Child Abuse

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fowler (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will welcome the reviews, not least because, I suspect, questions on the destruction of files go much wider than the Home Office. My experience of three government departments is that Ministers are never consulted in or out of office on such destruction. My suspicion is that decisions on destruction are taken at a fairly junior level and that at times the whole system can be fairly chaotic. May I ask my noble friend whether one of the aims will be to ensure that we have a system that is fit for purpose and applies to all departments in Whitehall and where decisions on destruction are taken at an appropriately senior level?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I agree with my noble friend. I know that he speaks from considerable experience of government in this respect. There are in fact guidelines in place. New guidelines were brought in in the late 1990s to deal with the destruction of files. I imagine that one of the outcomes of all this business will be to determine how come 114 files are missing. At this stage we do not know whether the files are significant. Mark Sedwill was of the view that they were not. I think that the House would be entitled to ask what the titles of the files were. We do not know what they were. My noble friend is quite right to draw attention to the fact that we will learn lessons here that could well be important in other aspects of government. Tragic and uncalled-for events teach us lessons about how we deal with things in the future. I hope that we learn from this episode.

Drugs

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fowler (Con)]

My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Baroness on her speech, which was extremely effective. I agree with her that the acid test is not about criminalising drug users but how we deal effectively and properly with the problem. I also congratulate her on her report and the other report that we are considering today.

I made my maiden speech on drugs policy in the other place 43 years ago in 1970, and I am tempted to say that the debate has not changed very much in the interim. It strikes me how much of the debate is put in military terms, or semi-military terms. I still have a T-shirt given to me by the Drug Enforcement Administration in the United States with the slogan, “It is not over until we win”. That was 20 years ago and I do not think that we have won in the interim. As I have been going around the world over the past 18 months looking at the issue of HIV and AIDS, I find Ministers still talking about the war on drugs. Indeed, when I was in Russia a few months ago, a political leader said, “It is not just the war on drugs, it is total war”. In fact, Russia has probably the worst drugs position in the whole world; it has a disastrous policy.

These words may give great comfort to some politicians and increase their sense of self-righteousness, but they do not do very much to solve the problem. The truth is that this one-dimensional approach has never worked in the past and is unlikely to work in the future. We all know what we want to achieve: we want to stop the pushers; we want to persuade people not to take up the habit; and we want to deal decently and humanely with those who have become dependent. However, we are not going to deal with all those goals by saying that all you need to do is to enforce the law. That is precisely what we have been doing over the past 50 years and it is precisely the reason why we have not been successful. We need to be frank about that failure.

Before this debate, someone asked me whether I was in favour of liberalising drugs policy. My answer to that, in principle, is yes, but the real answer is that we have already liberalised our drugs policy. When the Government were seeking to deal with the HIV and AIDS crisis in 1986-87, we faced precisely that problem of how to deal with drug users who shared needles and syringes. The result, obviously, of shared needles was devastating. We had no treatment to offer—it was a death sentence—and someone with HIV simply spread it to others.

We could have taken the view that upholding the criminal law was the only policy—the only way to go—and that those who injected should be prosecuted. There were many who urged us to take that way. In fact, we decided to institute a policy of clean needles. Our advice was, obviously, not to inject at all but if, in spite of the advice, people still injected, then we would supply clean needles. In other words, we put public health in front of the strict interpretation of the law.

This policy was not decided by some way-out left-wing Government or by implementing a resolution of the Liberal Democrat annual conference—I am sorry about that; it was meant to be a joke—but by the Government of Margaret Thatcher, who, for all her great qualities, did not have a reputation as a radical reformer in this area. The policy has been spectacularly successful. For the past 25 years, the spread of HIV through injecting drugs has been only 1% or 2%. It has not led to an increase in crime and drug use, and the policy has been followed by many other countries.

I agree that it has not been followed universally. It has not been followed in Russia and the result is that drug users are abandoned to their fate and an appalling tragedy is taking place before our eyes. Saddest of all, the United States has just gone back on the policy. The House will not be surprised to know that this was because of the disagreement on the budget between the Administration and the House of Representatives.

