Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 1st December 2020 Lords Chamber

With that explanation, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, will withdraw his amendment.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

My Lords, I have had six requests to speak after the Minister, from the noble Lords, Lord Hain and Lord Blunkett, the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. I call the noble Lord, Lord Hain.

[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her typically courteous and thoughtful response, particularly her offer to talk to a number of my noble friends and other noble Lords about possible oversight that would be acceptable to the Government. Could she look again at Amendment 15? I and my noble friend Lord Blunkett worked very closely with the Security Service, in my case when I was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland—including with the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller—GCHQ, and, when I was in the Foreign Office, with MI6. I have authorised warrants, as I have explained, for vital work in surveillance and interception, and worked with undercover officers.

I appeal to the noble Baroness to meet my noble friend Lord Blunkett and myself informally to discuss the terms of Amendment 15, because it is very practical. It can happen in real time; I have been involved in authorising warrants in real time, including one on Islamist bombers planning to attack London when the operation was live. So, it does deal with her point. It is practical; in some respects, it is the most practical of all these oversight measures. It would give greater legitimacy to and authority for the deployment of undercover officers for the purposes that she is quite properly seeking. They can play vital roles in combating terrorism, for example. I ask her to look again at this and perhaps meet us to discuss it.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendments 12 to 15 not moved.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 16. I remind noble Lords that anyone wishing to speak after the Minister should email the clerk during the debate, and anyone wishing to press this or anything else in the group to a Division should make that clear in the debate. I inform the House that if Amendment 16 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 17.

Amendment 16

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. I support and will speak to Amendments 17 and 72 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich.

I am sure that my noble and learned friend will be taken back to his law school days, as I have been, by the discussion of what is reasonable and what is the test of reasonableness in any given circumstances. I prefer Amendments 17 and 72 to Amendment 16 and others; I hope that, if they are pre-empted, this can be resolved on Report.

I entirely support what the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, said. He has gone through the draft code of practice, as he was invited to do by the Minister. I especially support his argument that the code is missing from the Bill. It is not sufficient as an understanding: I want to see it in the Bill in the circumstances that the noble Lord set out, in both the English and Scottish versions.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Judd, has withdrawn so I call the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the first issue to consider is the identity of the person who grants the prior authorisation. The starting point is Section 30 of RIPA, now to be amended by Clause 2 of the Bill. It is for the Secretary of State, by regulation, to specify the persons holding such offices, ranks or position within the relevant public authority as to who will exercise the power to authorise. In addition to the police forces, the National Crime Agency and the intelligence services, the public authorities designated already include the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and a variety of other authorities, as we have discussed.

The list of designated authorities, however, is not final since Clause 2(8) gives power to the Secretary of State to add more public authorities—subject, of course, to the approval of Parliament by the affirmative procedure. It is clear, therefore, that authorisations may be given by people with varying backgrounds and experience, with varying or no training in matters of this kind. If the subjective belief of one of a large number of unidentified people is sufficient to authorise an individual to commit crime, that places in the hands of the authorities an unusual and dangerous power.

What is it that the authoriser has to believe? They have to believe that the authorisation is necessary and proportionate in the interest of three things: national security, preventing or detecting crime or preventing disorder, or the economic well-being of the United Kingdom. There are varying views as to what is in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom. I have no doubt that the individuals who authorised events during the miners’ strike—the unions, as advised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, as he told us, on the one hand, and the Home Secretary on the other—had diametrically opposed opinions on where the economic well-being of the country lay and on what was necessary and proportionate. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, was on one side; I myself was engaged in the prosecution of the two miners who killed a taxi driver with a concrete block.

One of the dangers we must bear in mind is that the Bill might solely conjure up a picture that it applies only where well-trained operatives are under the control of senior security officers to go out and fight the baddies. That is the picture painted by the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller. However, as my noble friend Lord Paddick made clear from his considerable experience, these authorisations are much more frequently to be given by a middle-ranked police officer—an authoriser, if you like—or perhaps an authoriser from the Inland Revenue or one of the other designated authorities. These authorisations are given to criminals with a chaotic life who are seeking for their own purposes to ingratiate themselves with authority either for personal gain or to avoid the consequences of their own criminal activity. That is why it is essential that the test of necessity and proportionality should be objective. If it is subjective, it allows an irresponsible official to follow their own course, perhaps—as my noble friend Lord Paddick suggested—corruptly or, through an excess of zeal, to chase their own hobbyhorse or their own dislike, for example, of striking miners or protestors against road or rail development, squatting up in trees. Indeed, they might dislike members of the Green Party, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has reminded us. An objective test is a check that encourages systems of scrutiny, of consultation and of records—the recording of the reasons for the authorisation being given.

Amendments 17 and 71 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, introduce the concept of reasonableness, which is certainly consonant with an objective test. Amendment 19, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, deems the test set out in the code of practice, lauded by both my noble friend Lord Carlile and the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, to be necessary reading. Why should the public not read it in the Bill? Why should it not be in the Bill from the point of view of the courts and the juries that might try cases arising under it?

