Offensive Weapons Bill

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 6th February 2019 Grand Committee

We need a long and detailed look at these amendments. I appreciate that the police may have asked for knife crime prevention orders and there may be a need for some form of order, but not these, with this scope. I ask the Minister to withdraw the amendments at this stage to allow further discussion.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I entirely understand why the Government feel that they have an obligation to take meaningful and effective steps to protect the public from those who use offensive weapons. Even before today’s letter in the Times, though, I already had five reasons for being extremely concerned about their proposal to introduce knife crime prevention orders, as set out in Amendments 73A to 73U. Like the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, I am concerned that the proposal should have been rushed through at such a late stage in the passage of the Bill, meaning that the proposed orders were not subject to scrutiny in the other place.

I am interested that all my reasons are shared by the Magistrates Association. First, there is no evidence that orders like these are effective at tackling harmful behaviour or will address the root causes of knife carrying, which, as many noble Lords have said at various stages during the passage of the Bill, is a symptom of wider social issues. Secondly, the orders can be imposed, on the balance of probability rather than a criminal standard of proof, on children as young as 12, which will result in the criminalisation of people who have not committed a criminal offence. Thirdly, I share the belief of the Prison Reform Trust and the Standing Committee for Youth Justice that a criminal sanction of up to two years in prison is a disproportionate sanction for a breach of a civil order. I also question the lack of any distinction between the penalty for breach by a child and by an adult, believing that a sentence of imprisonment for breach is not appropriate for children.

Fourthly, there is no detail about how much the proposed orders will cost or how they are to be resourced. Neither is there an explanation of how the very wide-ranging requirements that will be placed on individuals made subject to orders are linked to offences with bladed articles, or how courts could know what requirements are going to be effective in reducing the risk of knife crime. The already inadequate impact assessment contains no details of cost, nor has the cost of the likely increase in custody numbers due to order breaches been factored in. The Police Federation of England and Wales has questioned the capacity of the police to enforce the orders, given the impact of cuts to police budgets and resources. Its chair commented:

“How the Home Secretary thinks we have the officers available to monitor teenagers’ social media use, or check that they are at home at 10 pm, when we are struggling to answer 999 calls, is beyond me”.


Fifthly, the proposed orders seem to be the very antithesis of the public health approach to the problem—the essence of the serious violence strategy advocated by Ministers both in this House and in the other place during the passage of the Bill. Furthermore, the orders are bound to increase the already alarmingly disproportionate outcomes for black and ethnic minority young people, which many noble Lords mentioned in connection with their relationship with the criminal justice system. If we could vote in Grand Committee, I would certainly vote against the amendments and I look forward to doing so on Report.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment although I note that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, in objecting to it, said that he would support some form of order if not this particular one, which seems in principle to suggest that something needs to be done. My reasons for supporting it are the ones laid out by the Minister. First, there is clearly a problem. Even last night, a young man was murdered in London— a 19 year-old—and it continues to be a problem. The problem has not gone away.

I do not have the same recollection of ASBOs as the noble Lord. They were a response to a moral panic. There was an issue about anti-social behaviour and for a time they provided a solution. I do not think that they were such a grave intervention in young people’s lives, unless they chose to ignore the civil order that had been made by the courts. They were not criminalised by the order that gave them the ASBO, nor will this knife crime prevention order criminalise them. They will be criminalised only if they breach the order. That is an important distinction. It is then up to the court, which is unlikely always to award two years’ imprisonment. There is no minimum sentence so I believe it is up to the judge to decide in each case what to award. But as part of changing the culture it is necessary.

We have sadly seen through various generations that young men in particular have used different types of weapons. The 1953 Act, for those who remember, was intended to address Teddy boys and greasers. It is a sad reality that gangs have used weapons and sometimes we have to change the law to change that culture.

The point about resources was a fair challenge— I have only just recently made the point that the police could certainly do with far more—but the police have asked for this measure. I checked before making my comments and certainly, the Metropolitan Police feel that they could police these things. Given the numbers involved and the seriousness of the offence, they think it is manageable. Of course, nobody would deny that it is an extra burden. But if the numbers are true—3,000 people in the UK, broadly—not all of them will get these orders and clearly not all of them will breach them so the measure is not entirely unmanageable.

The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, about age was fair. Nobody wants to criminalise very young people, but the sad reality is that people as young as 12 are joining gangs and they are attracted by the drugs and money that go with it. I am not sure that they make a conscious, adult, mature decision to begin that process, but it is true that they can be threatening and that should be considered. In that context, I am trying to make sure that the orders are effective, rather than claiming that they are not necessary

A knife crime protection order is a non-conviction order for someone who is found carrying a bladed item on two occasions during the relevant period. What concerns me is that they could have been carrying an offensive weapon such as acid on one occasion, which presumably contributes to this concern that they may be involved in violence. If this order is intended to reduce that risk, that should be taken into account. I know why this provision tries to keep things simple—it is a bladed item, and we are all worried about knives. Sadly, they are not the only offensive weapons that young people use.

