Data Protection in the Areas of Police and Criminal Justice (EU Directive)

Debate between Mark Reckless and Tom Brake

Tuesday 24th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

A number of Members have commented on the process, and it will be appropriate for the Minister to respond to them. I suspect that I am not in agreement on European issues with most of those who have spoken so far, but we can agree that European issues need to be discussed in more depth. In my view, if we had that in-depth debate, some people would reach different conclusions on European matters than they do now.

I welcome the opportunity to discuss the draft directive. I want to highlight the fact that this is about the processing of personal data for the purposes of prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution. I emphasise “investigation” because much of the focus has been on criminals, as has been the case with the Mail Online, but many of the people we are dealing with and much of the data being exchanged are relevant to investigations. People who are being investigated may not, of course, be criminals at all.

The Commission highlights the fact that new technologies require a refresh of some of the standards that are in place. We are also debating communications and how we are going to address the new technologies. The Commission is seeking to achieve greater efficiencies in law enforcement co-operation. We have heard a lot tonight about the cost of this particular proposal, but we have heard a lot less about the cost of trying to negotiate this 27 times over in the European Union. We should bear that in mind, too.

The hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) said—I am not sure whether it was in a speech or an intervention—that this is all very complicated, but I do not think it is. The directive’s content is quite straightforward. It deals with the principles governing personal data processing and the rights of individuals to access their personal data, to rectify or erase them. It talks about obligations on data controllers and data processors and so forth. All that is fairly straightforward.

It is interesting to note that the Mail Online is running a campaign on issues to do with the communications database, which I welcome. It talks about standards and who can have access to and control data, yet for this particular proposal, which in many respects is about the same issue of maintaining standards, it has adopted a different position.

This is about cross-border co-operation on crime. I look forward to the debate that we will have—in fact, it may be a debate times 130—about the different proposals that we as a nation may wish to opt in or out of at some point before the end of 2014. I expect us to debate whether measures such as the European arrest warrant, which I accept could be improved on, are helping to bring to justice rapists, murderers and paedophiles. That is what they are there for and what the police believe they are being effective in doing, and that is what we will debate in the Chamber many times over the next couple of years.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

So many instruments in the security and home affairs field are being either repealed or amended that it may not be open to us to make the decision about large numbers in 2014, because we will no longer have any ability to make a choice as a nation other than through a referendum on our membership of the European Union.

[Tom Brake]

I note what the hon. Gentleman has said. I certainly think that we need to embark on the debate on these measures sooner rather than later because of the potential for Parliament to grind to a halt, which I hope all Members agree would not be in its interests.

The Minister touched on the issue of the directive being a Schengen-building measure. I ask him to reassure me that that is absolutely certain, because I think that there is some uncertainty. I am glad that the Government intend to make it clear that there should be no attempt to impose standards in relation to internal processing.

It has been alleged that the directive might allow criminals to gain access to, or indeed delete, information about themselves. Article 12 of the draft directive states that the right to know the purpose of processing and to whom personal data have been sent can be refused by the police on the grounds that it would obstruct

“official or legal inquiries, investigations or procedures”.

The directive has clearly taken on board the concerns expressed by some Members and parts of the press.

The Government have rightly highlighted concerns about the requirement to act immediately on data security breaches, and I expect them to seek to negotiate on that in the discussions that will take place.

I welcome the position adopted by the Government. I am sure that this is just one of very many similar debates that we shall have over the next 12 or 18 months, which I think will give us an opportunity to highlight many of the positive proposals that have been implemented at EU level to ensure that the police and the judicial system become more effective.

Policing

Debate between Mark Reckless and Tom Brake

Thursday 12th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Mr Brady. I welcome the opportunity to debate the “New Landscape of Policing” report produced by the Home Affairs Committee and the Government’s response to it. I welcome, too, the fact that many of the Committee’s members are here today.

I begin by saying, very much in the way that the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), started his contribution, that there is a very busy picture when it comes to policing matters. As he stated, the NPIA will wind down by the end of this year, and SOCA will take on some of its responsibilities before being wound down. We expect the National Crime Agency to be fully functional by the end of next year. The elected police and crime commissioners should be in post by November, and the police authorities are being wound down at the same time. The protocol has recently been published. There is a shadow strategic policing requirement and an organised crime co-ordination centre.