Amendments 32 and 33, in the names of my noble friends Lady Hamwee and Lord Paddick, insist that these tests should not be in any way weakened. This group of amendments conveys the same message that necessity and proportionality are not to be judged by the inclination and values of a shadowy and undefined figure. I hope that on Report, we can consolidate in order to improve this Bill.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, have withdrawn, so I now call the noble Lord, Lord Rooker.

As the noble Lord is not responding, I call the noble Lord, Lord Mann.

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I will speak to a number of these amendments simultaneously, using a different word to the thematics that have come through, but with the same purpose. The word that I refer to is “competence”: the competence of decision-making, and whether the legislation, in the view of the Minister as well as the Committee, is sufficiently precise in ensuring it. We have heard words such as corruption—that is very important—and concepts of reasonableness, which are also important.

I can recall when I and other trade union colleagues had suspicions about an individual who we thought was acting rather strangely over a period of time. He was observed selling Nazi memorabilia in London Bridge Station on a Saturday morning—not a normal activity for trade unionists, even in those days. We were suspicious, and he suddenly moved on. I had a sharp thought that I would handle his pension because it was an accrued pension entitlement that was to be transferred. Rather than leave it to the finance people, who would have handled it in a very financial way, I made the calls myself. I was fairly certain that he was not who he said he was, and that for some reason he decided to look into the heart of moderate trade unionism. The question that it begged to me, rather than being a question of principle, was what a waste of resources it was—what incompetence.

I found later that I was on the Economic League blacklist. I found out why by a fair amount of research. I looked into the case of the—I think it is fair to say—loud-mouthed communist, the very good actor Ricky Tomlinson, whom I got to know over the years. He was stitched up for being an industrial activist for no good democratic reason. He was a communist without any question and he was loud-mouthed, but he was participating in a perfectly normal way in our civil society, and yet he was stitched up.

Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Lord Haskel Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, just over two years ago, it fell to me to voice the concerns of your Lordships’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee about extending the authorised time for which juveniles—young people—could be used for covert human intelligence work. Yes, this extension had been authorised in the form of an SI. Fortunately, your Lordships’ committee picked it up and the outcome was that the Minister provided a number of additional safeguards relating to the welfare, well-being and protection of those young people. Here we go again.

I congratulate the Minister on his maiden Speech and the other main speakers. As the Minister said, the Bill will allow young people to conduct criminal activity in pursuit of their intelligence work. As many noble Lords have said, once again, there is a need for better protection. I am grateful to Just For Kids Law, a charity that campaigns strongly for the rights of juveniles caught up in covert activities. It fought for amendments to the code of practice and is active again in preparing amendments to the Bill. Those amendments would ensure that better protection, such as providing for an independent individual who will ensure that the safeguards in the Bill work in practice, and seeking to address the inevitable power imbalance that exists between a juvenile and the police, and the 13—yes, 13—other public authorities who have demonstrated an operational need for this activity.

In her letters of 27 October and 11 November, the Minister justifies this criminal conduct in carefully managed circumstances. She says that the Bill provides additional safeguards for juveniles and strengthens the code of practice. However, it is a code. Does it really have the force of law? She says that juveniles will be authorised to act in only the most exceptional circumstances, with their consent. Is it really informed consent, not just pressure? She assures us that safeguards are in place to promote the best interests of the juvenile. I put it to her that the best interests of the juvenile is not to be involved in criminal activities in the first place. Other noble Lords have reminded us that Article 3 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which we are a signatory, states that the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration. It seems to me that the primary consideration here is security and catching the criminal, even if the child risks being corrupted.

Therefore, before we start debating amendments in Committee, I ask the Minister, do we really want juveniles to be authorised to carry out this criminal activity, even under the strictest supervision? As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, and others have suggested, are we not making a victim of the juvenile, bearing in mind the risk of violence and sexual assault, the emotional and associated mental, physical and psychological damage, and the risk of corruption, which will damage them well into their adult lives. To some, it would appear that these young people are being exploited by our public authorities, leaving it to the rest of us to clear up the mess.

This is not a party-political matter. As many noble Lords have said, it is a human rights matter and a rights of the child issue. In view of all those concerns and in spite of the need, will the Minister consider stopping the use of children in this criminal activity? Then we will not have to argue over safeguards for them.

UK Terrorism Threat Level

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their comments and questions. I join them in expressing solidarity with France and Vienna in the tough times they have had, as well our sympathies with the families affected. I echo the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, in paying tribute to Rabbi Sacks, who was a great asset to this House and who always spoke with such wisdom on these matters.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked how the raised threat level would affect daily life. This matter is under continuous operational review by JTAC. Deployments of police in certain areas of our daily lives will be changed according to threats. In terms of the resources needed, my predecessor—way back when—the right honourable Sajid Javid recognised the changing demand on the police. Under his successor, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, the 20,000 police officer uplift was made; it was, in fact, a manifesto commitment. I understand that we are almost at the 6,000 level. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, asked about the number of PCSOs. I do not know exactly how many we have in this country. That is a matter for local forces and chief constables, in collaboration with their PCCs. The number is decided according to the needs of the local area. However, I will try and get that number, if it is available. He asked for some other details, which I shall also try to get for him.

