Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Codes of Practice) (Revision of Codes A, B and D) Order 2011

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her explanation of the order, which brings into force changes to codes of practice under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 in order that the codes in question reflect changes in legislation and policy, including in the light of court judgments. As the Minister has said, the changes relate to stop and search, entering and searching premises, and seizing property and identification. The changes under stop and search remove the requirement to record stop and account, and leave it to police forces following consultation to decide whether they continue monitoring such encounters. These changes also implement a lower level of information to be recorded for stop-and-search incidents. They make changes in the use for the stop-and-search powers under the Terrorism Act 2000 following a European Court of Human Rights judgment to require a greater degree of suspicion that the person stopped is a terrorist. They give further guidance on the use of the stop-and-search powers of persons and vehicles under Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. As the Minister has said, the changes on entering and searching premises, and seizing property, have been made in the light of the judgment in the case of Khan v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis on the power of the police to enter and search premises. Finally, the changes on identification take account of amendments to the powers to take fingerprints and samples for recordable offences. They allow fingerprints to be taken on the street using mobile fingerprint technology and they make new distinctions between visual identification taken from images, such as CCTV, and that from eyewitness recognition. Paragraph 8 of the Explanatory Memorandum to the order refers to the outcome of a four-week consultation with statutory consultees. The Minister has indicated that in reality the consultation went on rather longer than that. But in addition to the statutory bodies, the Explanatory Memorandum states that while this was, "““not a public consultation … subject to 12 weeks’ duration … other relevant organisations, including groups (Liberty and Justice) who have a specific interest in human rights issues””," were consulted. Apparently, the main concerns from the consultation, according to the Explanatory Memorandum, were about stop and search and, in particular, whether the changes proposed, "““would allow officers to take into consideration a person’s ethnicity when stopping and searching under this power””," which comes under Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act. The department says that it considered the responses and decided to amend its proposals, as set out in the Explanatory Memorandum. We understand that the Government believe that their proposed changes in relation to stop and search, and stop and account, will reduce bureaucracy and free up to 800,000 hours of police time. Over the past few years, there have been huge efforts to cut police bureaucracy, including changes to the stop-and-account form. Those efforts were extended further by the Crime and Security Act early last year, which included the provisions for reducing the length of the stop-and-search form we are considering in this order. The issue of the police stop-and-search powers is controversial because the figures show that a minority-ethnic person is more likely to be stopped than someone who is white. African-Caribbean people are already at least six times more likely to be stopped than white people under powers where an officer has reasonable suspicion to carry out a search. Stop and search is a power that is exercised frequently. One figure suggests that in 2009 there were 2 million instances of stop and account by police, and the figure for stop and search was 1 million. Under Section 60 of the Public Order Act, officers do not require the same reasonable suspicion to stop someone, meaning that the police have maximum discretion. I understand that Section 60 enables the police to stop and search an individual when there are no grounds for suspicion of the particular individual in a designated area for a period of 24 hours. In 2008-09 just under 150,000 incidences of stop and search under Section 60 were used. I come to an issue raised by the Minister on the figures for these stops and searches, which show that a young black man is 26 times more likely than his white counterpart to be targeted, which leads to allegations of discrimination. However, as the Minister has already said, three-quarters of Section 60 stop and searches in 2008-09 were carried out in London, so the disproportionate use of these powers is probably not quite as stark as the ““26 times more likely”” figure would indicate. The case of Stephen Lawrence led to measures aimed at tackling alleged police discrimination. That included a specific requirement for recording stops and searches by officers, which meant data becoming available to show whether or not there was overtargeting of minority-ethnic people by police. There have also been press reports that a national community panel set up to reduce the overtargeting of minority-ethnic people was abolished last summer. Will the Minister say whether that is true, and if so whether any alternative provision has been used to achieve the same objective? If the requirement to record stop and account is to go, will the Government replace that important source of information on fairness? While it would be possible for a police force to reinstitute stop and account if local concerns were expressed, it