Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill [HL]

Lord Paddick Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 15th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I support the Bill and commend my noble friend Lady Hamwee on her tenacity and stamina in trying to improve the lot of refugees and asylum seekers. The Bill is just one example of the work she does in this area. It is also a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, who has perhaps done more than anybody in this House in this area.

My noble friend talked about moral obligations and our humanitarianism. Call me cynical—after 30 years in the police service you tend to become a bit cynical—but, for me, often in politics the number of votes a measure is likely to win or lose determines whether a Government will support it. However, with some issues, our desire for political advantage should take second place to our moral obligations and humanitarianism. This is one of them.

It is difficult to imagine the trauma of being separated from your family, your children or your parents, for example, in any circumstances. Knowing that they are still in a dangerous part of the world where they could very easily be killed or seriously injured and that the already painful separation could become permanent must be even worse. Imagine having to take the perilous journey across the Mediterranean and across Europe, eventually seeking asylum in a foreign country far from home where you may be unable to communicate very easily and where you feel hostility from a Government who express the wish to make the UK a hostile place for illegal immigrants, and then to be given little or no hope of ever seeing your family again.

Some of us, apart perhaps from the noble Lords among us who are lawyers, would hesitate to engage in any formal legal process involving a court or tribunal without legal representation, even in this country. Imagine being stranded in a foreign country where you have no knowledge of that country’s legal processes, cannot speak the language and cannot afford to employ a legal representative. What chance would any of us have of navigating complex legal processes in an attempt to be reunited with our family?

Now imagine that all those scenarios are happening at the same time: separated from your family, traumatised by the dangers which you have fled from and which your family members still face, still traumatised by the perilous journey you have undertaken, arriving in a hostile foreign country and being faced with a legal process you have no understanding of and no help in engaging with. If that were not bad enough for an adult to cope with, unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, as we have heard, have no recourse to bring their parents or other family members to join them unless there are exceptional circumstances. Of the 28 European Union countries, only Denmark and the United Kingdom do not allow applications for reunification from asylum-seeking-children—something that, as the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has just mentioned, the Home Affairs Select Committee described as “perverse”.

Talking of perversity, it is only while someone is a refugee that they are able to bring other family members to the UK without having to have a sufficiently high income to qualify to do that. If a refugee does everything this country asks of him or her and is granted British citizenship, they are then prohibited from bringing their spouse to the UK unless they reach the spousal visa income threshold. If they were to string out their asylum application, they would not have to earn a high salary to achieve that end.

This Bill addresses all those issues. It allows unaccompanied refugee children to sponsor their family members to join them; it allows former refugees the right to sponsor family member asylum seekers under the refugee reunion rules; and it reintroduces legal aid for refugee family reunion cases. What are the Government’s objections? The 2017 Conservative Party manifesto, on page 65, says that,

“solidarity is a Conservative principle, growing out of family, community and nation—all things that Conservatives believe in and work to conserve”.

If the Government truly believed in family and truly worked to conserve the family, they would support this Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has said, we are not talking about large numbers here. I support the Bill and I ask the whole House and the Government to support it as well.

Online Hate Speech

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, in his tweet criticising our Prime Minister, President Trump talked about “radical Islamic terrorism”. Does the Minister agree that there is a difference between Islam, a religion, and Islamism, a violent political ideology that seeks to overthrow democratically elected Governments and liberal values, and that the expression “Islamic terrorism” is both a contradiction in terms and deeply unhelpful? We must clearly differentiate between violent criminals and the followers of a religion.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is absolutely right to make that distinction between Islam and Islamist extremism. I make the point that the overwhelming majority of Muslims in this country are law-abiding, peaceful people who abhor Islamist extremism. The Prime Minister has always been clear that where these ideologies exist, they must be tackled head on. That is precisely what the UK Government are doing at home and in co-operation with our international partners. For example, I previously mentioned the co-operation to remove terrorist content from websites. The noble Lord is absolutely right to point out the distinction. We must all see what has happened for what it is.

