Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Codes of Practice) (Revision of Codes C, E, F, and H) Order 2018

Lord Jones Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister for explaining these measures but I want to take up the theme that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, mentioned about resources. While we welcome the tightening of safeguards for children and vulnerable people, we are concerned that some of these measures are a worrying sign of the pressure the police are under. I shall come to that in a moment.

In the meantime, is the Minister aware of the difficulties in the police securing appropriate adults to attend police stations? This has arisen out of the centralisation of charging, meaning that appropriate adults are having to travel much longer distances than when they simply used to attend a local police station. Has any work been done to quantify the problems of centralised charging, set against a potential need for more appropriate adults to attend interviews as a result of the tightening of the guidelines in these codes of practice?

A worrying sign of the times is the fact that a superintendent could potentially authorise an extension of detention of up to 36 hours using a live link. This is an indication of the worrying reduction in the number of senior police officers. The noble Baroness will agree that this is a serious decision. Bearing in mind the rank of the officer required to authorise the detention, is it really appropriate that this be done via a live link rather than by the superintendent attending the police station in person? The lack of detectives in the police service has been in the news recently. There is a national shortage of detectives. Allowing a live link to be used so that a detective can question a suspect, even if the detective is not at the police station, seems a retrograde step. I speak from personal experience when I say that nothing beats being in the room with the suspect when you are trying to determine whether he or she is telling you the truth. Have any concerns been raised by police detectives about the extension of the use of a live link in the way suggested in this order?

Clearly, we welcome the fact that 17 year-olds are going to be treated as children for all purposes under PACE, but that goes back to what I was saying about the need for more appropriate adults and the difficulties that have been brought to my attention in securing appropriate adults.

It is very important that suspect interviews are recorded, except in exceptional circumstances, and therefore we support this order. However, recordings have to be made on suitably compliant authorised recording devices. Has any work been done on whether there will be additional cost to ensure that these suitably compliant authorised recording devices are available in every circumstance, in order to ensure that the interviews can be recorded? The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, also asked this question.

As the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, also said, the outcome of the consultation has prompted a number of significant changes to the original proposals. It is to the credit of the Government and the Home Office that the consultation has taken into account these concerns, such as not raising the level required to determine whether somebody is vulnerable to “belief” but keeping it to “any reason to suspect” the suspect is vulnerable. We welcome that approach. Overall, we agree with the changes to these codes of practice, but we are concerned that they may have some operational and financial impact on the police service that is not reflected in any of the surrounding literature the Home Office has provided in connection with these provisions.

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her careful and detailed introduction. She probably knows far more than I ever will at this stage about this subject; Chief Inspector Morse was a very impatient tutor, as his long-suffering sergeant always indicated. First, and briefly, the chief constable of North Wales, Mark Polin QPM, is retiring. He has led and leads a very dedicated team of officers. Mr Polin has been a fine professional in difficult times of austerity. He has led with shrewdness and good judgment, and he has served the far-flung communities of north Wales very well. It is a very demanding bilingual, mountainous and industrial area—not the easiest beat to operate in. He must be a fine public servant, because he has accepted the invitation of the Wales Assembly Government to take on the chairmanship of our National Health Service trust, which again means more difficult choices in an austerity climate.