is not clear how police forces would take such soundings. What would constitute a valid local concern and what would happen if a police force decided not to respond to local concerns? There will also be a reduction in the amount of information recorded on the stop-and-search form in the light of the amendments to Section 3 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act made by the Crime and Security Act 2010. Among the information that will no longer be required is the name of the person who is being stopped and searched, whether anything was found as a result of the stop and search and whether any injury or damage arose as a result of the search. I assume that the Government have no issues with these provisions that arise from the Crime and Security Act 2010. As the Minister commented, the Merits Committee has drawn the special attention of the House to this order on the ground that it gives rise to issues of public policy likely to be of interest to the House. The Committee said that while changes had been made to the initial proposals, commentators remained dubious about how the rules would be applied in practice. Unlike the Minister, whose Explanatory Memorandum tells us little about the nature of the concerns expressed under the consultation process and the extent to which the Government’s changes to their proposals addressed the concerns raised, the Merits Committee contacted certain interest groups on individual rights for comments on the final versions of the codes. In response, Liberty, as set out in the Merits Committee report, expressed support for the changes that had been made by the Government to their proposals in the light of its representations, but went on to say that the Section 60 power was still too broad and open to abuse and that scrapping the stop-and-account form would make the monitoring of equal treatment in policing harder. Liberty went on to say: "““This will see a direct reversal of a recommendation of””," the, "““Inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence just over a decade ago””," and, "““ignore recommendations of later inquiries, including Sir Ronnie Flanagan’s independent review of policing in 2008, that this record be maintained, even in the context of rolling back centralised bureaucracy””." Justice commented that there should be a clearer reminder that there is no police power to compel a person to account for themselves or to detain them to ask them to do so. It went on to say: "““We are concerned that the absence of a recording requirement may mean that disproportionate use of ‘stop and account’ against particular groups … may go unmonitored and unaddressed””." Stressing that Section 60 powers should not be used routinely but only at a time of particular risk of offences being committed, Justice argued that reducing the items of information recorded would do little to reduce overall bureaucracy and that a reduction in the number of such stops would be a more effective way of saving costs. The Equality and Human Rights Commission said that a black person was six times more likely and an Asian person twice as likely to be stopped as a white person. Furthermore, it said that certain police forces were also found to have stopped far more black and Asian youths than the ethnic profile in their area warranted. The commission also expressed concern that the reduction in data collection would weaken observers’ ability to hold police forces to account. I do not think it is unreasonable to say that the Merits Committee was less than impressed with the Home Office’s handling of its proposals and the order, because it felt that more effort could have been made to make it clear to the public exactly what changes were being proposed and how the Government would check whether they were having the intended effect. The committee felt that the organisations it had contacted were sympathetic to making policing less bureaucratic but it remained concerned that the correct balance with an individual’s rights should be achieved. Despite the amendments made in response to the concerns, the organisations all expressed continuing concerns about the variability in the ways in which the legislation is interpreted by police forces across the country. I know that the Minister has already commented but can she comment further than she has already on the concerns referred to in the Merits Committee report? Can she also comment on how the Home Office will seek to ensure consistency in how the changes are applied and implemented, and how it will monitor whether the changes in the codes—in particular, Code A, which is about stop and search—achieve the effect intended? There are concerns about carrying out stop and account without recording any information about the encounter, despite the changes that have taken place in policing in recent years, not least through the development and expansion of community policing. Associated with the major reduction in crime that has taken place since 1997, as measured by the British Crime Survey, there has been an increase in confidence in the police at local level, with half of people now saying that the police and local councils are dealing with the anti-social behaviour and crime issues that matter in their area. We intend to support the measures in this order, including those that we initiated, which also reduced paperwork for the police relating to stop and search under Section 1 of the Crime and Security Act 2010. However, as I know the Minister will recognise, there is of course always a need to take care to ensure that the desire to reduce paperwork is properly balanced with the need to ensure that important and useful information is not discarded or lost.