something about how the Government see this power working in practice?

I thought the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, raised a particularly interesting question about what the sanction might be if a public servant fails to comply with an order to disclose information. My noble friend Lady Chakrabarti also spoke of the rare disputes between professionals and how these may be resolved by direction from the Secretary of State, rather than through the courts. She gave a historical context, if you like, to that status of professionals making their own judgments.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right about data protection but there are exemptions. One is the detection, prevention and reduction of crime.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

I am grateful to the Minister. I think I need to read what she said and compare it with what is in other clauses in the Bill because, although it is difficult to hold everything in one’s head, I am not sure that everything she said is consistent with what is in the Bill.

However, there are two specific questions that the Minister did not answer. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, asked what the sanction would be for failure to comply. Is it right that a mandatory order is an order of the Administrative Court to comply with a legal duty, and therefore failure to comply with a mandatory order would be in contempt of court? The second question, which I asked, was: can the Minister give examples of where public authorities involved in preventing and tackling serious violence have obstructed the efforts to achieve those objectives? If not, why is the clause necessary? I do not expect the Minister to have examples at her fingertips but perhaps she could write.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

I thank the Minister for her response on Clause 17. However, I wish to express a bit of concern. Although she assured the Committee that an individual doctor or youth worker would not be required to provide information, nevertheless an authority might well provide information, without consulting the individual doctor or youth worker, that would identify individuals who were receiving services in that authority. After the Minister’s response, I am not at all clear that we can be completely sure that this will not happen; I believe that there should be some wording in these clauses to specify that information from authorities about individuals would not be accepted if they provided it. This is an incredibly dangerous situation if individuals find that their authority has been divulging information to the police; it could destroy the efficacy of our public services—it is that serious.

I am not trying to be awkward; I just feel that we need some assurances in these clauses that individuals will not need to be concerned about the disclosure of information about them. Various subsections in Clauses 15 and 16 and so on indicate that, in looking at data protection, you must take account of the regulations in this Act. It is quite complex but it is not reassuring, if I may say so.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, before the noble Baroness withdraws her objection to the clause standing part, I remind noble Lords that we are in Committee and can speak as many times as we like.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

I have had enough.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, it might be helpful to the Committee if I clarify what may be a slight confusion. The group was led by Amendment 72 but noble Lords will recall that Amendment 72 was agreed to in its place. The question that the Committee now has before is that Clause 17, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

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Moved by

[Lord Paddick]

73: Clause 18, page 17, line 17, at end insert “and contained in regulations”
Member’s explanatory statement
The aim of this amendment is to ensure that the guidance under this Clause is able to be scrutinised by Parliament

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 73, I will speak also to Amendment 74 in my name.

Clause 18 states that those authorities that are, under this chapter of the Bill, under a duty to prevent and tackle serious violence

“must have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State”.

However, in the Bill, the only people the Secretary of State must consult are Welsh Ministers. As we will see in a later group, when it comes to similar guidance in relation to offensive weapons homicide reviews, Clause 31 requires the Secretary of State to consult

“persons appearing to the Secretary of State to represent review partners”

and

“such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.”

That is in addition to Welsh Ministers.

We on these Benches believe that the Secretary of State should also consult representatives of the authorities that will be subject to the guidance, and such other persons as may be appropriate to consult. That is the intention of Amendment 74. We also believe that such guidance should be statutory—that is, contained in regulations—to enable Parliament to scrutinise the guidance before those involved become subject to it, as set out in Amendment 73. I beg to move.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, we support the amendments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. On Amendment 74, we believe it is vital that the Government should consult front-line organisations on the content of the guidance. They are the ones who know how this will, or will not, work in practice and their expertise is the driving force behind the duty. The Government have of course published draft guidance on this, and I ask the Minister whether this guidance is being consulted on.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, that was quick for a Committee debate. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for setting out the case for these amendments, which relate to the power to issue guidance in relation to the serious violence duty. I am sure we all agree that legislation works far better, in practice, when it is implemented alongside clear guidance. In the case of the serious violence duty, we want to ensure that the guidance is clear on the expectations of all specified authorities, that it provides sufficient advice in meeting them and that it highlights best practice from across England and Wales. It is also crucial that such guidance is developed in collaboration with and with input from those who will be subject to the legislation and those who represent them to ensure that it is fit for purpose.

That is why, prior to the implementation of Chapter 1 of Part 2, we will publicly consult on the guidance to support the duty. As a first step, we have published the guidance in draft to assist the scrutiny of these provisions. I have a copy of it here. We welcome feedback on the draft and will take that into account when preparing an updated draft for consultation following Royal Assent to the Bill.

