Motion A Moved by Lord Sharpe of Epsom That this House do not
insist on its Amendments 6B, 6C, 6D, 6E and 6F to which the Commons
have disagreed for their Reason 6G. 6G: Because it is not necessary
to amend the stop and search powers contained in Clause 11. The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of
Epsom) (Con) My Lords, the Public Order Bill is about giving the
police the tools they need to tackle the highly disruptive
protest...Request free trial
Motion A
Moved by
That this House do not insist on its Amendments 6B, 6C, 6D, 6E
and 6F to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason
6G.
6G: Because it is not necessary to amend the stop and search
powers contained in Clause 11.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office () (Con)
My Lords, the Public Order Bill is about giving the police the
tools they need to tackle the highly disruptive protest tactics
we have seen in recent months which have blocked ambulances,
delayed passengers from making important journeys and held the
capital to ransom. We have had a fruitful debate over the course
of the last few months about the contents of the Bill. Your
Lordships have undoubtedly given the Bill the scrutiny the
British public want and expect, and important compromises have
been made along the way which I hope have satisfied the House. I
do not intend to detain noble Lords for longer than necessary by
repeating those debates. The British people are fed up with
inaction and it is time that the Bill became law.
As your Lordships will be aware, this House voted to amend Clause
11—
“Powers to stop and search without suspicion”—
in a variety of ways. As I explained when those amendments were
first considered, we cannot support them. This has been
reiterated by the other place, and it is why we have brought
Motion A. The amendments, among other things, vary the timescale
and authorisation threshold for the powers, thereby creating
inconsistency with the Section 60 stop and search powers which
the Bill’s measures are modelled on.
I understand the argument put forward by the noble Lord, , in seeking these changes—that
by limiting the scope of the power you can attempt to address the
disproportionality attached to it—but as the noble Lord, , pointed out during the
previous debates, this power “has to be practical”. With respect,
I cannot see how not establishing parity with existing Section 60
powers supports that, with the unintended consequence likely to
be confusion for the officers who will be using them.
Turning to Motion A1 in the name of the noble Lord, , which seeks to further alter
the Bill’s powers to stop and search without permission, first, I
remind the House about the legal framework that already exists
for all stop and search powers. Under Section 3.8 of PACE Code A,
the code of practice for powers to stop and search, officers have
to give their name or identification number, police station to
which they are attached and grounds for every search. These
criteria are also covered in the “GOWISELY” mnemonic drilled into
every officer.
Secondly, concerning the requirement for police forces to
establish a charter on the use of powers, it is our view that
this would cause unnecessary burden on police forces and
officers. Plenty of long-established safeguards already exist for
stop and search powers. Additionally, we have supported the
National Police Chiefs’ Council in its publication of national
guidance on the use of body-worn video. This includes encouraging
forces to share footage with external scrutiny groups to support
transparency and reflective practice and learning.
On the reporting on the use of stop and search powers, I reassure
all noble Lords that the Home Office already publishes an annual
statistical bulletin. This outlines in detail the information
gathered during each stop and search incident. This reporting
will be conducted for the use of the new stop and search powers,
both suspicion-led and suspicionless, so I would argue that such
a measure is unnecessary.
Finally, on publishing a statement giving reasons for the use of
powers, as I said in our last debate, the Government recognise
that communication on their use is a fundamental element of
building trust and confidence between a force and the community
it serves. The majority of forces, including the Metropolitan
Police Service, already communicate their Section 60
authorisations, and I know that communities appreciate knowing
detail on the geographical area, time limits and justification
for the authorisation. Those forces will continue this practice
for these new powers. Nevertheless, I recognise the merits that
establishing this communication requirement in statute could
bring. I commit now, on the Floor of the House, that the
Government will amend PACE Code A to require that, where it is
operationally practical to do so, forces communicate the extent
of the area authorised for the suspicionless stop and search, the
duration of an order and the reasons for the order.
The Home Office already publishes an annual statistics bulletin
which analyses the data from forces across England and Wales. We
will also amend PACE Code A to place data collection within the
legislative framework. This will include a breakdown of both
suspicion-led and suspicionless searches, cross-referenced with
protected characteristics such as age, sex and ethnicity. I hope
that will satisfy the noble Lord, , and—respectfully—persuade him
to withdraw Motion A1.
The other place voted to disagree with this House’s previous
amendments to Clause 11. This matter has been considered and the
other place has expressed its will. I believe it is now time that
this Bill becomes law.
Motion A1 (as an amendment to Motion A)
Moved by
At end insert “and do propose Amendments 6H and 6J in lieu—
6H: Clause 11, page 13, line 30, at end insert—
“(7A) Officers exercising the powers conferred by subsection (6)
must give to the subject of a search—
(a) their name,
(b) their badge or shoulder number, and
(c) any details of the stop the officer considers relevant.”
6J: Clause 11, page 13, line 37, at end insert—
“(9A) Within one year of the passage of this Act, all police
forces must establish a charter on the use of the powers in this
section, setting out how, when and why they will be used.
(9B) The charter must—
(a) be drawn up in consultation with local communities,
(b) be evaluated independently, and
(c) explain how Body Worn Video footage will be used.
(9C) Each police force must produce an annual report on the use
of the powers over the year, broken down by location.
(9D) Within one month of the powers in this section being used,
the authorising officer must publish a statement giving
reasons.””
(Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, for his continued
engagement over this difficult issue and indeed the further
concessions that he has clearly made. I am sure they are very
welcome as part of the deliberations between us.
