Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, it is a real pleasure to be the first to commend my noble friend on his maiden speech. For much of his parliamentary career in the other place, he was in the Whips’ Office, notching up a record 17 Trappist years. That meant that we were deprived of his views in the Chamber on public affairs, although he could be more forthcoming in private. Happily, he faces no similar vow of silence in your Lordships’ House, and we look forward to him catching up on those lost 17 years. How appropriate that, as a former Government Chief Whip and master of the dark arts, he should make his maiden speech on a Bill dealing with covert intelligence and the infiltration by agents of the Executive of political activists seeking to do harm to the Government—though I doubt whether in furtherance of that cause he entered into any long-term relationships with Christopher Chope or Philip Davies.

My noble friend was Chief Whip during the coalition, which was probably at its strongest in the Whips’ Office, due not least to his capacity to develop good relationships with those from other parties, a talent particularly welcome in the less partisan atmosphere of your Lordships’ House. He brings to the House a deep affection for Parliament, as we have just heard. He is also chairman of the British Tourist Authority and a former Transport Secretary and will bring an informed view to our debates on those matters, among many others. We look forward to his future contributions.

I do not have any fundamental objections to the Bill but, along with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham and the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, I have reservations about its impact on children. Along with other noble Lords, I am grateful to Jennifer Twite and Just for Kids Law for their briefing on the Bill last Friday. I was struck particularly by the evidence of Neil Woods, a former undercover police officer with experience of being a CHIS and handling them. He made two points: first, that 95% of the use of CHIS in his experience was targeted on the drugs trade and, secondly, because county lines were using children as a means of distribution, there was growing pressure to use children to infiltrate the gangs and bring those responsible to justice. I note that none of the case studies which the Minister gave us yesterday involved children. However, as gangs use younger and younger children in county lines so there is a risk of a race to the bottom if younger and younger CHIS are then used to inform on them.

That brings me to the only point I want to make in this debate. We need to get the balance right between, on the one hand, the imperatives of enforcing the law and, on the other, protecting children from danger. I am not sure that the Bill and the undefined “exceptional circumstances” in the code take the trick. We heard for example from Neil Woods about the strain on an adult of maintaining deception. What must it be like for a child? Chapter 4 of the draft code is certainly an improvement, but there is no lower limit on the use of children for entrapment. I wonder whether either the Bill or the code will make it clear that there is a lower age limit beyond which children should never be used for CHIS. For example, I find it indefensible that the social worker of a child in care is not told when that child is recruited. How can a local authority discharge its responsibility to a child already failed by its parents if it does not know that the child has been recruited for dangerous activities? I therefore join other noble Lords in hoping that during Committee we can rebalance the Bill and build in better protection for the country’s children.