Reconciliation: Role of British Foreign, Defence and International Development Policy

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Friday 14th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the most reverend Primate for tabling this thought-provoking debate and I congratulate him on his wide and wise introduction. I also thank Chris Smith for his excellent Library briefing. The most reverend Primate has said that reconciliation is the greatest need in our world today, including as a general aim of our domestic policy. I could not agree more, along with his reference to the deep wounds in society which have been opened up by the Brexit debate, sadly manifest even on the Floor of this House. My noble friend Lady Saltoun of Abernethy, now sadly retired from the House, told me that the Scottish independence referendum had opened up many deep wounds that would not be healed for a very long time. I fear that it will be the same for Brexit. That is a very good reason for not holding referendums but, rather, to rely on representative parliamentary democracy. Others have said that they now better understand what life must have been like during the Civil War. Looking round the world, as other noble Lords have done, I am struck by how many of the accepted norms of a civilised society, such as observance of the rule of law, are being wilfully defied.

Of reconciliation, the most reverend Primate has also said,

“You can’t impose it on people, but you can encourage, enable and take away obstacles to it”.


His words remind me of 1992 when, as Adjutant-General, I was responsible for arranging the celebrations marking the battle of El Alamein, the event chosen by the Army to signify 50 years since the end of World War II. I hoped to include services both in Westminster Abbey and the main Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery at Alamein. When I asked the then Dean, Michael Mayne, for permission to hold a service in the abbey, he stipulated that the theme must be reconciliation and that a German must take part. I told him that we already planned to meet his second condition, the lessons being read by the sons of the two opposing commanders, my noble friend Lord Montgomery and Manfred Rommel, then Mayor of Stuttgart. His first condition would be reflected in the order of service but served as a reminder of the importance of reconciliation between former enemies as soon as possible after the end of conflict in the interests of peace between future generations.

With the leave of the House, I will continue to illustrate my support for the most reverend Primate’s Motion through personal experience, including “magnanimity”, which I have always thought went hand in hand with reconciliation. Having served there, I will not attempt to add anything to what was said about reconciliation in Northern Ireland by the noble Lord, Lord Trimble. My first experience of the need for the FCO, the MoD and DfID to work together came soon after the end of the Cold War, when the Army sent contingents to the UN, NATO and OSCE operations in the former Yugoslavia. Since then, I have had occasion to contrast the close co-operation that existed between the MoD and what was then the Overseas Development Agency under the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker. Based on the identification by her staff on the ground of a vital humanitarian requirement, she asked me to send Bailey bridges to Mostar, which we did. However, when I went to visit our troops in Afghanistan, I found not only that DfID staff lived in special huts but that they did not clear their projects with the military or our ambassador in Kabul. They went direct to DfID in London, in sharp contrast to the way the Americans operated, giving their military commanders sums of money that they could spend on projects, enabling them to respond immediately to locally identified needs.

While writing a report on how the management of future UK contributions to UN peacekeeping operations should be improved, I had the privilege of meeting and subsequently working with one of the most remarkable and magnanimous people I have ever come across: Kofi Annan, then Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping and, later, UN Secretary-General. He explained to me what he saw as the interaction between the three stages of peacekeeping: conflict prevention, peacekeeping operations and post-conflict reconstruction—namely, that a peacekeeping operation somewhere might prevent conflict somewhere else, as might post-conflict reconstruction.

For two years after leaving the Army, I was closely involved in post-conflict reconstruction, working for a security firm that was heavily into demining, without which there could be no development. Rather than doing the work ourselves, we trained people in several countries to plan and manage demining operations in connection with wider reconstruction plans. For example, in Mozambique, after we had demined the main railway line from Maputo to Malawi, the Mozambique Government said that they wanted to revive the sugar industry. To do this, we trained former freedom fighters to demine the plantations and repair their infrastructure, and then to work in them. That seems an excellent example of practical reconciliation and disarmament, because those who had carried arms against the state were now being employed by it.

My final witness is Kemal Atatürk. For many years, I have lectured on the battlefield of Gallipoli, during which I always take people to an obelisk just south of Anzac Beach. On it are the following words, uttered in 1934 by Atatürk, then President of Turkey; as Colonel Kemal, he influenced the campaign more than once. The words seem not only the epitome of magnanimity, but they sum up why reconciliation should be at the heart of all aspects of government policy:

“Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives ... You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us, where they lie, side by side here in this country of ours ... You, the mothers who sent their sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land, they have become our sons as well”.