Clause 18 already expressly requires consultation with Welsh Ministers, as the noble Lord said, in so far as the guidance relates to the exercise of functions under this chapter by a devolved Welsh authority. But we are committed to going further and, as part of the public consultation on the statutory guidance, we intend to invite views from key representative bodies and other relevant persons, such as the Children’s Commissioner and the domestic abuse commissioner. Given this commitment, I do not think it would be appropriate, at this point, to include a broader duty to consult in the Bill.

The stated aim of Amendment 73 is to enable the guidance to be scrutinised by Parliament. In principle, I have no difficulty with that at all; it is open to Parliament to scrutinise guidance at any time. However, the effect of this amendment, when read with the provisions in Clause 21, would be to make the guidance subject to the affirmative procedure. I am not persuaded that this level of scrutiny is necessary—and nor, for that matter, was the DPRRC, which recommended that the negative procedure should apply in this case. We are carefully considering that committee’s report and will respond ahead of the next stage. In light of the commitments I have given, would the noble Lord be happy to withdraw his amendment?

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister, but it was actually me who proposed these amendments.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I do apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My ventriloquism skills are not so good that the Minister would think I was the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. But I am glad that the Minister is going to consider the regulations again. I am not sure that the intention of my amendment was to ensure that guidance would be approved through the affirmative procedure. Any procedure would be better than no procedure at all, and it does not look like there is any provision in the Bill for parliamentary scrutiny of guidance, so I am grateful for that undertaking. I will go back and look again at a later part of the Bill, which includes the need to consult on guidance. I may need to come back on Report and again challenge why, in that part of the Bill, guidance has to be consulted on, but not in this part. Having said that, I withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 73 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Paddick]

75: Clause 23, page 22, line 7, at end insert—
“(c) no other mechanism is available to review or hold an investigation or inquiry into the death”Member’s explanatory statement
The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that the reviews conducted under Clause 23 do not duplicate any other review taking place into the same death, for example a Coroner's inquest.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 75 I will speak also to Amendments 76 and 77 in this group, all in my name. We now come to offensive weapons homicide reviews and there are two points I will make initially. The first is to point to the evidence that the provisions on this in the Bill were probably, quite rightly and properly, about knife crime. Chapter 2 is about offensive weapons homicide reviews and, predominantly if not almost exclusively, homicides involving offensive weapons are knife crime offences.

Secondly, as with Chapter 1, the primary motive of the Government is to produce the illusion of doing something when the changes in the Bill have little practical beneficial effect. As we argued in Chapter 1, the Government’s approach potentially does more harm than good. Amendment 75 is a probing amendment to ask the Government why, just as Chapter 1 should have strengthened existing crime and disorder partnerships, this chapter should not strengthen the already considerable and comprehensive powers of coroners, if this were necessary, rather than creating a new and separate legal duty to conduct offensive weapons reviews—other than the obvious explanation that the Government could point to it and say they had done something about knife crime.

For every death where the cause of death is still unknown, where the person might have died a violent or unnatural death or might have died in prison or police custody, a coroner must hold an inquest. Clearly every qualifying homicide, as identified by Clause 23, and every potential qualifying homicide, even if the Secretary of State changed the definition by regulations, as subsection (7) allows, would be subject to a coroner’s inquest. Paragraph 7 of Schedule 5 to the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 provides coroners with a duty to make reports to a person, organisation, local authority, or government department or agency, where the coroner believes that action should be taken to prevent future deaths. All reports, formerly known as rule 43 reports, and responses must be sent to the Chief Coroner. In most cases, the Chief Coroner will publish the reports and responses on the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary website. Coroners are very powerful members of the judiciary. Attendance at a coroner’s court takes precedence over an appearance at any other court, if a witness is required to attend more than one court at one time, for example.

Can the Minister tell the Committee what consultation took place with coroners before this chapter was drafted? What was their response? What additional benefit would an offensive weapons homicide review have over a coroner’s report? If benefits were identified, what consideration was given to the coroner, rather than a review partner, being given the power to order a homicide review? Can the Minister also explain what happens if one of the review partners considers that none of the conditions in Clause 23(1) is satisfied, but another review partner considers that the conditions are met? Does the review take place despite the review partner’s objection, and, if it does, does the review partner that objected have to participate if it does not believe the conditions are met? Is there a hierarchy of review partners? So, if the police believe the conditions are met, must the review go ahead? And if a clinical commissioning group believes that a review should go ahead, but the police do not believe the conditions are met, does the review take place and do the police have to participate?

The Government may say that all this will be set out in regulations, but the existing provisions in the Bill are a shell of an idea, where this Committee is left to guess what actually happens in practice; what a qualifying homicide is, because that can be changed by regulation; who the review partners will be, because that will be set out in regulations; and what happens if there is disagreement among review partners about whether the conditions are met.