Drug Dealing Telecommunications Restriction Orders Regulations 2017

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Grand Committee

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

My Lords, these regulations were laid before Parliament on 12 October. The drug dealing telecommunications restriction orders—DDTRO—respond to an operational requirement of the police and the National Crime Agency to support them in tackling the issue of “county lines” drug dealing and its related violence and criminal exploitation.

As noble Lords probably know, “county lines” is the police term for urban gangs supplying drugs to suburban areas and market and coastal towns, using dedicated anonymous mobile phone lines. We are particularly concerned about this form of drug dealing because of the high-harm nature of this activity. County lines gangs target and exploit children and vulnerable adults, who are then at high risk of extreme physical and sexual violence, gang recriminations and trafficking. In the National Crime Agency’s latest threat assessment of county lines, three-quarters of police forces in England and Wales reported exploitation of vulnerable people in relation to county lines, including children as young as 12.

The mobile phone line is central to county lines activity, with some prominent lines making in excess of £5,000 per day. However, the phone number has limited personal data associated with it and the handset is typically located well away from street-level drug-dealing activity. Such factors make it hard for the police to gain possession of the handset and to pursue criminal prosecutions against an individual for the activity on the line. Where it is possible to do so, and where there is sufficient evidence, the police will pursue prosecution. However, where prosecution is not possible, the police and the NCA have been clear that closing down the phone lines will seriously disrupt county lines drug dealing and the associated violence and exploitation.

With that background in mind, I turn to the details of the regulations before us. The DDTRO Regulations are made pursuant to Section 80A of the Serious Crime Act 2015, which sets out the power to make regulations which enable courts in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to issue DDTROs. In essence, the regulations provide the civil courts with the power to make a drug dealing telecommunications restriction order, and set out the process and procedure for doing so.

The applicant for a DDTRO—that is, the police or the NCA—will have to satisfy a court that on the balance of probabilities the device has been used, is likely to have been used, or is likely to be used in connection with drug-dealing offences. The court will also have to have reasonable grounds to believe that the order would prevent or restrict the use of a communication device in connection with drug-dealing offences.

It is important that the initial DDTRO application hearing is conducted in private and without notice to ensure that the phone owner does not know that their line will be closed. If forewarned, the phone owner is likely to take action to negate the order by changing phone numbers in advance. The regulations also provide a number of safeguards to ensure swift resolution if a phone owner is impacted in error. This includes the ability for the applicant authority to disapply the order of its own volition, as well as the right of an affected person to appeal an order at a public hearing.

I hope noble Lords will approve these regulations. They will give the police a vital tool in their efforts to tackle county lines drug dealing and protect vulnerable individuals from being exploited by county lines gangs. I therefore commend these regulations to the Committee.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her explanation. I have some specific questions about these orders and a general comment about the Government’s approach to illegal drugs and related issues. We support these measures but we have wider concerns.

As the Minister has explained, these regulations allow law enforcement agencies to make an application to a court to disconnect mobile communication devices, such as mobile phones, where there are reasonable grounds to believe that an order would prevent or restrict their use in connection with drug dealing. These orders can be made without notice to the people affected, in private and at the request of the applicant, without any details being disclosed to anyone. I can understand the need to protect covert human intelligence sources who may be involved in supplying information to the enforcement agencies and I also understand what the Minister has said—that if people were told in advance, it might enable them to change their telephone numbers in advance—but surely this is going to be only a marginal benefit, as it will soon become apparent to the drug dealer that their phone has been disconnected. Unless I do not understand the issue fully, it would not take very long not only for an alternative number to be secured but for the suppliers and clients to be notified of what the new number is. What is the real advantage of keeping the whole process secret—other than protecting sources—set against the benefits of having, as far as possible, an open justice system? Can the Minister explain how these measures present any more than a minor irritation to the drug dealers? In her explanation, she talked about these measures seriously disrupting drug dealers, but surely it would be very quick and easy to re-establish their lines of communication.