We need to start by considering why we are here and what today’s
debate is about. First, it is not about not having suspicionless
stop and search. We believed, as did many in this Chamber, that
the whole of Clause 11 should have been taken out—that
suspicionless stop and search for protests should have been taken
out of the Bill. But we lost that; that vote was lost. With this
being a revising Chamber, we believed it was necessary to
consider whether further mitigation of Clause 11 was therefore
needed, given that it was going to stay in the Bill.
But the Government threw out our mitigation completely, although
the Minister has now come back with some words about
communication. We wanted that point about communication in the
Bill and said that the seniority of the officer allowing the
suspicionless stop and search should be increased, but that was
thrown out. The noble Lord, , can no doubt speak for
himself but I remind the Minister, who prayed him in aid, that
the noble Lord voted for my amendment at our last debate—the
Minister can check Hansard. He ought to recognise that. After the
Government threw out our mitigation, the Casey review and the
report from the Children’s Commissioner into stop and search of
children came along.
Let me deal with some of the things that I think the Minister
will say in response. He will throw up smoke—when in trouble, the
Government always do. I suspect there has been a huge debate in
the Home Office on suspicionless stop and search at protests, and
the Government have conceded that they perhaps ought to
communicate a bit better. As he has said when we have debated
this before, the Minister will no doubt say that the public
support stop and search for knife crime, gun crime and so on.
This Bill has nothing to do with that at all. Of course I support
suspicionless stop and search if it stops stabbings, murders and
serious violence, but Section 60 of the 1994 Act is completely
irrelevant to the Bill. Yet the Minister in the other place used
the public support for stop and search because it stops serious
violence as a reason for including suspicionless stop and search
in the Bill. It is completely irrelevant.
As was raised in a previous debate, even the Conservative- led
Government in 2012 changed suspicionless stop and search in
respect of terrorism because they believed that the power in the
2000 Act went too far. To their credit, the then Prime Minister
Cameron and Home Secretary said that it had gone too far
and that they would restrict it, narrowing the criteria even for
terrorism. I have not checked who was in the Committee that
passed it, but some noble Lords sitting on the Conservative
Benches will have voted for it in the other place—quite rightly;
it should be a matter of pride that they did so, even for
terrorism.
This suspicionless stop and search power does not relate to
terrorism or serious violence. It relates to protest —whether
someone has a padlock or some glue. If it has been agreed by an
inspector, not the chief superintendent, you can search people
without suspicion on the basis that they may have those things in
their pockets. It is a complete overreach of the law, one of the
most serious powers that this Parliament can give the police to
use on the streets. I cannot believe that anybody thought it
would be used for protests. If the British public, all of sudden,
not just around Parliament but in the middle of another city or
wherever, find themselves being searched on the basis of
suspicionless stop and search, they will just not believe that it
is because they are at a protest, and neither will their friends,
parents or family.
The Minister will no doubt say that this is all covered by PACE
Code A, and indeed he has said that there will be some changes to
that code. That is a complacent response to the scale of what we
are facing. It ignores the evidence that those two recent reports
have put before your Lordships; it flies in the face of those
reports.
15:30:00
My Motion A1 has laid out all the recommendations in there, based
on the Casey review. If I were the Government I would have said,
as a statement of intent and good will toward the Casey review,
and as a Government who are using that review, “We are shocked by
its findings. We want to support the vast majority of
hard-working police officers, and to do that we as a Government
are going to make a statement of intent that this is a line in
the sand and the way we will go forward to support the police in
a better future”.
We cannot ignore statistics—others will no doubt speak more
movingly about some of them—and it is worth reminding ourselves
of some of the statistics in the Casey review. Sir Mark Rowley is
not ignoring them, and police officers will not ignore them, but
they are worth stating given the current situation with stop and
search. It is relevant to this because they show the
disproportionality under existing stop and search regulation and
law, and we are seeking to expand that with respect to protests.
The recent reports examining every year since 2016 show that
those between 11 and 61 who appear to be black have been at least
five times more likely to be stopped and searched by the Met than
their white counterparts. This is unacceptable, and we propose to
extend suspicionless stop and search for protests? I do not
believe that. Stop and search for serious violence? Yes, do that,
I understand that—but where are we going with this?
The Government have accepted the Casey review; they have quibbles
about one or two bits of it, but they have accepted it. A recent
report examining the experience of black communities nationally
regarding stop and search says that while 77% of black adults
support it in relation to suspicion of carrying a weapon, less
than half of those who have been stopped and searched felt that
the police had communicated well enough with them. The Government
are seeking to do something about that, but you can go
on—statistic after statistic laid out in the Casey review
highlights the disproportionality of stop and search. What my
Motion seeks to do is to build on the recommendations in the
Casey review which seek to do something about this, and I would
have thought the Government would have embraced that. We have
also had the Children’s Commissioner’s report, which as we know
came out a couple of days ago. It listed the number of
strip-searches of children and some of the issues raised by
that.
I have laid out the Motion before you. The Minister says that
everything is in PACE Code A, and I am sure others will also say
that. All that my Motion seeks to do is to say that such is the
importance of this, and such is the necessity for us to draw a
line in the sand, that it must be put on the face of primary
legislation. It should be not in statutory guidance tucked away
on page 602, but on the face of the Bill. Do not say that it is
in PACE Code A because, if so, why does the noble Baroness, Lady
Casey, say that there is a need for all the recommendations that
she has put forward? Why are they necessary if they are already
all covered? Proposed new subsection (7A)(a), (b), and (c) to
Clause 11 is lifted straight from her report, yet the Minister
will say, “It is okay, we do not need it because it is in PACE
Code A”. I am lifting this out of the Casey review to say, “This
is what is needed, and this is what she recommends”—and that is
what I am saying to this Chamber that we should vote on.