I do not pretend to have instant solutions. There were warnings—the needle park in Zurich being one, where a park was given over officially to drug users. However, we need to open a new dialogue and try for new solutions in this area. The old policies have failed and we must try, perhaps by pilot schemes, to find new and better ways forward. Some of the ideas put forward in these reports are excellent and should be carried forward. I congratulate the authors of both reports on what they have done.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I can only point to the fact, which I have already quoted, of the reduction of drug use among school children. When I talk about cross-governmental co-operation, I am demonstrating that it is one of the areas that is very important. Schools can be very important in this, and I am satisfied that the Department for Education is playing its full part.

We are also committed to undertaking an evaluation to assess the effectiveness and value for money of the current drug strategy as well as reviewing the drug strategy on an annual basis. The second annual review will be published shortly.

I agree with my noble friends Lord Fowler and Lady Hamwee that the “war on drugs” is an unhelpful term and does not reflect the complexity of the issue. However, I believe that the legalisation of drugs would not eliminate the crime committed by organised career criminals; such criminals would simply seek new sources of illicit revenue through crime. Neither would a regulated market eliminate illicit supplies, as alcohol and tobacco smuggling clearly demonstrate. Regulation also carries its own administrative and enforcement costs and could cause increases in drug use and availability. I do not believe that it is a risk worth taking.

[Lord Fowler]

I apologise for intervening, but could my noble friend be absolutely clear on the clean needles policy? I have been listening to what he says very carefully. All the international experience to which he refers suggests that when countries do not follow that policy, it has a disastrous effect with regard to HIV. Do the Government in the United Kingdom remain absolutely committed to the clean needles policy?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Yes, I can give my noble friend that commitment.

It may help if I go on and stick to my notes in order. We talked about the medical evidence; the recent British Medical Journal report stated that global drug prices are falling and purity is increasing. However, this focused on international drug supply indicators. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, who always makes a valuable contribution to our debates. In the UK, we are seeing low purity levels and high wholesale prices for both cocaine and heroin, alongside some very large seizures and the lowest drug usage levels since records began. We should acknowledge the work being done by those individuals working to achieve this.

We have a cross-government action plan, which is already delivering successful outcomes. We continue to work with the ACMD to monitor closely this market, and our evidence-based approach continues to support UK law enforcement to disrupt supply and communications activity to reduce demand. Hundreds of new psychoactive substances identified in the EU are already controlled drugs in the UK, and we are leading the international response through the G8 and with the EU to tackle the threat from NPS. However, we are not complacent—I use that word again. We are conducting an international comparators study of alternative approaches adopted abroad to address drug issues, including legislative responses to the legal-high market. We want to understand the opportunities and drawbacks of the alternative approaches to help inform any further necessary steps to protect the public. We welcome the contributions that this debate has made in that field. But the noble Baroness, Lady Greenfield, brought us up sharp with her informed comments on cannabis.

We are committed to explore the full use of existing drug, medicines and consumer protection legislation, as well as the Intoxicating Substances (Supply) Act 1985, to disrupt the NPS market.

I also point to the work done by my honourable friend, the former Minister Jeremy Browne. He visited Portugal, which has been mentioned by a number of noble Lords, Denmark, Sweden, Japan, South Korea, Canada and the USA, and has spoken to the New Zealand representative responsible for drug policy. Visits to the Czech Republic and Switzerland are planned for November. We recognise the global nature of this issue and we are determined to learn from other countries.

I have been taken short by a couple of interventions on these issues which rather threw me, but I confirm to my noble friend Lord Fowler my remarks on needle use. I thank all noble Lords for speaking. The Government are committed to a balanced approach, focusing on reducing demand, restricting supply and building recovery. Drug use is at its lowest level since measurement began in 1996. We are not complacent and we will continue to increase the resilience of young people to enable us to make a good choice on a range of issues, not just drugs but alcohol, sexual health and obesity. I thank the noble Baroness for presenting us with this chance to talk about that.