Both noble Lords asked where the additional resources would come from when the threat level went up. Deployment will be a matter for operational decision. Of course we recognise that additional police demand is there. Both noble Lords mentioned crisis. Police grant can be applied for and, no matter what it is for, it will be given if the case is made.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked if the threat was UK-wide. Yes, it is. There is separate consideration for Northern Ireland in relation to threats within it. He asked about the Prevent review. We are in the final stages of interviewing for our independent reviewer of Prevent and it is anticipated that the review will be done promptly. I deliberately did not give a timescale because we did not want to be where were last time, with the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, having to step away. We did not want to create too much time pressure.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, also talked about international co-operation and what more we can do. He and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, will know that, particularly in relation to the EU, we remain absolutely committed to that co-operation on law enforcement.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, outlined the necessity for free speech but with limits, of course. If it impinges on the threat to the individual, it crosses the line. He talked about terrorist and extremists’ use of the internet. I could not agree with him more. I hope that the online harms White Paper will become a Bill very soon and deal with some of those issues, particularly the duty on internet providers to their users. He also asked which places had benefited from protective security. He will know that I cannot talk about that, for the benefit of those places. He mentioned the police having to do their day job and police numbers. I hope that I went through that in sufficient detail but I will top it up with additional information for him.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

My Lords, we now come to the 20 minutes allocated for Back-Bench questions. I ask that questions and answers be brief so that I can call the maximum number of speakers.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Report stage & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 6th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

I will call Members to speak in the order listed in the annexe to today’s list. Interventions during speeches, or before the noble Lord sits down, are not permitted, and uncalled speakers will not be heard. As this is Report, other than the mover of the amendment or the Minister, Members may speak only once in each group. Short questions of elucidation after the Minister’s response are permitted but discouraged. A Member wishing to ask such a question, including Members in the Chamber, must email the clerk.

The groupings are binding, and it will not be possible to degroup any amendment for a separate debate. A Member intending to press an amendment already debated to a Division should already have given notice in the debate. Leave should be given to withdraw an amendment. When putting the question, I will collect the voices in the Chamber only. If a Member taking part remotely intends to trigger a Division, they should make this clear when speaking on the group.

During the debate on Amendment 20, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, indicated that he intended to press Amendment 23, which was grouped with it, to a Division. I will therefore begin by inviting the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, to move this amendment formally. No further speeches will be heard on this amendment. I will now put the question. Does the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, wish to move Amendment 23 formally?

Amendment 23 not moved.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

We now come to the group consisting of Amendment 24. Once again, I remind noble Lords that Members other than the mover or the Minister may speak only once and that short questions of elucidation are discouraged. Anyone wishing to press this amendment to a Division should make this clear in the debate.

Amendment 24

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

In light of the support already available to protect vulnerable people, and given that intention to establish a unified immigration system which treats people from all nations fairly, I hope the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

My Lords, I have had no requests to speak after the Minister, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his response, although I am disappointed, but not surprised, by the direction of his comments. I apologise for the misidentification of the respondent. I think other noble Lords will join me in being pleased that the Home Office will produce these figures, as raised by multiple noble Lords. We will all look forward to seeing and scrutinising those.

I must thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for her powerful and detailed analysis of the Government’s current position and their review plans, and I note her overview, “Hunger cannot wait for a review”. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, referred to, we are talking about destitution. Everything is in the context of Covid-19 now, and it seems that at the Tory party conference today the Prime Minister suggested that is going to be the case for the next year.

The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, asked about the cost of this amendment. I would say, some things are priceless: ensuring that we do not see Victorian conditions of destitution in the UK in 2020 is something we should seek to deliver with every sinew, as human beings. She referred to the bills for immigration matters—for people exercising their legal rights, that means getting what the law entitles them to. I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, cited figures showing that the British public overwhelmingly do not want children to go hungry. That is what we are talking about here; as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, this is about humanity.

I note the amendment in Committee that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, referred to, which is something we could go back to in the context of Covid-19. Noble Lords will have had heard me refer in other cases to universal basic income as the best solution of all—we could then ensure that nobody was left stranded or left with nothing.

I understand that the restrictions on scope have not allowed me today to make this the amendment I would like it to be on no recourse to public funds. On this occasion I will not be pushing it to a Division, but I fully expect to take a different approach in future.

Amendments 25 and 26 not moved.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

We now come to the group consisting of Amendment 27. I remind noble Lords that Members other than the mover and the Minister may speak only once, and that short questions of elucidation are discouraged. Anyone wishing to press this amendment to a Division should make that clear in the debate.