The other points are about establishing communication and
consulting with various communities and looking at the figures on
how this is doing. I highlight proposed new subsection 9B(c),
which says that the charter must
“explain how Body Worn Video footage will be used.”
I will not go through each one, but one of the reasons I put that
in there is because the Casey review said that there are stop and
searches taking place where cameras are not turned on. It may be
in the PACE review that they should be turned on, but sometimes
they are not. We should put this in the Bill, in primary
legislation, and take it forward.
No doubt many others wish to contribute. I finish where I
started: this is about suspicionless stop and search, which in
certain areas to do with serious violence or terrorism may be
necessary. It cannot be necessary in a free and democratic
society to have suspicionless stop and search for protest-related
offences. This is overreach by the Government, and noble Lords
should support my Motion as a further way to try to mitigate the
impact of a clause that should not really be there in the first
place.
(CB)
My Lords, I stand only to amplify what the noble Lord, , has said. Anybody who reads
the Baroness Casey Review: Final Report will find it a great
shock. The noble Lord, , has tried to put her words
very simply. Paragraph 10 in one of her recommendations says:
“The use of stop and search in London by the Met needs a
fundamental reset.”
We cannot simply go back and say, “We’ve been doing it this way”.
She goes on:
“The Met should establish a charter with Londoners on how and
when stop and search is used, with an agreed rationale, and
provide an annual account of its use by area, and by team
undertaking stop and searches. Compliance with the charter should
be measured independently, including the viewing of Body Worn
Video footage. As a minimum, Met officers should be required to
give their name, their shoulder number, the grounds for the stop
and a receipt confirming the details of the stop.”
At the end of our Stephen Lawrence inquiry, we talked about stop
and search. We said that stop and search should be retained
because it is a useful tool for preventing crime, but we had a
similar attitude and gave similar statements to the noble
Baroness, Lady Casey. John Grieve was tasked by the then
commissioner of the Met to carry out work on how this could be
done. There was a pilot. It worked, but of course some newspapers
did not like it and saw it as bureaucracy that prevented the
police’s work too much, and it was then stopped. This has now
come home to roost. Had we sustained what was started by Sir
, we would be in a very
different place, but we are not. We have a review suggesting that
what is in Motion A1 would be a good thing. I do not see how that
could go wrong.
Finally, as I said in the last debate on this, if the Bill is
about public order, we have extended stop and search beyond
belief. People are protesting—let us say young people—about
climate change, injustice and unfairness. There is really no need
for it; I cannot see why they should be stopped and searched.
Most of all, these protests are at the heart of being in a free
society. Most of us did not want Clause 11 but, now that it is in
there, these provisions would be a safeguard so that the
extension of stop and search does not do greater damage and hurt
to our young people, who really want to protest.
Remember when they left school for a day to protest about global
warming. If you stopped and searched them because you believed
there was a reason to do so, most parents would have been
offended. I would have been. Stop and search has been extended in
the Public Order Bill and not for the rest of crimes, which I
would wholeheartedly support. In many ways this amendment would
limit the abuse that could occur because we went for believing as
opposed to having grounds to suspect.
(Lab)
My Lords, this Bill was always about political signals, not
sensible policy. Finally, even signals must change. I respect the
Minister, but others in the Home Office have been slow to respond
to the concerns of the British public about abuses of broad
police powers.
Much has happened and even more has been exposed since this Bill
began its passage last May. Last July Wayne Couzens lost an
appeal against a whole life sentence for the abduction, rape and
murder of Sarah Everard while he was a serving police officer,
after a purported stop and arrest for breach of lockdown laws in
March 2021. Last month David Carrick was imprisoned for 30 years
for an unrestrained 18-year campaign of rape and abuse while he
was a serving police officer.
Also last month, YouGov reported that 51% of Londoners do not
trust the Metropolitan Police very much or at all. Last week, as
we have heard, the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, called for a
“fundamental reset” of the use of stop and search, which she said
is
“currently deployed by the Met at the cost of legitimacy, trust
and, therefore, consent.”
Just yesterday the Children’s Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza,
found that nearly 3,000 children aged between eight and 17 had
been strip-searched under stop and search powers between 2018 and
2022. Nearly 40% of them were black. Half of those strip searches
had no appropriate adult present.
All this relates to the use and abuse of current police powers.
Still, today we are being asked yet again to green-light new
powers to stop and search peaceful protesters without even a
reasonable suspicion of criminality. When trust in policing and
the rule of law is in jeopardy, if this House does not exercise
its constitutional duty to say “enough”—no more power without at
least the modest statutory responsibilities set out in Motion A1
in the name of my noble friend Lord Coaker—what are we for?
(Con)
My Lords, I had not planned to speak, but it is important to
remember that we are not dealing simply with peaceful protests. I
remind the House of what I said on a previous occasion in respect
of these amendments. We are dealing with organised, large-scale
disruption, using implements. The purpose of the disruption, as
the disrupters make plain, is not simply to protest but to stop
citizens going about their lawful business for a disproportionate
length of time. As I reminded the House previously, the European
Court of Justice in Strasbourg has said more than once that such
activity is unlawful and that protests that go beyond merely
protesting can legitimately be stopped by government.