Defence Modernisation Programme

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I do not share my noble friend’s scepticism about the efficiency programme. In fact, we already forecast a line of sight to 90% of our formal target of £7.4 billion, as set by the Treasury. I emphasise that these savings will not adversely affect defence outputs. I am talking about things such as transforming the way we procure equipment. We can get a lot better at that. The single-source contract regulations have saved us hundreds of millions of pounds already. We will be saving money by reviewing the military allowances. That programme is in addition to the multiple efficiency drives over recent years, such as improving our equipment support contracts, working more closely with industry partners to drive efficiency in, for example, the submarine programme, changing the way we procure complex weapons and, not least, a reduction in the size of our civilian workforce. Throughout those efficiency drives, we have maintained a world-class military, and that is what we will continue to do.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I think I heard the noble Earl refer to temporary cuts. My experience of cuts in defence is that once a cut has been made, it is cut. Can he please explain what he meant by temporary cuts and what will be temporarily cut?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I was referring to temporary cuts in some of the training for, for example, the Royal Marines. That is very regrettable, I would be the first to acknowledge, but the service chiefs are clear that these cuts cannot and must not be anything other than temporary. We are not, at the moment, making the kind of reductions to British defence that were widely speculated about at the end of last year. It has never been the Government’s intention to make such cuts. As I said, we are looking to strengthen defence and we will not pursue changes that would be damaging, but that does not mean that we will be looking to preserve every aspect of the department’s current plans. We will be working closely with the service chiefs to explore what changes need to be made to produce the headroom for the kind of modernisation that we want to pursue.

Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [HL]

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Glenarthur (Con)]

My Lords, I spent a number of years as chairman of the National Employer Advisory Board for the reserves, and some of the arguments expressed by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, and others chime, in a rather reverse way, with what we were trying to achieve on flexible working. If we were looking at a civilian who wanted to spend some of their time as a reservist, could we call that civilian a part-time employee? Of course not—they are a full-time employee, released to play their part in service with the Navy or the Army or the Air Force. If we would not call them a part-time employee simply because they would be doing it part-time, is not the noble and gallant Lord absolutely right to say that to turn it round and call someone who spends time as a regular soldier, airman or naval person and has to have a break for some time a part-time employee, would simply confuse the issue? I entirely agree with the noble and gallant Lords who have spoken that it would be a big mistake indeed. I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench will bear in mind the necessity of comparing, to some extent, the importance of employees, employers and the Regular Forces to finding a way round this particular issue.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I note that the amendment was tabled by my three noble and gallant friends, but I plead with the Minister to remember that the Armed Forces are made up of people. I was very struck by the words of my noble and gallant friend Lord Boyce when he spoke about the impact that the phraseology “part-time” might have on the people in the services. Those of us who have had the privilege of serving in the services know only too well that we must not do anything to interrupt or damage the morale and well-being of our Armed Forces, particularly as regards the observation of what they are doing. Therefore, I strongly support the amendment.

Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [HL]

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 12th September 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I regret that I was unable to attend Second Reading but I have since talked at length to the Chief of the General Staff about the implications of the Bill for the future Army. He introduced me to an interesting phrase that I had not been familiar with: portfolio career. He said that the Bill would enable people joining the Army in future to enjoy what he described as a portfolio career, thanks to the flexible working.

I am very glad that my noble and gallant friend has questioned the use of “part-time” because when you look at the medical cover for the Army, for example, 80% of it is reservist and that is not part-time in the true sense of the word; it is reservist and it is a mixture of the regular and the reservist. I am worried about the term part-time, as my noble and gallant friend is.

In talking to the Chief of the General Staff, I was also interested in knowing, when the Bill is enacted and flexible working is enabled, who is going to be in control? I was very pleased to have his reassurance that the Army Board was going to be in control of the Army part of it, and I suspect that exactly the same line will be taken by the other two services because it is extremely important, if there is this flexibility, for somebody to be in control, to make certain that the services are always available, as my noble and gallant friend said, 24/7/52 in order to carry out their essential duty on behalf of the country.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I will just comment on Amendment 5. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, challenged the use of the word “right” during the pre-meeting we had in July. The idea here is that we relinquish the principle of having a right in favour of a “working arrangement”.

Of course, we all understand that rights in this context can never be absolute. The Minister made that comment in his response to questions raised in the meeting. But the protections that are afforded to regulars will give rise to some legal rights, as the Minister has said. These regulations give enlisted regulars the right to apply for part-time working or geographically restricted service. Refusal of that request will give rise to a right of appeal. To my mind, the meaning of that is absolutely clear. I suggest to the Committee that this should not be fudged.