Moving on to wider issues, these measures are symptomatic of the Government’s approach to illegal drugs—tinkering around the edges in the vain hope of appearing to be doing something. But the inescapable fact is that there is an insatiable demand for illegal drugs, from young people who smoke small amounts of cannabis to the rich and famous who use cocaine. The fact that these drugs are illegal is no longer a consideration for millions of recreational drug users in the UK. As with most forms of prohibition—as we have learnt from history—stemming demand is clearly ineffective and, as a result, the law is being brought into disrepute. Addiction to illegal drugs, on the other hand, should be treated as a health issue and not a criminal justice issue. It is the sufferer’s addiction that is the issue and not the drugs that they are addicted to.

As with any insatiable demand, there will clearly be a supply. The only effective way to deal with illegal drug supply is to take out the whole distribution network from source to street. During the period of the “peace dividend”, between peace in Northern Ireland and the rise of Islamist terrorism and the far right, the police and the security services were able to mount a limited number of operations that did just that—take out importers, distributors and street dealers. The combination of the diversion of the security services back to their core function of anti-terrorism and the reduction in police resources means such operations are no longer possible.

There was a story in the Times this week on this very issue of county lines, which reported:

“Thousands of children and teenagers are being used by criminal gangs as drug runners ... The National Crime Agency ... believes that the ‘county lines’ drug trade, in which urban gangs move Class A drugs and cash between inner-city hubs and out-of-town locations, is out of control”.


I spoke a few weeks ago in Parliament to some young people whose lived experience is that drug dealing, with all its inherent risks and dangers, presents the best way to make money as far as they are concerned, whether to support a reasonable lifestyle or to put food on the table for their families. Prison was seen by them as a place where they can meet with their friends. As one young woman recently released from Holloway prison explained, it was somewhere where she had “the best time”, to quote her exactly. She added, admitting the irony, that when her local police station was the base for a safer neighbourhood team and she saw uniformed officers on a regular basis she felt safer, but not anymore.

In a society where discrimination against the young, and black and minority ethnic people, persists in the job market, where young people’s lives are blighted by criminal records acquired at a young age, and which, from young people’s perspective, gives them little or nothing and no hope of making a decent living by legitimate means in the future, they believe drug dealing to be a legitimate option. All this creates a parallel society where young people feel they have to arm themselves with knives and guns to make themselves feel safe, whether they are engaged in drug dealing or not, resulting in record numbers of young people dying on the streets from knife crime and of people dying on our streets from taking illegal drugs because there is no control of the strength or composition of the drugs they are taking. What is the Government’s response to this alarming picture? It is to cut off the phones of drug dealers, if and only if they find out what numbers the dealers are using—something that can be rectified by drug dealers within hours.

There is a crisis in this country enveloping increasing numbers of young people. Of course we should make life difficult for drug dealers and these measures may have a marginal impact, but a major rethink about the legalisation and regulation of drugs, the treatment of addiction, the incarceration and criminalisation of young people, providing opportunities for young people to earn decent money legitimately, and the decimation of community policing, is desperately needed.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, for her explanation of the regulations before the Grand Committee. I am fully supportive of them as far as they go and I welcome the action being taken here, although more could be done.

I have spent a few Fridays and Saturdays with the Metropolitan Police over the last few months, looking at a variety of the operations it undertakes and how it has to work in some very challenging circumstances to keep us safe. This whole issue of drug gangs crossing county lines was the subject of a briefing I received recently. I remember visiting one particular unit that explained how a number of young people from their area had been apprehended in a coastal town with drugs and cash. They had gone from their London base and they were dealing stuff there. It is absolutely right that this exploits some very young, vulnerable people. It potentially drags young people into a life of crime. There are other risks for these young people of being groomed and sexually abused, and of being subject to other forms of violence. It is a very depressing thing to see.

I also went on a raid of a property being used as a drugs den. Across the table there were about a dozen mobile phones. If you are a drug dealer apparently you have loads of phones, which is why we have these orders. That highlighted to me the importance of these phones to the operations.