15:45:00
We are talking about plainly unlawful protest, not a march as we
all remember. I have told the House once that I have marched too
in the past, and my daughter has marched, but we are not talking
about that. We are talking about locking on, sitting tight and
blocking the thoroughfare for hours and hours. There has to be a
balance between someone saying that they do not like climate
change, which is legitimate and real, and on the other hand
stopping everybody else getting to hospital, to their jobs and to
school—doing what they all want to do. If you want to complain
about climate change or anything else, you can do so, but you
cannot legitimately stop the world at large—the citizens of this
country—going about their business. We are talking about plainly
unlawful disruption, using unlawful means, which is damaging to
the health and well-being of the innocent citizens of this
country, of which we are all members.
These are extreme situations. I am sorry that we have ever
arrived at this point, with people in this country behaving like
this. But they do, and therefore we now need these rather
extraordinary powers. I never thought I would support powers such
as these, but on this occasion I do.
(GP)
My Lords, what a pity the noble Lord does not care about what the
Government are doing to the country, because I say that what they
are doing is a lot more illegal than what these protesters are
doing. The noble Lord has to understand that disruption is part
of protest and that, as we have heard throughout the debate, the
police have enough powers to arrest people who do anything that
is not peaceful. Disruption on the roads and within our cities
does not necessarily stop people going to hospitals or schools;
it is the Government who are stopping people going to hospital
because they are underfunding the NHS and stripping out our
doctors and nurses by not paying them properly. They are
responsible for a lot more damage to our society than these
protesters are. Thank goodness the noble Lord, , has brought this back so that
we can say to the Government that they do not know what they are
talking about.
The Lord
My Lords, I declare my interest as co-chair of the national
police ethics committee, but obviously I am not speaking on
behalf of it today. I had hoped not to have to speak at all this
afternoon but after the contributions of other noble Lords I feel
I must say a few words.
I want to get us back to the focus of this amendment. Although I
have much sympathy for what I have heard around the Chamber of
late, this is an amendment around how police use suspicionless
stop and search powers. I wish we had had the Casey report and
the report we have just received on the strip-searching of
children earlier in the consideration of the Bill. They would
have informed our deliberations very helpfully at that stage.
However, we have them now. I feel that we need to put something
in the Bill that recognises that we have heard what was said by
the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, and in the other report that came
out in these last few weeks. We need something to say that we are
putting down a marker—a signal, as the noble Lord, , said a few moments ago—that,
whatever we have done in other legislation, now we are in a
different world.
I am passionate about the confidence that we have as the citizens
of this land in our police force, about good and effective
policing, and about the country having respect for its police.
However, I worry that, if passed unamended, this legislation will
further damage that relationship. It will not lead to public
order but to further public disorder. Therefore, I support the
amendment in the name of the noble Lord, .
(Non-Afl)
My Lords, the noble Lord, , gave us a passionate
reminder of the reason why there is so much public hostility to a
lot of the types of tactics that have been used by protesters
over the last year, which have undoubtedly fuelled support for
the headlines associated with this legislation. As it happens,
those arguments have been well rehearsed in this Chamber by all
sides. It seems that, despite that, the demand for stop and
search without suspicion will do absolutely nothing to tackle the
problems that are described. I want to state that again: stop and
search without suspicion. It seems extraordinary to me that
anyone would imagine that that would have any impact whatever on
the protesters that the noble Lord, , described, but it will
definitely have a chilling impact on protest in general.
As it happens, the amendment of the noble Lord, , is incredibly reasonable. It
does not fly in the face of anything the Government are trying to
do. It asks for some checks and balances, which, having read the
report of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, you would think that
the Government would welcome. In all seriousness, anyone reading
that would have to think, “Oh my goodness—what happened?” To have
a balancing amendment, which is what Motion A1 is, seems very
sensible.
Finally, on Sunday, a group of women, some of whom I know, went
to Speakers’ Corner as part of the Let Women Speak campaign. They
were kettled and mobbed by hostile opponents. Regardless of what
you think of that event, I mention it because the police stood by
and did nothing. At one point, when things got really hairy, they
walked off, leaving those women facing a lot of aggression.
The difficulty is that the police have acted inconsistently,
erratically and almost in a politicised fashion when policing
different demonstrations. I would like the police to use the
powers they have—goodness knows, they have plenty of them—to
police this country and protect those under attack. We do not
need to give them new powers that they do not need to police this
country or to police any aggressive demonstration that disrupts
the lives of everyone, as noble Lords have said. We just need the
police to do the job that they are paid to do. They do not appear
to be doing so, and that is what the Casey report shows.
It is worse than that. We will do damage to the reputation of the
police if this House, just for headlines, thinks that the
Government will improve things—they will not. I urge your
Lordships to support the police by not being disproportionate,
and to support the public by asking the police to do their job
without bringing in suspicionless stop and search, which is
draconian in any country.
(CB)
My Lords, having been mentioned by both Front Benches, I thought
I ought to speak for myself, just to make clear my position.
We are not debating whether there is suspicionless stop and
search but the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, . To make clear my position, I
support smart, effective stop and search, done according to the
law, but it can cause problems, as the noble and right reverend
Lord, , mentioned, and sometimes it
causes a problem disproportionate to the benefit it produces. For
as long as I was involved—certainly in London, but wherever I
have worked—I have always supported its being used wisely.
