Policing and Crime Bill

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his comprehensive introduction of the Bill. I am afraid, though, that some of his enthusiasm is misplaced. As he suspected, we believe that there are many areas where it could be improved. We agree with much of what he said about the aims of the Bill. For example, we agree entirely about the desperate need for proper measures to be taken to prevent those who have been involved first of all in the awful crime of human trafficking from then being exploited in prostitution. We also agree that alcohol abuse is a rising problem in the United Kingdom, especially among young people, and that serious measures need to be taken to change that behaviour. However, whether the proposed measures and the new code of practice will achieve that in a way that will receive the full measure of support is something that we will need to test in Committee and, if necessary, at later stages. The Minister will be aware that there is considerable disquiet, particularly among those in the retail industry, that another burden of regulation is about to fall on their heads. We must be sure that what is proposed is necessary and likely to be justified. Once again, we are confronting a Home Office Bill that touches on a large number of issues, some of which are already the subject of legislation—pretty recent legislation in some cases—but that seems to do little to achieve its aims or enhance the situation practically or sensibly. It is again a hotchpotch of largely unrelated matters—a potpourri of matters left lying around since previous efforts. My noble friend Lord Bridgeman will make our points on Parts 1, 2 and 5 in his winding-up speech and in Committee. My noble friend Lady Neville-Jones will be involved in the detail of Part 7, which, as the Minister indicated, relates to airport security. There is no doubt that there is still a great deal of work to be done to combat crime in this country, some of it petty and annoying, but some of it, such as drugs and knife crime, serious and insidious. There is much still to be done to ease the burden of red tape on the police and to ensure that they police the streets rather than police stations. It is extraordinary that the report from Sir Ronald Flanagan seems to have had only a feather-light impact on this legislation. I turn to the detail of the Bill. In Part 3, the Government are unsurprisingly seeking to sound strong on the disastrous rise in binge-drinking and alcohol abuse among young people that has occurred in the past decade. The figures on alcohol-related crime, injuries and diseases among both adults and children are appalling and getting worse. We are, therefore, not against a tougher code to prevent the irresponsible sale of alcohol. Unfortunately, that code has only just been released, but I hope that we shall have an opportunity to discuss some of the proposals during the time spent on this Bill. We shall also be concerned to see how the nine mandatory clauses, which are now being consulted on, will either ameliorate or prevent the perceived problems. I am sure that we shall want to discuss the code in detail, not only the mandatory clauses but also those that are discretionary. While we supported creating a penalty for drinking alcohol in a public place in the previous legislation, we cannot see the purpose of raising the maximum penalty so soon after its implementation, when the largest fine yet levied has been only half the current limit. The legislation is in place and it can be used. We shall want to discuss in considerable detail whether it is necessary to extend it. We feel similarly about a new power to allow the police to move on children over 10 who congregate in a public place for the purpose of consuming alcohol, the age being reduced from 16 in the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006. It is pretty appalling to think that there are children between 10 and 16 who are doing just this, but the police already have power under previous legislation not just to move on children of this age but to take them home. It appears that the Government are once again willing to criminalise young people rather than to take care of them. I hope that we shall be able to discuss that and the implications of the reduction in age in Committee. We are unable to explain how the new offence will help to resolve the difficulty of unruly and intimidating young people gathering in gangs or groups. There is also the question of ensuring that children as young as 10 are not left at risk following the intervention of the police. On Part 4, we are all well aware of the problems of gang-related activity. The provisions being introduced will enable the police to seek injunctions against those suspected of or perpetrating gang-related violence. The debates in this House over the introduction of anti-social behaviour orders look set to be repeated. As with those, the new measures mean that the civil courts are being asked once again to do the job of the criminal courts. These injunctions go further than anti-social behaviour orders in that they allow for certain actions to be required of the person concerned, as well as others listed in the Bill that prohibit certain activities. There are grave concerns about the appropriateness of imposing requirements, which include having to be in a certain place at a given time or having to undertake activities, on a person without the safeguards that criminal proceedings would ensure. The provisions are extremely ill defined and I am sure that some time will be spent in probing exactly what is being proposed. The Minister has given some explanation of the European arrest warrant provisions under Part 6, but the Government have again ducked the serious issues around the warrant, such as the removal of dual criminality, the need for a prima facie case to be made before an arrest warrant is issued—that is now no longer the case—and the questions of inequities and the burden of proof required in bilateral treaties, which the Government seem happy to ignore. None of those has been dealt with. The new provisions in the Bill, some of which have been the subject of concern for the Joint Committee on Human Rights, are about the condition of those arrested and reciprocal arrangements for returning those serving sentences. As the Minister described, there are also provisions about those who are accused of crime in other countries. Each raises questions. I anticipate that those provisions will take some considerable time to scrutinise and I look forward to the debates around them. I turn to Part 8, where the Minister started, which contains one of the most important issues in the Bill and one of the most egregious examples of government wriggling that I have seen. The Minister has drawn attention to the code that has just been issued. It was not available in the other place while the discussions on DNA were taking place and I hope that we will have the opportunity to take part in such discussions during the coming weeks. I do not believe that anybody objects to the taking of DNA for criminal purposes; the problem is with the retention of the samples and the information that is taken from them, particularly for those proved to be innocent. The fact that the Government have been forced into taking action as a result of the European Court of Human Rights is important—and it is important how they implement the judgment. That is what the code is all about. There are still concerns about the amount of time that the Government propose that samples should be kept for. We will want to look at that and discuss the issue. The House has attempted many times over the past few years to address the whole problem around the retention of DNA. Everybody understands the value that has come from the use of DNA in certain criminal investigations, but I underline that it is the retention of DNA of people who have been proved innocent that remains the problem. During the passage of the Counter-Terrorism Bill last Session, I tabled an amendment that gained the support of my noble friends and noble Lords on my right and which would have met the ECHR’s requirements fully. Although we managed to insert it into the Bill, the Government, who may rue it now, rejected it in another place. So it has been left for other action to be taken. The arguments are clear. Whatever benefits some people feel might come from a universal DNA base—and I am extremely sceptical of those benefits—there can be no excuse for the current system. The retention of DNA samples from people who have never been charged with, let alone convicted of, a crime is wrong. In his introduction, the Minister finally admitted that. Yet it appears that even now the Government have not fully appreciated that the details of their proposals are still unclear. Now that the code of conduct has been published, we look forward to discussing it more fully, as I said. I understand that the actual samples might no longer be held—the prohibitive costs of keeping them no doubt led to that conclusion—but much in the government proposals, such as the retention of information for up to 12 years where there has been no prosecution, is still quite unacceptable. It is clear that approaching this issue by secondary legislation is not the way forward. We shall be seeking not only to ensure that the Government comply fully with the spirit and letter of the ECHR judgment but also to insert more detail into the Bill. I am confident that once again we will have a strong cross-party consensus on the best way forward. Perhaps this time we will be able to make our amendments stick. There is work to be done to ensure that this legislation has some useful purpose. We agree with the Government on some areas and we feel that other areas would probably be improved by amendment. My noble friend Lord Bridgeman, as I indicated, will deal with the other parts of the Bill when he winds up, so I have not addressed those, but I look forward very much to the debates to come that he and I will take part in.