They are just some of the things that have been established or are in the process of being wound down. At the same time, it is clear that the UK remains under threat, as it has been for many years. We have had other threats or incidents—the riots in August have been mentioned—and the diamond jubilee and the Olympics are upcoming. The changes present a complex picture of what the policing landscape will look like in a couple of years’ time, against a backdrop of a high level of threat to the UK.

The Home Affairs Committee has an important responsibility to scrutinise all those activities, and it has shown itself perfectly capable of doing so. The Minister with responsibility for policing will no doubt be personally responsible if any of those bodies fail to act in the way that they should, but it is clearly not possible for him to have a day-to-day handle on the progress that is being made across all those different areas of policing activity. Who, therefore, is actually responsible for having oversight on a day-to-day basis of all those different activities to ensure that one is not having a knock-on effect, or an unintended consequence, somewhere else?

As the Home Affairs Committee report highlights—this is reported in the Government’s response—those changes, even when complete, will not be set in stone. For instance, the point about the protocol in paragraph 38 in the Government’s response, Command Paper 8223, is likely to change once the police and crime commissioners are in post, because they may seek to make sensible changes. There is also the issue of what will happen to counter-terrorism. I certainly support what the Committee has said: it would be wrong to make changes to where counter-terrorism sits at present, but, post-Olympics, there is a strong case for including it in the National Crime Agency, given that it affects all parts of the United Kingdom. It is, therefore, a moving picture in more respects than one. I am sure that the Minister will want to continue to ensure that these matters are reported to Parliament on a regular basis so that, almost month-by-month, we can see the progress that is being made on all these different restructuring activities.

I raised the issue of the scrutiny of police and crime commissioners by the police and crime panels and the Government at Home Office questions on 12 December. I wanted reassurance that the budgets for the police and crime panels would be sufficient to allow them to scrutinise the police and crime commissioners in the way that was intended. The Government have said that £40,000 is set aside for that. In his response, the Minister may be able to set out how that figure was derived. On the face of it, £40,000 for a panel to scrutinise the activities of the police and crime commissioner does not sound like a lot of money, certainly not in comparison with the budgets of the police authorities, although they have other responsibilities that the police and crime commissioner will take on.

[Mark Reckless]

With the exception of two individuals, the police and crime panels will assist elected councillors who already receive allowances and may lean on other support from their constituent councils. Surely, at least part of the process must be to provide funds to allow appropriate scrutiny, rather than putting in great dollops of additional money.

[Tom Brake]

Councils may make a contribution in that respect, but at some point a police and crime panel might need to call on expertise that is not available in local authorities. If people are trying to access such expertise, which may be required for the panel effectively to undertake its scrutiny role, it does not take too long for a substantial bill to build up. I hope that the Minister will set out precisely how it will work and will reassure hon. Members that resources will be sufficient for the important task that the panels will undertake.

I hope that the Government will quickly review their role in scrutinising the police and crime commissioners, or at least the way in which they have been implemented. Given that activity is already starting in relation to London, it is not unreasonable to hope that by sometime in 2014, say, when the police and crime commissioners have been active for a couple of years, the Government may want to consider whether those bodies are delivering the sorts of things that we expect them to, in terms of increased accountability, greater involvement of the public and ensuring that the police and crime commissioner and the chief constable are engaging effectively with the people who are, at the moment, excluded from that consultation and engagement process.

I am sure that many hon. Members—possibly all hon. Members here—will at some point have attended the ward panel in one of the wards in their constituencies. I have done so occasionally in Wallington, South. It is clear that those panels receive useful input from key individuals in the community. It is true to say that young people are rarely present on those panels, and I suspect that those on lower incomes are underrepresented. The Government will want to consider whether police and crime commissioners and chief constables are beginning to engage more effectively with such groups to see whether their views, concerns and priorities, from a policing perspective, are properly taken on board.

The Home Affairs Committee report and the Government response contain a large body of information about the professional body. I support that and want it rolled out quickly and, as the Committee has suggested, in an all-encompassing way that is not exclusive in terms of its membership. That body should be doing some things at an early stage, including considering national minimum recruitment standards for the police force, considering whether there is scope for learning from the Teach First scheme, to see whether there are ways to get a different group of young, qualified people into the police force, and looking at whether there is any prospect of using some of the expertise that has been built up in respect of teaching schools to see whether there is any role for some of our larger police stations in that respect.