In 2017, after the riots London experienced, one of my
conclusions was that one of the causes or aggravating factors was
the amount of stop and search being carried out. Over the two
preceding years, people had either been stopped and searched or,
as the noble and right reverend Lord, , mentioned, stopped and
accounted around 2.6 million times. Bearing in mind that, at the
time, there were only 8.4 million people in London and the vast
majority stopped were men, that was an awful lot of times that
some people were getting stopped. For that reason, we reduced
stop and search by about two-thirds, and Section 60 searches—the
suspicionless option—by 90%, and yet we arrested more people and
reduced crime. So it is entirely possible to do it better and
less. I support stop and search when done properly; that is my
broad point.
On the back of what I just described, I introduced 23,000
officers with body-worn video. It can make a difference. It
reduces complaints and proves that either the officer was
performing badly or there was a lie being told about the officer.
Either way, it should improve police behaviour, and on the whole
it has. I go on to say that, at the moment, it is being switched
on when there is an event to be filmed. I think there is a
growing argument for it to be on all the time.
There are consequences to that, not least in cost and intrusion
into privacy, particularly, perhaps, when an officer talks to a
family or anybody with a child. The first thing they have to say
is just that straightforward discussion that they are going to
film it. It is not the best introduction anybody could have, but
I think that the wider use of body-worn video is probably
wise.
On a point that the Minister raised, I am glad to see the
acknowledgement that there might be more communication of this
suspicionless stop and search at protests. I do not support
suspicionless stop and search in the Bill, and I voted against
it, but that was not the amendment that was brought back, so I
could not do anything about that. My point in that debate was
that the communication should happen at the border of an area
that people are about to enter where suspicionless stop and
search is about to be exercised. Currently, whether it is a
Section 60 or a protest, if you walk into that area, you just do
not know. I do not think it is good enough to say, “Well, if
you’d consulted the website, you’d have found out. Somebody has
published a notice”. It is entirely possible, either digitally or
by putting up posters—there are any number of ways. If you say to
someone, “If you go into this area, there’s a protest or we have
got Section 60 as there’s a lot of violence, and you run the risk
of a without-cause stop and search”, I think you assist the
officer in carrying out their job. So my point is about
communication at the boundary at which you cross and where the
suspicionless stop and search might be exercised.
That said, I do not entirely agree with the amendment of the
noble Lord, . There is one part of it which
I do, but I am really not sure that this is the right way. I take
the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, that this might be a
way to send a signal, but I am not sure that this is the way for
me.
In terms of officers exercising the powers conferred by
subsection (6), the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, has made the
point that she would prefer these particular amendments.
Actually, within the Bill and the code, I think there is a
stronger set of rules for the officer. They have to say what they
expect to find, give a reason, explain why they are legally
allowed to use the searches—Section 1 or Section 60—and that you
can have a record of that search at that time or subsequently,
within a year. Now, it seems to me that these are strong powers,
and if you want to amend the things the Government have said they
want to, the way is to amend the code. If you put these
conditions in the Bill, you will end up with Section 1 and
Section 60 searches going by the code and the protest ones being
covered by the Bill. I think that there is at least a risk of
confusion, and there needs to be consistency. The code might be
amended in the way described but I am not sure that these powers
alone form an awful lot of additional powers or, frankly,
reassurance compared with what is already in the code.
The amendment says:
“Within one year of the passage of this Act, all police forces
must establish a charter on the use of the powers in this
section”
and that must
“be drawn up in consultation with local communities”.
My concern is that that runs the risk that it will be
inconsistent across the 43 police forces that cover this country.
Then you are going to end up with confusion: if you protest in
Birmingham or London, you end up with a different set of
charters. I do not think that is a very wise thing; if there is
to be a charter, it is perhaps wise to have a national charter.
But to have different circumstances in different parts of the
country about protest, I just do not understand how that is going
to work for the protesters or the police officers.
The amendment also says:
“Each police force must produce an annual report on the use of
the powers”.
I think that could be put into the police’s annual report, which
is produced each year anyway, but it could be more bureaucracy if
we have another report to publish every year. What I do think is
a good idea is:
“Within one month of the powers in this section being used, the
authorising officer must publish a statement giving reasons”.
That seems entirely reasonable and something that I do not think
anybody could object to. In fact, I think it should be published
at the time that the power is declared. If you are going to tell
the public that this power is going to be used, you can explain
why you are going to use it. I think that is a perfectly
reasonable thing, but I do not necessarily think that this
amendment enhances what is already in place. I accept that it
could send a signal, but I am not sure that it is a wise signal
to send at the moment.
(Lab)
My Lords, I had not intended to intervene in this fascinating
discussion, but I will make one point and one point only. We are
talking about the possible dangers of stop and search.
We have every opportunity of examining what is happening right
now, not in this country—although we would if we proceeded with
this Bill—but in France. In France, the use of extreme stop and
search by an undisciplined police force, somewhat similar to our
own, has accelerated and accentuated the problems that they have
had, with the result that what were in themselves perhaps not
objectionable practices turned into something very much
worse—gender conflict, class conflict and, of course, very sadly,
racial and religious conflict. So we do have on this continent
examples of the dangers that could occur. We are choosing, in
effect, the most extreme option of how to deal with civil
disturbances and, indeed, with the exercise of human rights. I
urge the House to act wisely and temperately and show the
restraint and scrutiny for which it is justly honoured.