Undercover Policing

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fowler]

My Lords, I was the shadow Home Secretary at the time of the Macpherson report, and like the then Home Secretary, Mr Straw, I did not hear a whisper of this. This is a vastly serious charge to make against the police. Perhaps the assumption is that nothing of this kind would happen today, but I think the Andrew Mitchell case shows that that is not necessarily true. I wonder if the time has come when, in addition to the criminal inquiries that have been set up, there should be one public inquiry to look at the whole question of police ethics. Would not that be to the benefit of the police and the public?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I can understand the concern of my noble friend, who speaks from considerable experience of these matters. As he will know, the Home Secretary has set up the College of Policing, one of the principal tasks of which is to review police ethics and to establish within the policing profession a code of ethics that will guarantee that within the police force itself there is an acknowledgement of what is proper and what is acceptable in policing terms. I share my noble friend’s concern; it is the reason why we are taking things which happened in the past so seriously. We recognise that if we do not eliminate these issues from policing practice, there is a risk that we could see events similar to the ones that we have to talk about today.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fowler]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate. Lichfield is next to my old constituency of Sutton Coldfield, so I listened to him with an even greater care than I might otherwise have done, and I strongly share many of the views that he has just expressed. I also agree entirely with what the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, said at the end of her speech about equal marriage, which is something that I shall come to.

At the heart of any debate on constitutional affairs and equalities is parliamentary democracy and the importance of respecting that democracy. We in this House have an important role. We can advise, but it is the elected House that decides. It has the authority that comes from being the elected House—the authority that comes from the people or the citizen. It is in that respect that I want to test just two measures that will be debated in Parliament over the coming weeks, although neither was specifically mentioned in the Queen’s Speech.

The first is the proposed royal charter on the press. To be frank, I thought that that debate was over. No one thought that a few weeks later we would be asked to consider a rival royal charter put together by a number of big newspapers—a rival royal charter that, in the words of the respected media analyst Claire Enders, is,

“further away from what Leveson recommended than anything that has gone before”.

On 18 March, we should remember, there was a debate in the other place on the Government’s royal charter proposals. Everyone agreed that it was a compromise, but it was a compromise agreed by all three major parties in Parliament. A final line had been drawn, or so we thought. The Prime Minister said:

“My message to the press is now very clear: we have had the debate, now it is time to get on and make this system work”.

For the Labour Party, Mr Miliband said:

“Today represents a huge moment for the House. We are doing the right thing. Politics has failed to grasp this issue for decades, but today politicians have come together to put the victims first”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/3/13; cols. 636-37.]

And for the Liberal Democrats, the Deputy Prime Minister said:

“Today we turn a page on the mistakes of the past and, finally, establish a proper independent watchdog to serve the British people while protecting our free press”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/3/13; col. 640.]

Therefore, there is no conceivable doubt about what the leaders of the three parties intended. They had agreed a way forward that protected the freedom of the press but which also sought to protect the public from the abuse of press power. No objective observer looking at what had been revealed by the Leveson inquiry could fairly argue that they were overreacting. The agreement followed the worst set of scandals to affect some of the national press for the past half century. The private details of phone conversations, not just of celebrities but of ordinary people, had been revealed. Great harm was done to individuals—to citizens—in this country. The scandal forced the closure of one high-circulation and profitable newspaper because of the action that had been taken. Journalists and quasi journalists have been arrested—about 100 to date—and 24 have been charged.

As Leveson made clear, the knowledge of what was going on was not confined to one or two rogue journalists or one or two junior executives; it went much higher than that. That is the answer to those who say that as phone hacking is a criminal offence no further action is required because the criminal law will look after all that. The point is that the culture of newspapers, where phone hacking was allowed and the results published, had to be changed. It was for such reasons that the Government proposed their royal charter. Even more important, that was why the House of Commons supported them. When it came to the crucial vote on damages, 530 Members of Parliament voted in favour of the Government’s proposals and 13 voted against. The next day the Times had the headline on its front page, “Press deal divides parties”. Divides parties? A vote of 530 to 13? Just imagine the Whips going into immediate crisis talks on that, or those nice people at the National Theatre who put on that excellent play, “This House”, based on Labour’s voting problems in the 1970s, immediately asking for a sequel.

