Protection of Freedoms Bill

Naomi Long Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I am please to be able to contribute to the debate, and to be able to follow the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who made his points very forcefully. This is an important Bill as it builds on a fundamental principle of this Government—namely, the empowering of the individual. It will ensure that more power is vested in people and not in the state, and it trusts people to take control of their lives. In short, it will create a smaller state and bigger people.

Much of the Bill involves trying to strike a balance between two undesirable extremes. With DNA, for example, we need to strike a balance between everyone having their DNA taken and no one having it taken. With CCTV, the balance needs to be struck between having no limits at all on its usage and a total ban. With parking restrictions, we need to find a balance between allowing clampers to do just as they like and allowing anyone to park anywhere on private land. Similarly, with CRB checks, we must strike a balance between having no checks on people who work with children and treating everyone as though they were a paedophile.

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point about balance. I am a voluntary youth worker with Girlguiding UK, and I would be slightly concerned if volunteers thought that there was an implication of guilt in their being asked to undergo checks. We need to be careful not to over-hype the language involved, because most of us who work with vulnerable young people are quite comfortable with being checked in order to protect them.

[Gareth Johnson]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. The intention of the Bill is not to put off volunteers. I have worked on the governing body of an organisation that assists young children. We all joined in September and submitted our CRB checks at that time, but we did not get the results back until the following June, which highlights the farcical nature of the system. The Bill is about trying to strike a balance; we need to protect children without putting off the volunteers who want to work with them. The Bill is all about trying to find that sensible balance, and I suspect that the debate will largely centre on that today. There will be as many opinions on where that balance should be struck as there are people voicing an opinion. I believe, however, that the Bill gets it about right in balancing our basic right to freedom with protecting us from those who abuse freedom.

The Bill covers many issues but I will concentrate on just three. The first is the retention of DNA. The right hon. Member for Blackburn told the House how he had allowed his fingerprints to be taken to eliminate him from suspicion of committing a crime. That, however, was a choice that he was able to make, as distinct from the circumstances envisaged by the Bill in which people have no choice. Even if he had to face Mr Oddjob when giving his fingerprints, he nevertheless had a choice about doing so for the purposes of elimination.

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[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It was Winston Churchill who said:

“All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honour, duty, mercy, hope”.

It is under the banner of freedom and democracy that our troops fight on foreign fields, and it is freedom that we celebrate in Northern Ireland on 12 July each year.

I support much of what is put forward by the coalition Government in the Bill, but I have some concerns. The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the shadow Home Secretary, clearly and eloquently outlined one of our main concerns: the relaxation of the vetting procedures. I am concerned to see that through their deliberations members of the Committee protect children. If that does not happen—I suspect that it will—we will take the opportunity to table amendments on Report.

On the subject of regulation of biometric data—we have all heard the comments about that—I am firmly opposed to any kind of nanny state, but I do not believe that freedom can or should be used as a licence to behave in any way with no consequence. In other words, people must be accountable for their actions and those who break the law must pay the price; they have, in my opinion, limited their own freedom by their choice of action. I firmly believe that, in accordance with section 63D of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, people’s DNA should be held on record if they are found guilty of any crime. I am somewhat perturbed, however, that section 63D(2)(a) allows for the destruction of DNA if

“the taking of the fingerprint or, in the case of a DNA profile, the taking of the sample from which the DNA profile was derived, was unlawful”.

That is clear, and I am concerned about it.

In my opinion, even if correct protocol has been followed and the sample has been taken lawfully, if the suspect is subsequently found innocent they should have their DNA record destroyed, as they have no criminal conviction. Is the Minister aware, and will she clarify it in her response, that as of 24 April 2009 almost 1 million unconvicted persons had records on the national DNA database? A very small minority of those people are still under investigation; the remainder will have been found innocent of any crime. During 2008-09, only 283 innocent individuals were successful in getting their records deleted under the “exceptional cases” provisions. That was touched on by the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) and many others in the debate. This issue must be specified clearly in the Bill, and we will seek to achieve that in Committee.

