My Lords, this has been an excellent debate, distinguished by the contribution of four very senior and experienced police officers. Also, the helpful contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, added to the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, is quite right: the Government should plainly listen to what police officers with such experience and who are so respected in your Lordships’ House have to say.
The noble Lord, Lord Condon, ranged over a number of issues in respect of the police. He stressed that the police were in something of a crisis at the moment but, at the same time, he said, absolutely correctly, that they need to be properly resourced and that there ought to be a competent Independent Police Complaints Commission. So far as that is concerned, the Government have given the IPCC a range of new powers. It has already received £2.4 million to strengthen its capabilities. In addition, from this financial year, we will transfer £18 million from police forces to the IPCC to enable it to do all serious and sensitive cases, including corruption work.
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The Committee will recall my right honourable friend the Home Secretary’s Statement of 6 March on the findings of the Ellison review, which my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach repeated in this House. In that Statement, Mr Ellison’s findings of corruption by Metropolitan Police officers in the investigation of the murder of Stephen Lawrence were set out, as was his finding that evidence was not passed to the Macpherson inquiry that should have been. The Home Secretary characterised these findings as “profoundly shocking” and many of your Lordships agreed with her. In her Statement, my right honourable friend set out a number of responses to the issues identified by Mr Ellison, one of which is the new offence of police corruption set out in Clause 23 and is the subject of the first of our two debates.
At Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Blair, said:
“Police corruption is an evil; it is a permanent and corroding threat”.—[Official Report, 30/6/14; col. 1571.]
In today’s debate, he described it as a cancerous evil. There is absolutely no dispute among any noble Lords who have spoken about the evil of corruption. As well as having been a distinguished commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, the noble Lord, Lord Blair, was also a member of Scotland Yard’s Anti-Corruption Command, then known as CIB3. He is therefore extremely well placed to speak on this issue.
It is also common ground that the public have the right to expect that the police will act with honesty and integrity, treating all those with whom they come into contact without fear or favour. Where officers act corruptly, as identified by Mr Ellison in his report, the public expect police officers to be held to account through the criminal justice system. That is why a number of criminal investigations are under way, as was indicated in the debate, to follow up the lines of inquiry identified by Mr Ellison.
My noble friend, Lord Paddick, another distinguished former senior officer of the Metropolitan Police, asked at Second Reading whether this offence was necessary in view of the common law offence of misconduct in a public office. In this debate, the noble Lords, Lord Dear, Lord Blair and Lord Condon, have also called into question the need for the new offence. Of course, the Government have the greatest of respect for the noble Lords’ collective, extensive experience in policing matters, but I regret that they do not agree with their views that this new offence is unnecessary and that the
common law offence, of many hundreds of years, of misconduct in public office is sufficient to deal with police corruption.
One of the key issues in recent cases of corrupt behaviour by police officers has surrounded the element of the common law offence which requires that a public officer must be “acting as such” for the offence to apply. However, we have been made aware of other cases where the existing offence has not been applicable, which was why the Government have brought forward this offence. Such conduct includes one former senior officer who attempted to obtain a discount on a new car because of the office he held at the time. Prosecutors have advised us that they have been unable to bring criminal charges in this case and in others because they do not fall within the scope of either the common law offence or any other offences. This Government believe that these cases represent serious breaches of the public’s trust in the police and that they should be punished by the application of the criminal law, potentially resulting in a significant custodial sentence. That is why we have brought forward the new offence set out in Clause 23.
The noble Lord, Lord Dear, referred to the fact that the new offence has a shorter maximum sentence than the common-law offence and questioned whether that is an indication that corruption is treated seriously. Of course, common-law offences, as the noble Lord will know from his studies, like misconduct in public office, have no maximum sentence, so it is always theoretically possible for a court to hand down a sentence of life imprisonment. However, that is something of a historical anomaly and we are not aware of anybody ever having been sentenced to life imprisonment for misconduct. Indeed, if we look at recent sentences, we can see that the average sentence length in 2012 was less than two years—21.2 months to be precise. The new offence sets a clear maximum sentence for the worst cases of corruption of 14 years’ imprisonment so that judges will be able to gauge where in the range of seriousness a particular case sits and pass appropriate sentences. We would expect the average to exceed two years.