16:00:00
(CB)
My Lords, I did not plan to speak and do not have notes to speak
from, and I will speak briefly, but I want to express my
strongest possible support for the amendment in the name of the
noble Lord, . I regret that the noble Lord,
, who I respect a lot, has
nitpicked through the amendment. The principle of the amendment
is that stop and search without suspicion is a completely
exceptional step to be taken in a democracy. If we were standing
here in Moscow, or Beijing, we might well expect this sort of
power to be given to the police in relation to public
demonstrations. It is not for this country to be introducing
these powers for the police, and I am so shocked, frankly, that
our Government are attempting to do that.
The amendment is incredibly modest. It is saying that police
officers do not take these powers and use them thoughtlessly
without proper care, attention and, ideally, consultation with
the community. This is an incredibly serious step for any police
officer to take. That is the point of this amendment. Yes, we can
say it should say this or that or something else. That is not the
point. The point is that this power is outrageous; the police
already have the powers they need to deal with
demonstrations—they really do. Those police officers need the
commitment of the community and to work with the community. This
power will interfere with policing and reduce the safety of our
communities up and down the country.
I hope that the House will support the amendment in the name of
the noble Lord, , as a clear statement that we
know this power to be the dangerous step that it is and that
police officers need to take the most extreme care in using
it.
(CB)
My Lords, I say briefly that I am concerned about the use of
these powers and I support the amendment in the name of the noble
Lord, .
(LD)
My Lords, I will not repeat what I said last time, but since last
time, as the right reverend Prelate the , said, we have had the
Casey review. The noble Baroness, Lady Casey of Blackstock, is
quite clear about what she thinks about stop and search. In that
review, she says, as the noble and right reverend Lord, , has already said:
“The use of stop and search in London by the Met needs a
fundamental reset. The Met should establish a charter with
Londoners on how and when stop and search is used, with an agreed
rationale, and provide an annual account of its use by area, and
by team undertaking stop and searches”.
It is unfortunate that the noble Lord, , disagrees with the noble
Baroness, Lady Casey, in coming to that conclusion. Elsewhere in
the report she says:
“Stop and search—”
(CB)
I think I am entitled to my opinion and to make the point which I
made. I explained that I could live with a national charter, but
I dispute the need for a local one, which ends up with the
possibility, even if it is nitpicking, of inconsistency across
the country, where we expect consistency. That was merely my
point.
(LD)
The noble Lord is of course entitled to his opinion, and so am I.
I said it was unfortunate that the noble Lord disagreed with the
noble Baroness, Lady Casey. That is my opinion.
Elsewhere in the report, the noble Baroness says:
“Stop and search and vehicle stops are justified
—she meant by the police—
“through their compliance with the law, ignoring how such
incidents are perceived, the impact on individuals, and the wider
corrosive impact of trust in the police.”
The Minister mentioned body-worn video and so does the noble
Baroness, Lady Casey. She says that the police want to use
body-worn video to justify continuing to do what they have done
in the past rather than what she says is needed, which is a
fundamental reset. Body-worn video is not the answer. That should
not be used by the police to justify continued disproportionality
in their use of the power.
The noble Baroness further states:
“Black Londoners are under-protected—disproportionately the
victims of homicides and domestic abuse; and over-policed—facing
disproportionate use of stop and search and use of force by the
Met. A huge and radical step is required to regain police
legitimacy and trust among London’s Black communities.”
“Overpoliced and underprotected” is what a black policeman said
to the Macpherson inquiry 25 years ago. It was not the noble and
right reverend Lord, , but another black churchman
giving evidence to that inquiry; here we are with another inquiry
saying exactly the same thing 25 years later.
The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, cites a Home Affairs Select
Committee report from 2021, which reported that, in the previous
year, the equivalent of one in four black males aged 15 to 24 in
London were stopped and searched in a three-month period. The
noble Baroness says:
“The facts relating to stop and search are … around 70 to 80%
lead to no further action … the more stop and searches are done,
the greater the proportion of no further actions.”
The noble Baroness cites a 2019 research study that questioned
the efficacy of stop and search as a tactic of policing. She
quotes from that report, as do I. It says:
“Overall, our analysis of ten years’ worth of London-wide data
suggests that, although stop and search had a weak association
with some forms of crime, this effect was at the outer margins of
statistical and social significance.”
The Minister repeatedly says that the power that we are debating
today—the power to stop and search without suspicion—is based on
the existing power under Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and
Public Order Act 1994. The 2019 research goes on to say:
“When we looked separately at S. 60 searches, it did not appear
that a sudden surge in use had any effect on the underlying trend
in … violent crime.”
The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, concludes:
“Stop and search is currently deployed by the Met at the cost of
legitimacy, trust and, therefore consent. … It has damaged trust.
If the Met is unable to explain and justify its disproportionate
use and the impacts of these, then it needs a fundamental
reset.”
The majority of stop and search nationally—between 50% and 60%—is
carried out in London. The majority—over 60%—of protests happen
in London. The majority of times these powers are used will be in
London. Stop and search in London needs a fundamental reset, and
yet this Government have ignored this House and are giving the
police even more opportunity to undermine their legitimacy, trust
and, therefore, consent, by giving the police more powers to stop
and search.
Without consent, the whole system of policing in this country is
undermined, and that is what this Government risk with this
legislation. We support the Motion in the name of the noble Lord,
, and will vote for it, but we
believe these new stop and search powers should not be part of
the Bill. That is what we have always said and what we
maintain.