There is a much more serious point. The Government’s royal charter of March has been subject to a barrage of black propaganda from the newspapers that eventually produced their own royal charter. No issue has been too small to build up an attack. An affair between two people at the inquiry is portrayed as invalidating the whole painstaking Leveson inquiry in spite of Lord Justice Leveson’s assurance that there was no effect whatever. The poor old Hacked Off campaign is portrayed as a deeply sinister organisation with unlimited funds to do damage to the British press. If anyone had any doubts about why the Government’s course was best, we had only to look at the tactics employed by newspapers whose self-interest is utterly clear. The truth is that this has been a David and Goliath struggle, and the Goliath has been the big national newspapers, which have had the resources to place deeply misleading and untruthful advertisements in their own papers and to instruct their reporters to get any story that might cast doubt on the Government’s proposals.

I very much hope that no one in the special adviser group, which seems to surround this Government just as it did the previous one, believes that if further concessions are given to the newspapers that are proposing their own royal charter, that will be to the benefit of the Government. Bluntly, it will be seen as a defeat, and it is not healthy in any democracy for Parliament and the Government to be defeated by an outside group, however powerful that group may be. We did not allow it with the trades union barons and we should not allow it with the press barons either.

The basic question I want to ask the Government is very simple: why have we paused? Why, to use the Prime Minister’s words, are we not getting on with it? The public are on the side of the Government and will remain so as long as the issue is fought with strength and consistency. The public are not fools; they know that newspapers are not innocents dressed in white. They do not want to challenge press freedom, but they to want to challenge the blatant misuse of press power.

My second point concerns the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, which the noble Baroness referred to. Again, there have been calls that it should be put off or withdrawn. Frankly, some of the coverage is a misreading of what has taken place, because in truth the decision to carry it over to this Session was taken in February in the Commons with a majority of 464 votes to 38. That, I imagine, is exactly what the Government intend to do.

Let me suggest in principle why it would be quite wrong for this Bill to be put off or withdrawn. I entirely respect the deeply held religious views of those who are opposed. I underline that. I do not want to set out cases as if this is a Second Reading debate. That is to come. Suffice it to say at this stage that my personal view is that Parliament should value people equally in the law, and that enabling same-sex couples to marry removes the current inequity. A legal partnership is not seen in the same way and does not have the same promises of responsibility and commitment as marriage. There are many same-sex couples, including those working in the churches, who view marriage as fundamentally important and want to enter into that life-long commitment. It is therefore Parliament’s duty to enable that to happen, and in so doing strengthen the society in which we live today.

However, the fundamental point that I want to make is not that. I want to see this country setting an example of equality of treatment in a world where discrimination, prejudice and stigma are rife and are quite probably increasing. Let me explain in a few words why I feel strongly about this. Over the past months I have visited a range of cities and countries around the world looking at the HIV/AIDS position. Whether I have been in Ukraine or Uganda, what has shocked me most—perhaps even more than the deaths, which at least I was expecting—has been the widespread intolerance and prejudice towards gay and lesbian people.

An opinion poll in this country suggested that many Christians in Britain believed that they were a persecuted minority. I can only say that if anyone wants to see a persecuted minority they should look at the plight of gay, lesbian and transgender people around the world. As you travel you go to countries where homosexuality is a criminal offence and where people who are suspected of being homosexual are persecuted and even forced to leave their family homes. In one country a newspaper was dedicated to exposing homosexuals—to identifying them, photographing them and publishing their addresses—so that the local population could take action against them. In one case, this led to a murder.

You can go to countries where the most popular political cause is to toughen up the laws against homosexuality rather than to modify them. Action of that kind has been taken in Russia, while in Kampala a Private Member’s Bill promised capital punishment—now generously reduced to long imprisonment—for aggravated homosexuality and a penalty of imprisonment for those who suspected that someone was homosexual but failed to report it. You may feel that that kind of Bill would be thrown out. Not at all; the common view is that it will be passed.