There are many other issues with biometric information, such as the collection and retention of schoolchildren’s DNA information, which caused upset of late in a school not far from my constituency. It became clear that parents must and should have a complete veto on the collection and storage of their children’s genetic make-up. Children have been particularly affected by the expansion of the DNA database, as there has been a significant increase in the number of young people arrested following minor crimes or even false accusations. Some offences have been as minor as pulling each other’s hair or damage to trees and fences. Labelling children as criminals at an early age can be counter-productive, and I hope that will be taken on board in Committee.

Under part 3, “Protection of property from disproportionate enforcement action”, I welcome the provision in clause 54 to make it unlawful for clampers to clamp on private land. I have heard the clamping by one firm described as legalised mugging, and although that brought a laugh, there is some truth in it. All Members have had examples of abuses by clampers brought to their attention.

[Naomi Long]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the matter is devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly. Although the problem has not been as significant there as it has been elsewhere, I believe that a review of clamping regulations in Northern Ireland is to be undertaken.

[Jim Shannon]

Perhaps I have cornered the market in those who have problems with clampers, but I have heard plenty of concerns expressed. I have had complaints nearly every other week. It got to the stage where I was on first name terms with the people in the companies concerned, although I am not sure whether that was good for them or me.

In my area, a firm of clampers was brought in by residents, but the clampers began to clamp visitors to those residents along with everyone else, and it was realised that there was no regulation of clamping and that the clampers were a law unto themselves. We have all heard horror stories about clamping firms. I won a case in which a lady was clamped who had a disabled child and needed her vehicle for transportation and so paid the fine. Unbelievably, the clampers informed her after payment that the guys who unclamped vehicles were headed home for the weekend and she would have to wait until Monday. After a number of phone calls, I got them to come back and do the right thing by letting her drive away. It is abhorrent that such daylight robbery, though morally defunct, was legally acceptable. The Home Office estimates that 500,000 drivers every year are clamped on private land. The week before last, I read in a newspaper that a lady who worked in a taxi firm had come outside to find her car had been clamped. She contacted her firm, and the taxi drivers, like a wagon train, surrounded the clamping car until the impasse was sorted out.

It is estimated that the public pay out £55 million in clamping fees, which benefit nobody apart from the clamping companies. Towing away will also be outlawed, with private landowners still able to regulate parking by erecting a barrier to keep drivers out or charging regulated parking fees. The ban will apply only on private land and will not affect clamping and towing by lawful authorities such as the police, local authorities or Driver and Vehicle Licensing Northern Ireland. That means that those who do not pay appropriate tax or adhere to signage will be held accountable. That must be good news, and a system is in place to ensure that that happens. Councils will continue to have the power to tow away cars abandoned on private land. Police can also remove vehicles that are causing an obstruction or are dangerously parked, providing a redress for home and business owners. In relation to clause 56, however, I believe that a reasonable standardised fee should be introduced to regulate extortionate fees that may still be levied. I hope that the Minister will address that point, because the Bill provides the opportunity to clarify maximum fees.

In one of his plays, Shakespeare wrote, “Kill all lawyers,” which was a bit extreme, but some people have used similar terminology in relation to clamping companies. I tell them that that is just words and does not mean much, but I am hopeful that it will no longer be the quotation used in my constituency if the Bill is amended and tightened up.

Harking back to the need to control legislation, there was a great deal of concern some time ago about local councils spying on people through bugged litter bins. I hope that the Bill will provide protection in that regard. I would commend the use of CCTV, which is a kind of sleeping policeman that observes at a distance all that takes place. While one Member mentioned that he had only one complaint against CCTV, every person who comes to me tells me that they want more CCTV. In my opinion, CCTV is a weapon that we should use, as the coverage that such cameras record enables us to catch those involved in unlawful incidents. As someone who watches late-night television programmes such as “CSI”, I am always impressed by the number of policemen who come on to a crime scene outside a pub or restaurant or in the street, and I just wish that some cases in the past had had the same level of response.