Amendment 27

Moved by

Civilian Use of Drones (EUC Report)

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

My Lords, as many noble Lords have indicated, there are two ways in which to look at new technologies such as drones. They can be a tool for invasion of privacy, a tool for terrorists and criminals, and for war, and must be kept under strict control. Or they can be welcomed as a useful new technology—a technology making us more productive and more efficient, and making life easier and more fun. Nevertheless, this requires some regulation.

I am most grateful to our chairman and the rest of the committee members for inclining towards the second alternative—the more progressive choice. I thank, too, our special adviser Tony Henley, and Alicia Cunningham, our clerk, who not only helped our work along but encouraged this progressive attitude. I agree with my noble friend Lord Giddens and the noble Viscount, Lord Astor. During a visit to the USA earlier this year, I could not help but notice that they inclined the other way. I can tell my noble friend Lord Brooke that, as a result of a drone crashing on to the White House lawn, some US states have introduced laws whereby one can register a no-fly zone around one’s house.

However, it was the positive nature of our report that created a lot of interest in the industry. In March, some 50 stakeholders from the industry came here to Parliament to discuss various aspects of our paper. They particularly agreed with our recommendation that rules should be the same across the Union. That would encourage a single market in drones, and particularly in drone services. This seems to be happening within the European Aviation Safety Agency’s current consultation on regulating drones. Perhaps one of the main points that came out of this meeting was the wish to avoid a closed engineering culture in order to encourage outside influence. People said this would bring in fresh perspectives, and so it has done.

Noble Lords have mentioned interesting uses. The CAA says that in the UK alone there are now some 850 mainly small companies that have received permission to conduct aerial work. As other noble Lords have said, drones can be fitted with scientific instruments, trace radiation or find people through thermal imaging. The British Antarctic Survey has many drones to help with mapping. Indeed, drone technology is being used to survey European coastlines where there is sometimes less than an hour between tides in order to do the work. In Halifax, Yorkshire there was the first race meeting, with drones having to follow an obstacle course through a forest.

Of course there are dangers. As the noble Lord, Lord Rees, told us, equipment could drop out of the sky if it loses its signal, or something can go mechanically wrong. But the meeting agreed that the safety rules should be not only harmonised throughout the European Union but be directed towards the risks, rather than define prohibitions. The risks include air-worthiness standards and pilot training. CE European origin marking for small RPAS should be introduced throughout the single market. We thought that JARUS was the right body to do this, especially after we visited it. Insurance companies advised that for larger drones the amount of third-party liability insurance required by law needed to be increased, and there must be clearer guidelines on the obligations of operators. Equally efforts must be made to increase awareness by the public of safety rules, as many noble Lords have said. There need to be distance and height restrictions, and no cameras within 150 metres of congested areas. In its evidence, BALPA was in favour of stricter rules. What is the Government’s view?

Evidence we took from the police during our inquiry indicated that they were still feeling their way. It appeared to me that the task of the police to enforce these safety rules must be more clearly defined. At the same time, more work is needed to better inform users on how to fly drones more safely. Again, this should be encouraged through the press, social media, radio and TV. I presume that the committee that has been set up by the Government to make recommendations will do so on this, too.

Most importantly, there will have to be some way in which to identify a drone’s owner or a responsible person. We recommend a European register. When something serious happens, steps can then be taken to connect the drone with somebody responsible. Phone identification technology is being introduced to do this. All this will, I assume, take place within the general data protection regulations.

I agree that there are technical restraints, particularly with the small drones. Battery life is still limited to 20 minutes and engineers are still working on collision avoidance technology. However, I agree with my noble friend Lord Giddens; perhaps, as artificial intelligence is developed, autonomous vehicles will regulate themselves and find their own way to a charger. Therefore, in order to arrive at better regulation that encourages progress in the use and the technical development of drones, it is important to think about how the future may look and examine the potential. I am indebted to Professor Andy Miah of Salford University who, together with funding from NESTA, is working on developing the potential of drones. I learnt of this work because I am an alumnus of Salford, from before it was a university—when it was a technical college. I must say that much of that work looks like science fiction.

In spite of tougher regulation, things are also moving in the United States. As the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, told us, in May 2015, Amazon was licensed to make deliveries by drone, but the development work is being done here because of our more relaxed rules. The gimbal is an interesting US development. It won a prize for indestructibility by having an external skeleton so that it can bump into buildings or trees without being damaged.

A word on jobs. As with many new technologies, it will certainly create jobs, but it will also destroy some. We have to take that calculation into account. As many noble Lords and I have tried to show, there is much going on in the civil world of drones. We in Parliament need to help it along with up-to-date, sensible and progressive regulation—regulation that will help it thrive in the market, yet be resilient to failure. I hope that this debate and our report will be a contribution towards that end.

Government: Procurement

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Haskel]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to encourage the use of new technology in the United Kingdom through Government procurement.