We already have child death reviews, domestic homicide reviews—on which more in a subsequent group—safeguarding adult reviews, and, now, offensive weapons homicide reviews. With the Bill as drafted, how many of the sadly too many knife crime deaths a year will be subject to a review? According to the Bill, factors that decide whether a review is necessary may include, for example, the circumstances surrounding the death, the circumstances or the history of the person who died, or the circumstances or history of other persons with a connection with the death, or any other condition the Secretary of State sets out in regulations. How many reviews do the Government believe will have to be conducted each year by our overstretched police, local authority and health services? I ask the Minister to not give the answer: “It depends what conditions are contained in the regulations”.

Amendment 76 is intended to ensure, as with the serious violence duty, that professionals, including doctors and counsellors, are not forced to disclose sensitive personal information that is subject to a duty of confidentiality, unless, in exceptional circumstances, it is in the public interest to do so, and in accordance with existing policies and practices, although I accept that these may be less stringent in the case of information regarding the deceased.

As before, Clause 31 says that review partners must have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State, but there is no mention of parliamentary scrutiny of such guidance. My Amendment 77 requires the guidance to be laid before Parliament to ensure parliamentary scrutiny. I beg to move Amendment 75.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, I am glad to support my noble friend in questioning whether the processes outlined in this clause should be altered so that they protect the procedures that we already have and have had for a thousand years, to use the system of coroners to investigate unexplained deaths of a wide variety of types. Instead, we have the offensive weapons homicide review added to the system. It is unclear how this will relate to the coroner’s duties in a situation where such a death has occurred, because the coroner’s duties do not disappear because we have legislated this system into existence. I hope the Minister will clarify this point.

There was a time when the Government might have felt that the system of coroners was not quite up to the job in some areas. We had problems over the years with inconsistencies in standards of coroner, but considerable attention has been given to that in recent years and I think the system now has much more consistency about it. We are not subject to some of the problems of particular localities which existed in the past. The creation of a Chief Coroner, although in a more limited way than originally envisaged, I think has helped in that process.

It seems to me that the Government are not saying that the coroner system cannot handle this, they are simply legislating for an additional mechanism, because that seems to be a good, visible response to a problem that we all acknowledge is a serious one. But serious problems are not solved by creating more structures and processes, particularly in the circumstance where what is a qualified homicide appears to be so uncertain that the Government have to keep to themselves powers to change the meaning of qualified homicide while the legislation remains in force.

I am very unpersuaded about this system and certainly would like to know what coroners are supposed to do when they find themselves presented with the likelihood of such an inquiry taking place and may have their own duties in respect of the death that has taken place.

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[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that intervention. As I understand it, yes it does. I expect I will be corrected by my officials later.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. It cannot possibly be right that a coroner’s inquest is not held if a criminal trial answers the statutory questions. Why is a coroner’s inquest into the Manchester Arena bombing currently taking place after two people have been convicted in criminal trials? I cannot believe that what the Minister just said is true.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am not in a position to answer that question, I am afraid. I shall have to write to the noble Lord.

I can now confirm that coroners’ inquests will not preclude an offensive weapons homicide review.

In homicide cases where there is an inquest, its purpose would not be to provide the same in-depth review as an offensive weapons homicide review, which will identify points of failure, lessons learned and opportunities to intervene, which will help partners tackle homicide locally and nationally. Due to this, we do not consider that the amendment is necessary. I may have already said that, in which case I apologise. In fact, I have said that; I shall move on to Amendment 76.

Amendment 76 relates to information sharing in relation to confidentiality obligations and data protection in Clause 29. To review the circumstances leading up to a homicide involving an offensive weapon, to identify lessons and produce recommendations that will have a meaningful impact and save lives, the review will undeniably need to be able to access and consider information and material relevant to the homicide. Such information may include information about the victim or the alleged perpetrators or perpetrator. It may relate to their interactions with police forces, social services, health practitioners, educational institutions, employers or third-sector organisations. It may relate to information about their known associates.

It is not for the Government to determine what information is relevant. That will be for the review partners. I was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, about the High Court proceedings. That issue is dealt with in Clause 29, which sets the terms on which disclosures of information required or authorised by Clauses 26 to 28 may be made. I do not have precise details on the High Court proceedings but I will come back to the noble Lord, if that is all right. Clause 28 includes a power enabling review partners to provide information to another review partner for the purpose of enabling or assisting the review partners to arrange and carry out an offensive weapons homicide review.

I have mentioned review partners a number of times and it is worth digressing briefly to attempt to answer the question of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, about the backstop, effectively—what happens if there is no review partner? That is not possible because in cases where there is no relevant review partner, the regulations also allow for the Secretary of State to be given the power to direct which partners are the relevant ones. I hope that answers his specific question.

Clause 28 also includes a power for review partners to require information from other persons. However, review partners may request information under this power only for the purposes of enabling or assisting review partners to arrange and carry out an offensive weapons homicide review, and the request may be made only to a person whom the review partner considers likely to have such information. The scope of the information that might be requested, and who it might be requested from, is therefore limited.