I do not think that one Act passed by this Parliament or one action will suddenly bring the walls of discrimination crashing down. There are certainly actions that will help—not least, if I may say so to the Bishops’ Bench, ensuring that the churches in sub-Saharan Africa, including the Anglican Church, take a stand against what is happening there.

In some parts of the world what Parliament does may have some persuasive influence—probably not in Russia and Ukraine but quite possibly in the countries of sub-Saharan Africa. It can have influence for this reason: the criminal laws against homosexuality were introduced into those African countries by British Governments in the days of the Empire. We were the authors; we set out what the standards should be. It remains the case that 42 out of 54 Commonwealth countries criminalise same-sex relations. We should remember that it was as late as 1967 when the law here was changed. Until then people could be imprisoned.

Even here, not all the antipathy to gays has been removed—not by a long chalk—but unquestionably the law has played its part in improving the position. The Bill, which will be debated later, is not only right but could have an important persuasive effect both in this country and abroad, and will set out our belief in equal and fair treatment.

As for the later debate, we should also remember, just as we remembered on the position of the press, that the Bill for equal marriage was passed overwhelmingly in the other place on a free vote, by 400 votes to 175: a majority of over two to one.

[Lord Cormack]

Should we not also remember that it featured in no manifesto?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Fowler]

If my noble friend does not mind my saying so, I think that is a trivial argument. We all know—and he knows, because he has been in Parliament for exactly the same length of time as I have—that a whole range of things have been produced and passed that were not in party manifestos. I abolished the dock labour scheme, which I imagine my noble friend enthusiastically voted for and which was not in the party manifesto, and I can think of a whole of range of other things. That argument does not stand up. Let us debate on the issue, not on side points.

Of course, this House and my noble friend are entitled to suggest and propose amendments, but perhaps I may also suggest that that is going to the limit of our power. We are not entitled to defeat the will of the Commons on an issue of this kind: one that was decided, I repeat, on a free vote. It may be an unfashionable thing to say today, but the most important people in this country are not the bankers, self-interested columnists or special advisers who now appear to haunt the whole of Whitehall; they are the Members of Parliament. They are the only ones elected to Westminster. They take their authority from their elected position and they lose it when they leave. They have been elected by the people and they are answerable to the people. In my view, on both these issues—the protection of the public from a press abusing its power and the introduction of equal marriage—Members of Parliament have got it absolutely right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Yes, certainly I will. I have no information about any decision to be made on that.

[Lord Fowler]

Can my noble friend give some indication about Leveson and the Government’s reaction to the alternative royal charter put forward by the press? I simply want to know the Government’s position on that.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I have a note on that, and I realise that that was an important issue that was raised in discussion. Any proposed royal charter is submitted not to Parliament but to the Privy Council and must be considered against the Privy Council’s set criteria. The draft charter submitted by the newspaper industry has now begun that process. However, I should inform noble Lords that the royal charter published on 18 March and proposed by all party leaders has the support of all three party leaders. I hope that makes the position clear. I have little doubt that it will continue to be debated in this House, but the royal charter as proposed when we introduced it into the Crime and Courts Bill still has the support of party leaders.

[Lord Fowler]

Forgive me, but in summary does the royal charter which all three party leaders supported remain government policy?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Yes, that is a correct analysis of the position.

On devolution, there has been a lot of comment on Sir William McKay’s report. It takes a positive step forward on an important issue. Again, we will provide a suitable response to it in due course.

The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, among others, mentioned the SIA, a body for which I have enormous respect, and I have enormous respect for the work that she did there. The proposals are working their way through and we are looking to try to match the timetable that we have set ourselves. I was with the leaders of the SIA only the other day to agree the fee structure under the new arrangements.

I apologise if there are matters that I have not covered. I will write to noble Lords. This has been an engaging debate. The truth of the matter is that we will have plenty of opportunity of going into these matters in considerable detail when the Bills come to this House. I look forward to engaging with noble Lords on those occasions. Meanwhile, I thank them.

