Queen’s Speech

Viscount Goschen Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, what a pleasure it is to follow the great oratory of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, who I have not had the pleasure of hearing in person in this Chamber before. I think we are all very much looking forward to hearing more of that in person, rather than down a video link. On the subject in question today, I was really struck by the level of ambition and scale in the scope of the legislative agenda outlined in the gracious Speech—it certainly is a packed programme, as the late Mr Ronnie Barker might have said. Despite the breadth of the subject matter, I find myself following pretty closely in the footsteps of my noble friend Lady Fullbrook and, indeed, of the noble Lord, Lord Vaux of Harrowden. I compliment my noble friend Lady Fullbrook on her most excellent maiden speech. It seems that our arms will be closely linked in various provisions of the upcoming police and criminal justice Bill.

I will concentrate my remarks on the criminal justice area. It is imperative that at all times we ensure that legislation in this field aligns closely with the legitimate expectations of society to be properly protected and for the police to be given the authority to deliver common-sense, pragmatic solutions supported, in large part, by the general public. As my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower said, we are extremely fortunate to be served by highly trained, dedicated police officers who operate under tremendous pressure and, in these days, under a quite extraordinary level of scrutiny. The role of the police and the breadth of the areas in which they are now obliged to become involved often puts them in the unenviable position of having to act as umpires in very delicate fields which were previously not their preserve, but the public expect be protected, whether at home or online.

At home, burglary has an exceptionally low clear-up rate: I understand it is in the order of 3% or thereabouts, and it would be a matter of huge regret if the impression were to be given that this was not a high priority. Similarly, there is a perception developing that certain crimes are now just tolerated and treated more as an irritating part of modern life, rather than as the fraud, intimidation and theft they really are. I am talking now about crimes that are delivered through online, digital means. I do not think they should be referred to as digital crimes; they are not, they are fraud or theft that happen to be delivered through a digital medium, be it automated text messages, automated voicemails, emails or other methods of communication.

As I was writing this speech, two text messages came through to my device purporting to be from high-street banks advising of suspect transactions. Other members of my family at the same time, and other friends I checked, had received the identical approach for theft, essentially. I think there has to be a change of mindset around this. There must be hundreds of millions of such attempts at fraud happening every year in the UK alone. I fully agree with the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, that we should not tolerate this level of attempted and, no doubt, successful fraud. He is very much more of a technical and industry expert than I am, certainly, and very much of that activity may well originate from overseas, but this is a technologically enabled crime and I believe it is time that the UK authorities and their agencies took a more aggressive, technologically enabled approach to prosecute, disrupt and close down these gangs. I noted what the noble Lord said about the role of the banks in all this, and that is certainly an area where I would favour closer attention. Of course, I welcome the work of the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau and Action Fraud, but it is clear that an epidemic of digitally enabled fraud is under way and a new approach is required.

Finally, before I close I want to comment on the provisions of the reintroduced Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. It is very clearly wrong for groups of people to be able to commit trespass with vehicles, to drive on to land they do not own and do not have permission to be on, to set up camp, with associated very often serious criminal behaviour, doing what they want, disrupting the life of the law-abiding majority and sheltering behind the knowledge that legal powers do not exist to deliver a swift resolution. If ever there was one, this is a classic area where the public are bewildered that these powers do not currently exist. The Bill would correct this and give the police the powers they need to restore the peace, which would be a clear win for common sense and for justice.