We recognise that some of the powers of police officers can also be exercised by a range of other public officers. However, the only officers with the full range of powers and privileges are those sworn to the historic office of constable and those officers of the National Crime Agency who have been designated as having such powers, which is why Clause 23 focuses only on those officers. I appreciate that there have been some concerns that by introducing this new offence it may appear that the Government are singling out police officers over other public officials. I respectfully suggest to the Committee that the law already singles out police officers in a sense, by granting them a wide range of coercive and intrusive powers. The Government consider that, because of their unique position of power, police officers should be held to the highest standards of behaviour.
I accept that there may well be instances where the existing law will be adequate to cover the elements that can also be found in this particular offence. In an ideal world, all offences would be hermetically sealed, one against another. There is quite often, as noble Lords
with experience in these things can testify, a choice of a number of offences and a degree of overlap between the two. But we consider that this sentence is appropriate. We should make it absolutely clear that we are not dealing with something that happens every day. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, where the noble Lord, Lord Dear, served with distinction in the 1990s, has been clear in recent reports that corruption is emphatically not endemic in the police. Equally, I am sure that we have all had cause to be grateful to the men and women of the Metropolitan Police Service who keep us safe here at the Palace of Westminster. Police officers up and down the country work hard to protect their communities and never know what they may face around the next corner—anything from a lost tourist to a dangerous or even armed suspect.
However, in order that police officers can carry out their duties with the trust of the public, it is important that the public have faith in the honesty and integrity of all police officers. Punishing and deterring corruption through this new offence will help to reinforce the public’s trust in the police. I hope that the Committee will agree with the Government’s position that serious misconduct by police officers for personal gain should constitute a criminal offence and that, to bring that about, Clause 23 should stand part of the Bill.
Before putting the matter formally to the Committee, I will also deal with Clause 24, which provides guidance to the courts in determining the appropriate minimum term to be imposed under a mandatory life sentence for murder. The current adult starting point for the murder of a police officer or prison officer in the course of their duty is 30 years. The effect of the clause is to add such a murder to the category of the exceptionally serious cases in which the court should normally start by considering a whole life order for offenders aged 21 and over.
This change would not mean that a whole life order will be imposed in every case. The court will always have the discretion to impose the appropriate sentence based on all the facts of each case. That is the position now where the starting point is 30 years for these cases. The final minimum term may be higher or lower than that when all the circumstances of the individual offence are taken into account by the judge. A starting point of a whole life order will still require the judge to consider all the facts and determine whether the case falls to be considered as exceptionally serious. If not, the court will consider the appropriate minimum term.
During the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Blair, pointed to the possible effect on an individual of a change in the law of this sort. An individual would have to be particularly familiar with the niceties of the criminal law to appreciate perhaps that of course a life sentence was not in fact mandatory but would depend on the facts. Even if a life sentence was passed, as we discussed earlier today, there is provision for the compassionate release provisions contained in Section 30 of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 to apply, which were recently considered by the Court of Appeal in the McLoughlin decision. The court said, among other things, that it was entirely consistent with the rule of law that such requests are considered on an individual
basis, against the criteria that circumstances have changed so exceptionally as to render the original, justifiable, punishment no longer justifiable.
We would respectfully say that, although these things are really a matter of assertion, this should not result in a worsening of the behaviour by someone potentially facing a very serious charge, since the final term may be higher or lower once all the circumstances are known by the judge. The starting point is that a whole life order will still require the judge to consider all the facts and to determine whether the case falls to be considered as exceptionally serious; if not, the court will consider the appropriate minimum term.
We ask police and prison officers to take on a vital role in keeping us safe by managing difficult and dangerous offenders, which they do every day as part of their routine duties. It is this that sets them apart from others who provide a public service. The Government consider that the unique role that they play should be recognised and that those who murder police and prison officers carrying out their duties should know that they face the severest sentences.