Phone Hacking

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Fowler]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the latest police estimate of the number of individuals whose phones have been hacked by newspapers, and how many arrests have been made.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, the latest estimates by the Metropolitan Police Service indicate that there may be about 800 likely victims of phone hacking. There have been 17 arrests as a result of the continuing police investigation.

[Lord Fowler]

My Lords, we obviously do not know how many people will be charged, but we do now have a very good picture of how widespread phone hacking was. Is it not clear that the phone hackers and those who employed them believed that their power put them above the law? Given that, is not one of the lessons of this whole scandal that we should never again allow one proprietor or one company to own a disproportionate amount of the British media?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am not going to comment on the last point made by my noble friend, but no doubt the House and others will have listened to that. The police have spoken to about 1,800 people, of whom, as I said, 800 are likely victims. Whether charges will result from those 17 arrests is something on which I cannot comment.

Phone Hacking

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Fowler]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the number of people affected by newspaper phone hacking.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, the number affected is being assessed as part of the current investigation by the Metropolitan Police Service. At this stage, no final estimate has been made, but the Met recently reported that it has contacted more than 1,800 people, of whom around 600 are identified as victims or potential victims of phone hacking.

[Lord Fowler]

My Lords, even that figure of course understates the true position. Is my noble friend aware that the Metropolitan Police itself has now said that it has identified the names of 5,800 people in the notebooks of a private investigator who for six years was employed by the News of the World to hack into mobile phones? Is there not now conclusive evidence that some journalists have perverted the traditional role of the press—to expose injustice and wrongdoing—by a total determination to expose private lives? What is needed now is an effective and, above all, independent means to ensure that such abuses never happen again.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, my noble friend is right when he quotes the figure of 5,795 people who the police have said may—I stress, may—have had their phones hacked. The police stressed that at this stage they cannot give a figure, which is why I gave the other figure of 1,800 people who the police have identified as potential victims, and the 600 with whom they have been in contact. I note what my noble friend said about setting up some independent body as a result of these matters. At this stage, I cannot possibly comment and we must await the outcome of the inquiry by Lord Justice Leveson. When that happens, I am sure that we will act.

Phone Hacking

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Fowler]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in view of the public concern over phone hacking following the latest reports, whether they will immediately undertake to set up an independent inquiry once criminal proceedings are complete.

[Lord Fowler]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Browning)]

My Lords, once again our thoughts are with the Dowler family. As the Prime Minister said, these allegations are truly dreadful and the police should pursue their investigations wherever they lead them.

A police investigation into allegations of phone hacking is currently under way. It is important that the investigation is allowed to proceed and that the conclusions be made public. A number of parliamentary inquiries and other reviews are also under way, and a number of individual cases are currently before the courts. This represents a broad span of activity across several aspects of this issue and the Government believe it most appropriate to consider the outcome of the police investigations and these various inquiries before deciding whether any further steps are necessary.

[Lord Fowler]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for the reply, but I urge her to go further. I declare an interest in that I was once a journalist, but my view of the press is that newspapers are there to expose injustice and abuse of power, not to illegally intrude into the private lives of the public.

Is my noble friend aware that since January of this year I have asked four Questions on the Floor of this House on phone hacking? Steadily, month by month, the revelations have become more and more serious, with today’s revelation about Milly Dowler almost beyond belief and certainly beyond contempt. Are we not now confronted with one of the biggest scandals affecting the press in living memory and with clear evidence that a deliberate conspiracy has taken place against the public? Will she therefore recognise that this is not a matter of party politics but of protecting the public, and that the only way that that can be done successfully is by an eventual independent inquiry looking at all the evidence? Why cannot the Government commit themselves to that today?

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, I can understand my noble friend’s concern, and the concern of the House as a whole, at what is a truly shocking matter. This morning the Home Secretary, appearing before the Home Affairs Select Committee in another place, described what has happened, with the new information that has been received, as shocking and disgusting. She reiterated today that we must await the outcome of the police investigation, but she stated that, if these allegations are found to be true, there will need to be new avenues to explore.