This power does not, however, affect the availability of any other duties or powers to share information such as existing lawful routes for information to be shared for safeguarding purposes or for the purposes of the detection and prevention of crime. As currently drafted, the provisions in the Bill ensure that relevant information may be disclosed, and such disclosure would not breach existing obligations of confidence, but any disclosure must still abide by the data protection legislation—that is, the Data Protection Act 2018 and regulations made under that Act, the UK General Data Protection Regulation, regulations implementing the GDPR and the law enforcement directive—and must not be prohibited by specified provisions of the Investigatory Powers Act. For example, where personal data is subject to the UK General Data Protection Regulation, that regulation sets out the principles, rights and obligations that apply to the processing of personal data, including exemptions from particular provisions that can apply in certain circumstances, as set out in Schedules 2 to 4 to the Data Protection Act 2018—for example, in the prevention and detection of crime.

Additionally, Clause 29 provides that a person cannot be required by Clause 28 to disclose information that they could not be compelled to disclose in proceedings before the High Court, meaning that information that is subject to legal professional privilege cannot be required to be disclosed. Due to those safeguards, we do not feel that Amendment 76 is necessary.

I should also like to confirm that we have consulted the Information Commissioner’s Office throughout the development of these provisions and will continue to engage with it as we develop guidance and prepare to pilot these reviews. We consider the information-sharing provisions in Chapter 2 of Part 2 necessary to facilitate an effective multiagency approach to preventing and reducing homicide and serious violence.

Amendment 77 would ensure that guidance under Clause 31 is laid before Parliament. The statutory guidance provided for in Clause 31 will assist the review partners in understanding the statutory responsibilities placed on them, as well as providing best practice on how to fulfil those responsibilities. Among other things, the guidance will provide further information on the notification requirements, the conduct of reviews, the content of the final report and information sharing. We intend to publish an outline draft of the guidance document to allow time for further development before consulting on the guidance, as required by Clause 31. The guidance document will be finalised and published ahead of the pilot commencing.

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[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord. I thought that I had made it clear, and I apologise for obviously not having done so, but no, OWHRs are not precluded by a coroner’s inquest.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for attempting to answer my questions. I am very grateful for his undertaking to write to me on any questions that were not answered. I just add one question to that.

One of my big regrets in life is not taking shorthand, so I must paraphrase what the Minister said. It was something along the lines of there being no existing legal duty to review the circumstances surrounding an offensive weapon homicide to prevent future deaths. I appreciate that the Minister is behind the curve, as he relies on a brief that is given to him before the contents of what I say immediately beforehand are known. Paragraph 7 of Schedule 5 to the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 provides coroners with a duty to make reports where the coroner believes that action should be taken to prevent future deaths. How is that not a legal duty to review the circumstances surrounding an offensive weapon homicide to prevent future deaths? If the Minister can add that to the unanswered questions, then, in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 75.

Amendment 75 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton. My noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb signed this amendment but is, unfortunately, unable to be in the House tonight and I speak in her place.

Essentially, I agree with everything the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, said. I will add just a couple of points. It is worth noting that the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing produced a report on domestic homicide in August, which described it as

“an entrenched and enduring problem.”

The report makes very disturbing reading. It records that just over half of suspects were previously known to police from domestic abuse cases, and another 10% were known for other offences, while 44% of households not covered by those categories were known to some other agency in some way. There is clearly an issue, therefore, with lessons learned.

It is good to have a report such as this: it is very useful and informative. But what is being proposed here is a register—something ongoing that can be a continual source of information and learning. We should make a couple of comparisons here. One is with air safety, where there is an assumption that whenever anything goes wrong every possible lesson will be learned and every piece of information will be extracted from it. We should be looking at domestic homicides in the same way.

Another parallel is with the Vision Zero approach to road crashes which many nations are increasingly adopting. We should be among them, and we should be looking to have zero serious injuries or deaths on the road. We know from the report that in nearly all cases of domestic homicide there has been an opportunity for someone to intervene. We should be looking towards a Vision Zero for domestic homicides.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I listened very carefully to the arguments put forward by the noble and learned lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, but I am not sure that there needs to be a domestic homicide review in every case—or whether that is not already the situation.

In my experience, some cases of domestic homicide are very straightforward, and I remind the Committee of my remarks on the previous group: that coroners—rather than, for example, the Secretary of State—should perhaps have the power to order such a review if they believe it is in the public interest.

We support the need to ensure that lessons are learned from domestic homicide reviews, that they are regularly published, and that these offences are treated with utmost seriousness. Being attacked and killed in your own home, a place where everyone should feel safe, is far more serious than being attacked and killed on the street. That is why it is so important that any lesson that can be learned from any domestic homicide should be learned, and why the courts need to take these offences far more seriously than a random attack or a gang-related attack on the street.