The noble Lord, , cited various examples of
what I think he called “disproportionate protests”. All the
examples he gave are of criminal offences for which people can be
arrested. The police do not need stop and search powers in
addition to those powers of arrest.
The noble Lord, , cited the 2017 riots and
his view, his opinion, was that they were aggravated by the
police use of stop and search. Lord Scarman said exactly the same
thing about the 1981 Brixton riots. Will we never learn? I urge
this House to vote for Motion A1.
(CB)
My Lords, I had not intended to speak in this debate today, but I
find myself totally in agreement with the noble Lord, , and with the last remark about
Lord Scarman. I worked very closely with him in 1981 and after
that and agreed wholeheartedly with his findings then. They are
still good today.
The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, spoke very eloquently and I
found myself nodding all the way through her speech. I agree
entirely with what she said and will not weary this House by
repeating those very wise words, save to say that I think that
this is the wrong time for this projected policy. What we need
now is temperate and measured policing and this is not going to
help that. I support the noble Lord, .
(Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for another fruitful debate. As
I said at the beginning, this Bill has undoubtedly been given the
scrutiny the British public want and expect.
Before I go on to more substantive remarks, I should say that I
fully support the Casey report. The Government and the Met Police
have taken this report very seriously. Guidance on the use of
stop and search is statutory and is set out in PACE. It is the
law. That is the place for it, as the noble Lord, , pointed out, if nothing
else to ensure consistency. There are safeguards and considerable
scrutiny of stop and search and I will come back to that.
The noble Lord, , and others will no doubt
accuse me of semantics but as my noble friend reminded us, these powers
relate to serious disruption—ambulances should not be stopped
from getting to hospital, as the leader of the Opposition has
pointed out in the past.
On the comments from the noble Lord, , about the effectiveness of
stop and search, I was reminded of a pack that I still have in my
folder. I was giving some statistics yesterday, and every knife
seized through stop and search, I think, is a potential life
saved. In 2021-22, stop and search removed around 14,900 weapons
and firearms from our streets and resulted in almost 67,000
arrests. I appreciate that we are on a slightly different
subject, but none the less this is an important and powerful
illustration that, used appropriately, stop and search can
work.
Recent protests have been clear in their aim of causing as much
disruption as possible through the use of guerrilla tactics.
These measures give the police the proactive powers necessary to
respond to those dangerous and disruptive tactics quickly. We
will work closely with our partners in the police to ensure that
they have the support and resources in place to use these
powers.
I have heard what the House has said about the potential
disproportionality involved in this and we acknowledge that
nobody should be stopped and searched because of their race.
Extensive safeguards such as the statutory codes of practice to
which I have referred and the use of body-worn video exist to
ensure that this does not happen. The Home Office publishes
extensive data on police use of stop and search in the interest
of transparency and we will expand the publication to the use of
the new powers provided for in this Bill, as I have already
outlined.
I referred to GOWISELY earlier, which is a mnemonic. This
follows, and frankly supports, many of the recommendations from
the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. I will go through them. The G
stands for grounds for the search. These are the minimum bits of
information which should be given to the person detained for the
purpose of the search. O stands for the object of the search. W
is for the warrant card to be shown to the person searched. I is
for the identity of the officer—that is usually the officer’s
name unless the officer thinks that giving their name would put
them in danger, in which case an identification number can be
given. S is the station to which the officer is attached. E is
the entitlement to a copy of the search form. L is the legal
search power being exercised. Y means that you, the officer, must
tell the person stopped that they are being detained for the
purpose of the search.
The noble Lord, , referred to the situation in
Paris. As I understand it, much of that is a consequence of the
activities of the gendarmerie, which is not a police force with
any equivalent in this country.
16:15:00
Much has been said—by me—about the long-established safeguards
that already exist for stop and search powers. I will go back to
my initial speech: we have supported the National Police Chiefs’
Council in its publication of national guidance on the use of
body-worn cameras. This includes encouraging forces to share
footage with external scrutiny groups to support transparency and
reflective practice and learning. I am not sure how that
justifies disproportionality, in answer to the point from the
noble Lord, .
To go back to the PACE codes that we intend to amend, as I said
earlier and will say again for the avoidance of doubt, this is
statutory—it is law. We recognise the merits that establishing
this communication requirement in statute can bring and commit
now to amending PACE code 8 to require that, where it is
operationally practical to do so, forces must communicate the
extent of the area authorised for the suspicionless stop and
search, the duration of an order and the reasons for the
order.
As I have also said, the Home Office already publishes an annual
statistics bulletin that analyses the data from forces across
England and Wales. We will also amend PACE code 8 to place data
collection within the legislative framework. This will include a
breakdown of both suspicion-led and suspicionless searches,
cross-referenced with protected characteristics such as age, sex
and ethnicity.
I said earlier that I hoped that would persuade the noble Lord,
, to withdraw his Motion. I do
believe that most of the things that he has eloquently explained
that he wishes to see put in are already in place, albeit by
slightly different means, but it remains the Government’s view
that their suspicionless powers as introduced are necessary and
much-needed proactive powers for talking highly disruptive
protest offences and that the changes we have debated cannot be
supported. So the Government’s position remains unchanged. We
believe it is time for the Bill to become law, and I beg to
move.
(Con)
Would the Minister answer a question? In a situation where there
is a protest preventing traffic, which is very grave and serious,
and there are two people young people involved in it, if the
police decided to use their power to strip and search, what would
they expect to find on those two young people?