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the Government are removing procurement barriers facing innovative companies and SMEs and creating an environment in which they can thrive. We are investing more in the small business research initiative, creating a level playing field for open-source solutions and making the procurement process as a whole faster and simpler. In particular, the G-Cloud framework provides a simple, fast and transparent route into government for the suppliers of new technologies.

[Lord Haskel]

My Lords, those aspirations are all very well but are the incentives in place for public-sector buyers to carry them out? The Office of Government Commerce tells me that there are 40,000 points of procurement. Why should it take the risk of an innovation failing? After all, it is more likely to get a pat on the back for saving money in these circumstances than for encouraging innovation. How will the Government change this culture?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I am disappointed at the noble Lord’s cynicism. Since we took office, central government’s direct spend with small companies—particularly the SME sector, which the noble Lord is interested in—has doubled from £3 billion to £6 billion. We are achieving this by publishing tenders and contracts through the contracts finder website which eliminates many of the difficulties that small and medium-sized businesses were facing. The noble Lord should be aware that more people can access information online now than could previously.

Public Bodies (Abolition of Courts Boards) Order 2012

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, again I thank the Minister and congratulate him on his very clear exposition of this order. I indicate at the outset that, as in the House of Commons, the Opposition do not in any sense oppose the proposals.

However, although the Minister has rightly referred to issues raised by the Merits Committee, it should be noted that, as well as raising individual issues, the committee expressed some concerns about how the whole process had taken place. In particular, in relation to the explanatory document, paragraph 13 of the Merits Committee report points out that both the Magistrates’ Association and the Law Society thought that the current system was better than nothing. The Government have made a judgment on that and I do not necessarily quibble with it. The Merits Committee came to this conclusion:

“On balance the low number of consultation responses would seem to support the Government’s view, that Courts Boards are not operating particularly effectively”.

However, it also pointed out that while the,

“Explanatory Document suggests that other existing avenues may perform the same function better”,

that would need to be articulated “more fully in debate”. Up to a point that has happened in another place and here today, but it did not happen unprompted. Similarly, on the impact assessment, the committee pointed out that,

“in order to demonstrate compliance with the statutory tests”—

departments—

“should, as a minimum, include in the ED a clear statement of the factors that have been included in their calculation of net savings”.

They have subsequently done that and, again, there is no issue over that. However, as the Merits Committee indicated, it would be better to have had that in place in the first instance.

The committee made a point about the reassurances over provision to monitor and influence how court services are tailored. Its conclusion was a modest rebuke to the Government, which said:

“In our consideration of future draft Public Bodies Orders, we will expect the Government to present a properly argued case that the tests in the 2011 Act have been satisfied, supported by objective evidence”.

I am sure that the Minister will wish to ensure that that is carried through in the event of any further orders coming from his department. I hope that the Government as a whole will take that point.

One or two issues remain outstanding, which relate partly to the answers that were given by the Minister, Mr Djanogly, in Monday’s debate in the House of Commons and those given by the noble Lord today. These refer to the other structures that are in place, such as justices’ issues groups and the Magistrates’ Association. As the Minister said on Monday, there are other bodies, which mean that,

“court users … can have their views heard through structures such as justices’ issues groups, area judicial forums, local criminal justice boards, victims and witnesses sub-groups, and court user groups”.—[Official Report, Commons, Delegated Legislation Committee, 23/4/12; col. 4.]

That raises the question of the number of bodies that might be involved and suggests rather a more fragmented approach to looking at the issues that arise in an individual area. It is striking that there is no mention of local authorities among those groups. I invite the Minister to consider whether it would be appropriate to encourage HMCTS to promote the involvement of local authorities, which are important partners in community safety and can make a significant contribution to dealing with the problems of crime and disorder, which manifest themselves locally and end up in the courts.

Useful experiments are taking place in different parts of the country in relation to some of these matters. For example, I am currently chairing a scrutiny panel in my own authority dealing with the mental health of offenders. In the course of that we have discovered that there are experiments about providing professionals at court who can assist those who might have mental health problems at a very early stage in proceedings. It is also something that the young offender teams are involved in, closely linked to the local authority services.

The point is that it will not be sufficient simply to have different groups of people relating to the HMCTS.

[Lord Haskel]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but a Division has been called and so the Committee stands adjourned for 10 minutes.

Alcohol: Minimum Pricing

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, as I said in my earlier Answer, the Government will launch a consultation on the level to be set for a minimum unit price for alcohol. The Government will consider a range of issues in detail as part of this consultation.

[Lord Haskel]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Order.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Henley]

The noble Lord understands the law very well. He is absolutely correct in that. These are matters for enforcement and we think that they should be taken up by the police and, subsequently, the licensing authorities. It is possible to remove the licence from an individual or a pub if it sells alcohol to someone who is obviously inebriated.