This is a serious issue and the orders have my support but my problem is that the phones can be bought with minimal information. You can just wander into a high street store or supermarket and do not need to provide anything and you can get a mobile phone and off you go. If you are a drug dealer I suppose you buy loads of these phones. I think you can also buy the mobile phone credit with minimal information. There are lots of circumstances where if you want to do things in this country you have to provide ID—to buy goods, to buy services, to get access to credit. This week I went to the post office because a parcel had arrived, we were not there and a little card was put through the door. To get the parcel, which was for my wife, I had to produce the card, our council tax bill and both our passports—just to get a parcel that was legitimately ours. But apparently someone can go to the high street and buy a mobile phone with no indication of who they are—and go off and set an operation up.

Randox and Trimega Laboratories

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank the noble Lord for his questions. He is absolutely right: it is indeed a very serious matter and the Government do not take it lightly. He will have noticed that the WMS of 21 November was a fulsome Statement and there is now an investigation going on which will take some time. He questioned the abolition of the FSS. The alleged manipulation predates the closure of the FSS, which was never involved in family cases—that was Trimega. He talked about Trimega being part of Randox. I must make it clear that at this point Trimega was not part of Randox. Trimega closed and Randox set up: yes, the two individuals were employed at Randox, but Trimega was not part of it.

The noble Lord also asked whether the numbers would ever be known. They may never be known accurately, but we think that approximately 10,000 tests were affected. The nature of what allegedly went on here means that we can never make this fool-proof because, as the regulator herself said, no reasonable set of quality standards could be guaranteed to prevent determined manipulation by skilled but corrupt personnel.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, while we agree that determined, skilled and corrupt practitioners in the public sector could equally have produced such a scandal, and that the performance of the former public sector Forensic Science Service was not without criticism, what lessons have already been learned, and what new safeguards are already in place, to prevent this happening again? The Minister said that the Government are considering what lessons can be learned, but surely there are immediate steps from the initial findings that can be implemented—and should have been implemented by now. What action have the Government already taken to reassure the public?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

As the noble Lord points out, because this is an ongoing investigation the full lessons of what went on here cannot be appreciated yet. However, the Government have, of course, taken steps since January 2017, when we found out about this alleged manipulation. We supported the police’s initial response to the news of manipulation, including officials advising of the impact on the marketplace and the regulatory impact. The Home Office advised the NPCC in the creation of the silver groups working on the operating protocol for forces, the forensic service providers and the CPS. We facilitated the agreement of commercial terms between Randox and the independent testing companies and sat on the technical advisory group of forensic experts which advised the gold group on the retesting strategy.

As the Statement said, the DfE has liaised with local authorities in England to review their records and will consider what action needs to be taken from there. The MoJ, together with the DfE and HMCTS, has worked closely with the police to identify family and civil court cases where a toxicology test was undertaken by Trimega. We have advised the NPCC gold group and the team that is working with the CPS to ensure that the appropriate disclosure is made. We have asked all forensic toxicology suppliers to review their practices and have asked the Forensic Science Advisory Council to consider a number of measures to strengthen provisions to reduce the risk of malpractice and to help rapid detection. We are supporting the UKAS internal review and have briefed the Lord Chief Justice and the President of the Family Division of the High Court. We have done a lot since we found out about this.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 15th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)]

My Lords, I hope I will not add to the troubles of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, when I say that I am troubled by a couple of his amendments, Amendments 108B and 180A. The former suggests that the Government should not be permitted to,

“amend, repeal or revoke the GDPR”.

I know the Government will have responsibility for the provisions of the GDPR, but these are surely provisions for which the regulations either are or are not. They are European Union regulations, and I would not have thought the Government would have the power to amend or repeal them.

I am also confused, as so often, by the fact that we have already discussed whether Clause 15 should stand part of the Bill but are now considering an amendment to it. No doubt that is just one of the usual vagaries that leads to my confusion about the procedures of this House.

I move on to Amendment 180A, which suggests that the Secretary of State must consult not only the commissioner but data subjects. I am not sure how on earth he could find out who those data subjects were in order to consult them. Therefore, due to practical concerns, I hope the noble Lord will not press the amendment to a Division.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I will briefly comment on Amendment 108B. Taking up the position of the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, is it not the case that if we leave the European Union, the GDPR will then become, by means of the repeal Bill, part of UK law and therefore could be changed, which is why the amendment makes sense?

