Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

If nobody else wishes to speak on this matter, I certainly will. I was very pleased to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, that he and the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, agree with the thrust of Clause 155. As he stated, it is absurd to allow for an arrest warrant to be issued without the consent of the DPP when a private prosecution cannot proceed without the express consent of the Attorney-General. I oppose Amendment 308A. Its purport would be to include in the legislation criteria that would tell the director how to exercise his discretion in giving consent to the issue of an arrest warrant. As we have just heard as a result of the cross-examination techniques of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, it is clear—as I understand the noble Lord, Lord Thomas—that the Director of Public Prosecutions does not wish to see his discretion confined in the legislation. There are three main objections to the amendment. First, it would be most unusual for Parliament to tell the director what criteria to adopt in exercising his functions—indeed, it would be unprecedented. Parliament and the courts have for very good reason preferred to leave the director to develop his own criteria in the Code for Crown Prosecutors and in his practice. The adoption of rigid norms in the legislation would be most unhelpful given the wide variety of situations, many of them unforeseeable, in which the director has to act. The second reason for opposing the amendment is that far from there being any good reason to create a precedent for telling the director how to exercise his discretion in this context, by contrast with all others, there are very good reasons in this context for trusting the director to exercise his discretion wisely. The reasons are that the director gave evidence to the Public Bill Committee of the House of Commons on how he proposes to exercise his discretion. There is, or should be, agreement that what he said is very sensible. None of that is surprising because what he said is simply an application in this context of general prosecution practice in all other contexts. Indeed, what he said is similar to some parts of this amendment, though not all, as I shall mention in a moment. If problems were to arise— I am confident that they will not—we could return to the matter. The third reason for opposing the amendment is that, with great respect, the drafting suffers from two defects. Paragraph (b) does not specify—as I think it should—that it is confined to urgent cases; that is, cases where there is a fear that the individual would, or might, leave the jurisdiction. I think that paragraph (b) is also deficient—we do not need to decide this issue today—because, by contrast with paragraph (a), it would prevent the director from ever considering the public interest in one of these urgent cases. It might be appropriate—I say ““might””—even in an urgent case for the director to have regard to the public interest in deciding whether to authorise an arrest warrant in a case where the individual concerned might otherwise leave the jurisdiction. I have reflected on the debate in Committee, particularly the questions that were put to me by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. I accept that it would be a rare case where the director would think it appropriate to refuse to give consent to an arrest warrant even though there was otherwise adequate evidence to justify an arrest warrant in relation to an alleged crime as grave as a war crime. However, we should leave open the possibility that there may be such a case, and it would be most unfortunate to enshrine it in legislation that such circumstances could never arise. Like the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, I regard Clause 155 as a much needed reform of our law to remove an indefensible anomaly. I bow to no one in my concern that this country should maintain effective procedures to ensure the prosecution in this country, where appropriate, of those against whom there is proper evidence that they have committed war crimes. I am satisfied—otherwise I would not be supporting the Government—that Clause 155 does nothing whatever to hinder that vital objective.