[Lord Haskel]

My Lords, have the Government considered achieving the minimum price by raising the tax rather than the price? If you raise the tax, we all benefit. If you raise the price, it is a windfall for the drinks industry.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I have to be very careful about what I say about changes to the taxation regime. It is slightly more complicated than that in that you would have to even out the tax rates on different forms of alcohol, which vary a great deal. That is one of the reasons why sometimes you find the two-litre bottle of cider that I mentioned earlier being so much cheaper than equivalent forms of alcohol. At this stage, we are looking at minimum pricing but no doubt it would be possible to look at other matters as well.

Protection of Freedoms Bill

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, if I may start off with a general remark, let me say that I suspect that I will end up preferring the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, to mine. My purpose in tabling these amendments is to give us a good chance to discuss this part of the Bill, which I think has gone too far in trying to apply to schools special arrangements for dealing with biometric data that are neither required nor sensible.

In the wider world, letting one’s biometric data go is perhaps frightening. What Facebook is up to at the moment—for example, allowing people to tag photographs, such that I can be identified from photographs on other people’s websites because they are tagged with my name and details and the way in which that allows information about me to spread around the world—is worrying enough in our society but would be extremely worrying in, say, Syria. One should be aware of the dangers posed by the widespread ability to identify people remotely. If it became possible at a distance to pick up people’s identity as they passed shop-fronts and gazed into window displays and to have information on fingerprints widely available so that, for example, as soon as I touched a door-handle the store would know who I was, that would, to my mind, be a fairly nightmarish world to be part of. I am very grateful that our Government show no inclination to go down that road and, indeed, at an early stage abandoned identity cards, which would have been a step in that direction.

However, to my mind, in a closed community like a school, those worries do not apply. The school is supposed to know where each kid is all the time. I remember getting terribly upset when a friend of mine had their child knock on the door, having walked a mile home from school without the school having known that the child was absent. You expect a school to know where the children are, you expect it to know what they are doing and you expect it to be in control of them. Within a closed arrangement like a school, having one’s biometric information available is not such a big thing. Within this community of the House of Lords, the place is full of people—thank goodness—who know who we are. That is a biometric recognition system. One of the reasons why this place is secure is that it is full of doorkeepers who would recognise someone who did not belong. Within a school, an automatic system does no more than that, and it is fundamentally no more frightening than that.

A school has a lot of information on the pupils under its charge. A lot of that information is much more sensitive than a hash of some fingerprint—something that would take a great deal of ingenuity to make any real use of if it escaped. A school has information on what children have done in terms of their academic endeavours, what special needs they have, what mischiefs they have committed and people’s opinions of them, which could be extremely sensitive if they appeared in later life. Schools are used to guarding a lot of data about their charges. Whether they do that as perfectly as possible, I do not know, but one very rarely comes across occasions when this information has escaped to people’s embarrassment—when it does, it has usually been released by their mothers who are so proud of the reports that their children have received at school.

This is the context within which we must think about the sort of information which will be available as a result of a biometric recognition system. All that it is doing is scanning the proportions of a face or taking a few data points from the ridges of a fingerprint—but not as many as you would take if you were doing a proper security scan because you want something that works fast rather than completely accurately. There is no common storage format or easy way of that data being made use of by outside people even if they did discover it.

In these circumstances, as I say, you are supposed to know everything that is going on—knowing whether a child is in a classroom is something that a school is supposed to know. By and large, it is quite rare that these systems are used even to that extent. Mostly, they are used just for tagging library books to see who takes them out and to see who is entitled to free school lunches in order to avoid the use of cash and people being labelled as free school-meal kids. There is no identification—they are in a way disguising someone’s identity and protecting their information when used as meal systems. Fundamentally, though, biometric systems are used because they enable a school to do what it should be doing more efficiently and more cheaply than it could without them.

I agree that there is some basis for asking for parental consent. I probably do not naturally start out from that position, but I am convinced of it by what the Government have said, and by things that have been said to me in a long e-mail correspondence with some of the people promoting this side of the Bill. There are a lot of things that parents are asked to consent to, and it is quite reasonable that a school should explain why it wishes to use these systems and get general parental consent for it. If a parent wishes to say no, the school should make arrangements for that particular child to be excepted. I go along with that.

However, I really want the systems and rules that we put in place for schools to fit in with all the other rules that are there for asking parental consent for this, that and the other—whether it be religious observance, sex education or whatever else. These are taken seriously by schools and there are ordinary systems for them, the basis for which is single-parent consent. If two parents are involved and one objects, that nullifies the consent, but if you are seeking consent all you need is the consent of one parent. With a lot of schools, for parental arrangements it is really hard enough to get that; to go beyond that, in what seems to be an entirely ordinary matter for schools, does not seem sensible.