I commend the Bill, although I have concerns that I hope will be addressed in Committee. If that is not the case, I put down a marker that we will address those matters on the Floor of the House when the opportunity arises.

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[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

Let me start by welcoming the broad thrust of the Bill, which has much to commend it. I believe that the protection of civil liberties, privacy and personal freedoms is incredibly important and is a fundamental building block of a democratic society, but it must be sensitively balanced against the need to provide security, safety and public confidence, which is where the debate hinges. As I said in an intervention, I am a volunteer with young people—an adult leader in Girlguiding—and I am particularly interested in the proposed changes to the vetting and barring scheme, on which I shall focus my remarks.

I agree entirely with the Home Secretary that we do not want to place unnecessary barriers in the way of people who wish to volunteer. Many youth organisations depend almost entirely on people who are willing to give freely of their time to benefit our young people, and those volunteers often find themselves caught up in an incredibly intrusive situation that can be a bureaucratic nightmare and incredibly off-putting. I hope that the Home Secretary agrees that our primary concern as we try to resolve those issues must be the safety and protection of young people and vulnerable adults. If there is a balance to be struck, the emphasis and greater weight must be on protecting the vulnerable; it is incredibly important that we do not lose sight of that. We must therefore proceed with a degree of caution as we try to change those protections and we should recall the context in which they were introduced. The earlier comments of the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) greatly assisted us in recalling some of the incidents that led to the introduction of the protections, their very serious nature and the public outcry that surrounded them when people felt that children were not being adequately protected from predatory adults.

Although no one would question the need to redress the balance, given that the pendulum has swung almost too far in one direction, we need to be careful not to take it too far in the other direction, but instead try to find some sensible balance. Most people would welcome simplification of the system—for example, a system of vetting and barring that would allow clearance in one role to be carried forward into other roles, rather than repeated checks being carried out on the same individual. However, if that is to happen, the detail of the Bill poses a challenge. People would still be checked only for the immediate role that they would be fulfilling and would not be able to carry those checks with them. That has not been addressed, but it is important to people who work with young children.

One of my concerns arising from reading the Bill is that if someone working in a non-regulated activity displays behaviour that would cause concern—behaviour which, were that activity regulated, could lead to their being barred—it is not clear that that would trigger a referral to the Independent Safeguarding Authority or to barring. My concern is that that individual could later move into a regulated activity, and young people would be left vulnerable.

A further area of concern to me is the treatment of 16 and 17-year-olds in the context of the Bill. The changes proposed appear to remove some of the protections afforded to 16 and 17-year-olds in matters of sport, faith and education. The young people with whom I work directly are aged 14 to 25 and therefore include that group. Despite the fact that they are entering adulthood, they are still young and vulnerable and they still require protection as children. They appear to fall into some kind of gap between regulated activity for children and the vulnerable adults provision in the Bill. I seek reassurance from the Home Secretary that that grey area will be clarified. We do not want children of 16 or 17 to become easier prey for predatory adults.

Finally, I want to examine the relationship between the Bill and what will happen in Northern Ireland. At present, with respect to vetting and barring schemes, England, Wales and Northern Ireland operate within a single framework. The reforms set out in the Bill are not proposed to be extended to Northern Ireland. The mix of responsibilities between the Department of Justice and the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety would largely cover the areas encompassed by the vetting and barring scheme. It would be a matter for the Executive and the Assembly whether or not to extend that to Northern Ireland by a legislative consent motion or an Assembly Bill, if they choose to do it.

However, there is significant merit in the Home Office pursuing with the devolved Administration every opportunity to maintain the common approach that currently exists, as that is one way to maximise protection for young people throughout the country. We would not want to see the protection reduced, and the Assembly would have the right, if it considered that the Bill would reduce protection, to go its own way on these matters. During the Bill’s Committee stage and beyond, it is important for the Home Office to listen carefully to the concerns that are raised and to work closely with the devolved Administrations so that we can achieve a UK-wide consensus on this serious issue and maintain the common framework that has served us well.