(Con)
My Lords, we are debating stop and search. I am not quite sure
where strip and search came into this, I am sorry.
of Hudnall (Lab)
With respect to the Minister, that was not an entirely adequate
answer. He was probably quite clear on what the noble Lord, Lord
Baker, was asking him.
That said, the Minister has relied very heavily in what he has
said to the House this afternoon on existing protocols that the
police are expected to use. We have just been told through the
Casey report, using very recent evidence, that those protocols
are substantially ignored by the police. Does he have an answer
for that?
(Con)
I apologise if I misunderstood my noble friend. I was basing my
answer on the fact that a report was published yesterday by the
Children’s Commissioner that specifically related to young people
and strip search. If I misunderstood, I apologise. With regard to
stop and search, I would argue that all the criteria for
establishing the cordon and the area and so on would mean that
the circumstances described by my noble friend would be highly
unlikely.
With regard to the Casey report, as I have already said, both the
Government and the Met police are taking it very seriously. These
are rules that we expect to be followed.
(Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and also thank
all noble Lords who have participated in this further discussion
between us on this incredibly important matter. For the avoidance
of doubt, I will be testing the opinion of the House on my
amending Motion A1.
At the very beginning, I said to the Minister that one of the
things he would do in his remarks was send up smoke. What did he
do in his reply? He sent up smoke. What on earth has praying in
aid that 14,900 weapons were seized under existing legislation
got to do with the legislation we are currently debating? I am
delighted that 14,900 weapons have been seized under stop and
search powers—as every single Member in this Chamber will be—but
they are nothing to do with suspicionless stop and search under
Clause 11; I guess they are probably to do either with stop and
search with reasonable suspicion, or with Section 60
suspicionless powers, where needed. I said that I support those
powers, and I suspect that nearly everybody, if not everybody,
here supports them. What I object to, and what is wrong, is using
that to somehow speak against my amendments, because it is
irrelevant: we are talking not about weapons or terrorism but
about protests and using suspicionless stop and search with
respect to protests.
I say to the noble Lord, , that we lost the debate
about taking Clause 11 out: it is in the Bill. So the things that
he wants to do—confiscate without suspicion various objects that
are used for protest—are not what this debate is about: people
continue to be able to do that. We lost that debate: we agreed it
here, but it was put back in in the other place, and, given that
we respect the will of the elected House, I revised what we were
doing to seek to mitigate. That is what my amendment seeks to do:
to mitigate this further. It does not stop it in any way.
However, I say to the noble Lord, , that the bigger problem is
that the police do not have the confidence to use the existing
powers to do the things he wants. Nobody in this House supports
the protests we have seen on our streets in the last couple of
years. But the Government put up this sort of mirage of “This is
what people who oppose what we are suggesting are for”. So people
who are for the sort of amendment I am talking about are somehow
on the side of protesters who are stopping ambulances, or on the
side of people who want to take protests too far. That is a
nonsense. What I am against is allowing the unmitigated use of
Clause 11 without the safeguards needed.
Every single report from the inspectorate, the police complaints
authority or whoever says that, if you are going to use this sort
of power, which is the most severe power you can give the police,
to stop people without suspicion going about their lawful
business—that is the power you are going to give to these
people—you have to build in safeguards. My contention is that,
even with the concessions that the Minister made, the
Government’s safeguards are not sufficient and need to be in the
Bill. Why do I say that? I use the evidence in the Casey review.
I do not just make it up and say, “Oh, that’d be a good idea”; I
use the evidence from somebody who has researched and understood
this, talked to people, been out to communities, and said, “This
is what needs to be included. If you don’t, you risk carrying on
with some of the problems that we’ve got”. The noble and right
reverend Lord, , talked about
disproportionality, and my noble friend Lady Lawrence and others
with experience of this are here. The disproportionality is,
frankly, a scar on our society, and now we are now going to
extend that suspicionless power, with all that that may entail,
without the necessary safeguards in the Bill.
It is not people like you and me who will be stopped and
searched; it will be some of the most deprived people in some of
the most difficult communities, who already have problems with
trust and confidence in the police. We have the opportunity here,
through the Casey review, to draw a line in the sand and set the
agenda to support our police by saying that we will help them
regain the trust and confidence they need. But we cannot do that
if the Government are hiding behind saying, “Oh well, we are in
favour of getting weapons off the street and stopping these awful
protests”. We are all in favour of that, but this is an overreach
of legislation which will potentially have very serious
consequences for our society.
My amendment simply seeks to mitigate the impact of the
suspicionless stop and search power. I agree with the noble Lord,
, that it should not be in the
Bill anyway, but, as we have lost that argument, all we are
seeking to do is to mitigate its impact. That is a perfectly
sensible and reasonable thing to do.
I finish by saying that we are giving our police the most severe
power that they can be given: suspicionless stop and search. Just
by walking down the street, you could be stopped and searched. We
have said that the power is fine with respect to terrorism—but
even there we have mitigated it—and we accept that it is fine if
it stops murder, gang warfare and all those sorts of things. But
it is a totally different set of circumstances to talk about
using suspicionless stop and search for protests. That is a step
too far and, as such, we should at least mitigate its impact by
supporting the amending Motion I have put forward.
Division 1
28/03/2023 16:25:00
Division on Motion A1
Ayes: 246
Noes: 201
Motion A1 agreed.
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