The other aspect that I want to look at is where facial recognition systems in particular, and other forms of ID, are going to be built into the systems that kids are using. If they are accessing Facebook from school—as many will be, because it is a common way of finding out information and communicating with other children who are collaborating on a project—there will be biometric information systems built into that software that will not be within the school’s power to disable. That will be within the individual child’s power to deal with, and the school will not have responsibility for it. If the school is using Windows 8—not yet out, but in beta form—there will be facial recognition systems built into that, so that when you sit down, your computer knows that it is you; if someone else sits down at your computer, it does not turn on. That, again, is a personally activated system. A school can disable that on school computers, but if the school is allowing children to access laptops and to take them home, as many secondary schools now do, then you would expect the child to be in control of the system and it would not be reasonable to require the school to impose or be responsible for the way in which biometric recognition systems are used without the school’s own systems. Some of the wording that we have at the moment crosses those boundaries.

On my individual amendments, Amendment 85 is completely garbled and I have no idea what it means. It may be that my noble friend’s officials have been able to decipher it, but I think it must have been my handwriting and I cannot now work out what the amendment means. I apologise to him and to the Committee for that.

Amendment 87 is a version of the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. It is really saying that you must have single-parent consent and that an objection by the other parent nullifies that, but otherwise you only need one parent’s consent. Amendment 88 is another way of saying that, while the second part of Amendment 87 deals with the point that I made about some bits of biometric recognition being outwith the school’s control. Amendment 90 covers that same point, as does Amendment 92.

Amendment 94 is a worry about the wording in that part of the Bill. There are a lot of schools with these systems in place—several thousand of them, probably including the large majority of secondary schools and quite a lot of primaries. The wording of that part of the Bill might be used to allow a school not to go for retrospective parental consent. My view is that, if we are to have parental consent, all those schools that have the system should write to parents asking for their consent, rather than that consent being assumed or being taken to be too difficult—an exception being claimed under this subsection.

Amendment 97 reduces the age limit to 16, which I think is the common age within schools at which pupils should be allowed to take responsibility, while Amendment 98 questions the width of “equipment”, which in common parlance has animate as well as inanimate means. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel)]

I have to tell your Lordships that, if Amendment 85 is agreed, I cannot call Amendments 86 to 88 because of pre-emption.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, we have four amendments in this group: Amendments 86, 89, 93 and 96. Amendments 86, 89 and 93 would simplify requirements for consent for the processing of biometric information. In particular, Amendment 86 would establish an opt-out rather than an opt-in system and remove the requirement for both parents to consent; instead, it would require notification from just one parent to withdraw consent. Amendments 86 and 89 remove the current provision allowing children of any age to override parental consent, and instead permit only children above the age of 16 to object. Amendment 93 makes consequential changes to requirements for parental consent while—although I will leave this to the end—Amendment 96 establishes a new duty upon schools to consult the views of teachers, parents and pupils before introducing biometric recognition systems into schools.

Our amendments in this group, as I have said, seek to simplify requirements around consent for schools and to prevent new rules from rendering costly, high-tech equipment in schools defunct. There are apparently no official figures on how many schools use biometric systems, but there are estimates. There was an estimate in a House of Commons Library note earlier this year that 30 per cent of secondary schools and 5 per cent of primary schools use them. Perhaps the Minister could tell us what he thinks the figures are.

The Home Secretary’s description of the Bill's provisions as a double lock on the processing of biometric information in schools is a tellingly accurate reflection of the regulatory bulwark that schools will in future come up against in order to use existing biometric processing systems. By requiring both parents of every child to provide written consent, the Government are creating a potential bureaucratic nightmare for schools that use these systems. In the words of the Association of School and College Leaders:

“What is proposed here is a very burdensome and bureaucratic new regulation that will address no significant problem. In short, it is exactly the kind of legislation that the present government promised to repeal, not enact”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

My Lords, the first seven amendments in this group would enable the Committee to examine a little further the existing complicated system for administrative authorisation. Where the Bill refers to judicial authorisation, one imagines that somebody from the judiciary will authorise whichever investigatory power is being used. However, in the section in the Bill to which my amendments apply, the administrative officer and his superior agree that surveillance is necessary, and the initial authorisation remains an administrative decision that does not come into effect until the approval of a magistrate is given. However, the magistrate will not examine why authorisation is being applied for or anything about the individual concerned; it will be just a review to make sure that the process has been reasonable.

The amendments examine whether the Bill will make the system any more transparent and whether it will be any easier to challenge unfair applications through the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. They examine also whether the system will become more efficient or cheaper. I welcome the Government’s desire to bring judicial authorisation more into the system, but I wonder whether it is sufficient.

Amendment 128 is much wider. I heard the Minister reply to the previous amendment to the effect that the misuse of the Act has been sufficiently addressed, but Amendment 128 has been tabled to probe the Committee’s view on the urgency of reviewing the whole RIPA fabric. This is for several reasons. First, since RIPA was conceived back in the late 1990s, technology has moved on enormously and things are able to be done now which were unimaginable then. It has nothing to do with phone hacking and the News of the World issue—which is still illegal—but with technical and storage capacity. In the 11 years since RIPA was passed, both of those areas have changed out of all recognition.

On re-reading that Act, there appears to be an enormous patchwork of different authorisation schemes, of which this is just one example. That does not seem an efficient way to proceed. The Minister referred to the expense of reviewing. There may be an expense in the inefficiency and patchwork of systems, but what concerns me most is that there are sufficient safeguards against unnecessary and disproportionate use of the surveillance powers.

As to the sheer scale of the use of the powers, we have come to accept that their use is necessary for serious crime and terrorism issues. However, since the Bill was passed, there have been some 3 million decisions made under it by public bodies; 20,000 warrants; 4,000 authorisations for intrusive surveillance and 30,000 for directed surveillance—and that does not include the intelligence services because those figures are not made public. So there is an issue with the scale of what is happening.

The Minister may feel that an inquiry will be expensive and he may be correct—obviously it will incur some expense—but there may be savings to be made if we consider whether the kind of umbrella that RIPA provides is adequate for purpose. It seems to be an umbrella that is full of holes, not only in the authorisation process but in its classification of the different kinds of intrusions—for the sake of the Committee’s time I shall not go into them—which are immense. For example, a phone call that is listened to from outside a house and one that is listened to from inside a house with a bug are different kinds of intrusions and carry different authorisations. As far as the public are concerned, that is a complicated regime—it may be necessarily complicated—and it can pose enormous problems in the complaints procedure if an individual has been subject to that intrusion.

If, as a member of the public, you want to complain about unfair investigatory powers, it is obviously extremely difficult. I have mentioned the figure of 3 million. Out of that, 1,100 complaints have been heard by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, of which only 10 have been upheld. That tends to suggest that there is a problem.

I am sure that many Members of the Committee have seen the thorough Justice report, Freedom from Suspicion: Surveillance Reform for a Digital Age, which lays out the issues in a detailed manner and gives all the references. Given the evidence that is presented in that report alone, Parliament has a duty to hold the kind of inquiry that Amendment 128 seeks. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel)]

Perhaps it will be for the convenience of the Committee if I explain that in an earlier edition of the groupings all the Amendments 115 to 128 were grouped. In a later edition there are two groups: first, Amendments 115 and 120 to 128; and then a second group with Amendments 116, 117, 118, 119 and 122. So there are two groups.

Multiculturalism: Interfaith Dialogue

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel]

My Lords, my noble friend’s debate begs the question: why do we need interfaith dialogue? After all, no religion preaches hatred of our fellow men. Indeed in ancient times, Rabbi Hillel famously summarised the whole of the Torah with the words,

“What is hateful to yourself do not do to your fellow men. The rest is but commentary".

This compassion is emphasised across all the major religions, so the answer to my question is that it is not the faiths that need dialogue, but the faithful. It is people.

Like the grandfather of the noble Lord, Lord Young, I came here aged five—yes, from Lithuania. I am ancient enough to remember people being openly anti-Semitic, openly talking about the Jewish conspiracy to gain control of the world by corrupting non-Jewish society. The Council of Christians and Jews recognised that dialogue could help deal with this, and it has been arranging dialogue ever since I can remember. Vatican II was also the result of dialogue. Thankfully, this dialogue has been extended to the shared values which apply to all three Abrahamic faiths.

I do not say that anti-Semitism has entirely gone away. I agree with my noble friend Lord Mitchell: it is much reduced; it is not expressed openly any more. It is sometimes expressed in terms of criticism of Israel and it has also gone on to the internet. What has replaced it is Islamophobia. This is discussed openly. In 1997, the Runnymede Trust coined the expression to capture the already growing animosity towards Muslims. In a way, Islamophobia has replaced anti-Semitism. It is as dangerous to our society and our civilisation now as anti-Semitism was then and it should be fought with equal determination.

How do we fight the ignorance and prejudice of the faithful? We do it with dialogue. The work and initiatives of my noble friend Lord Mitchell’s Coexistence Trust and others is crucial. Then there is the law. As my noble friend has said, we have very powerful laws on the statute book regarding hate crime and they need to be enforced and made more known. We are also a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, which has plenty to say about respecting each other’s faiths and traditions. The faith communities themselves must try to understand their own communities better. I declare an interest as Honorary President of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, which is using the recent census and a parallel survey to better understand the nature of the Jewish community. This work is important because the data can be used to both inform dialogue within faiths and inform interfaith work and policy.

I agree with my noble friend Lord Mitchell that publicly funded faith schools act as a barrier to dialogue and the Government should not encourage them. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Rees, will tell us that science can help. Maybe modern genetic science, modern body chemistry and our better understanding of behaviour can help. Most important is the internet, as a means both of dialogue and of expressing prejudice. The Arab spring and the recent riots have demonstrated what a potent force it is and the power that it gives to the internet generation.

My approach to interfaith dialogue was inspired many years ago by Isaiah Berlin. There are no moral absolutes, he said. There is no absolute mercy, no absolute justice, no absolute compassion. We just have to work it out together—through dialogue.