However, while I agree with the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, that if parts of the GDPR were amended, repealed or revoked after we have left the EU, this may affect the adequacy decision of the European Union. Presumably, if the European Union makes changes to the GDPR it would be advantageous for the Government to be able to respond quickly by means of secondary legislation to those changes to ensure that we can continue to have adequacy—that is, when the change is on the EU side rather than on the UK side. Perhaps the Minister will clarify that.

Deaths in Police Custody

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Monday 30th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made earlier in the House of Commons. I agree with the Statement’s acknowledgement of the tremendous efforts of our police forces and officers.

The independent review by Dame Elish Angiolini QC into deaths and serious incidents in police custody was commissioned by the then Home Secretary in July 2015 to alleviate the pain and suffering of families still looking for answers. We thank Dame Elish for her comprehensive report and all those who contributed to it. However, will the Minister say when that report was received by the Home Secretary, as there appears to have been a lengthy delay between the report being received and the independent report being placed in the public arena—a delay which does not seem entirely consistent with the objective of alleviating the pain and suffering of families still looking for answers? What parts of the report, bearing in mind the delay, would have caused the Government a problem if the report had been placed in the public arena much earlier? Remarkably, after all the delay, the Government still do not intend to give their response to the recommendations, including the ones on healthcare in police custody, inquests and support for families. I hope the words “kicking” and “long grass” do not prove to be all too accurate.

The report is critical of the current processes, protocols and procedures for investigating deaths in police custody and of the role and approach of the agencies and organisations involved. It makes a considerable number of recommendations for speeding up the process of investigating deaths in police custody, including following contact with the police, in the light of the lengthy delays that currently occur, in contrast to the urgency, haste and mindset that is normally associated with potential and actual murder investigations. The delay in the current process leads to frustration, anger and suspicion that justice is not being done, and does not exactly enhance confidence and trust in the police, particularly among and within the families and communities most directly affected. The campaigning group Inquest has, I believe, said that more than 1,000 people have died in police custody or following contact with the police since 1990. No police officer apparently has been convicted in a criminal court in connection with any of those deaths.

The report makes a number of recommendations. For example, it states:

“For the state to fulfil its legal obligations of allowing effective participation of families in the process that is meaningful and not ‘empty and rhetorical’ there should be access for the immediate family to free, non-means tested legal advice, assistance and representation immediately following the death and throughout the Inquest hearing”.


I would have to say that, from the Statement, the Government appear to be a little lukewarm on implementing this recommendation in full. The Statement says, for example, that legal aid may be necessary in some circumstances. There is reference later on to “considering” the issue of publicly funded legal advice and representation at inquests.

The recommendations also include the comment that NHS commissioning of healthcare in police custody was due to have commenced in April 2016 but was halted by the Government earlier in the year. This report strongly recommends that this policy is reinstated and implemented. Perhaps the Minister can say why the commissioning of healthcare in police custody was halted by the Government, particularly since the report seems to have commented somewhat adversely on it.

The report also addresses the extent to which police use of restraints against detainees was identified as a cause of death by post-mortem reports in 10% of deaths in police custody between 2004-05 and 2014-15. It also says that a significant proportion of deaths involved people with mental health needs, and the report makes specific recommendations providing for change in how such people are treated, as indeed it does for those who have issues with drugs and/or alcohol. Drugs and/or alcohol featured as causes in around half of deaths, and an even higher proportion of those who died had an association with drugs or alcohol—namely, 82%.

The Statement indicates exactly what actions the Home Secretary now intends to take—and, I would have to say, not take—in the light of the report’s recommendations. By when do the Government expect to see a considerable improvement in the practices, procedures and mindsets identified in the independent review as contributing to and exacerbating the impact of the current delays in investigations into deaths in police custody? Against what criteria will the Government assess the effectiveness or otherwise of the actions that they are announcing today in light of the review? What are the specific goals that the Government expect their actions announced today to deliver? Who will be responsible for ensuring that those goals are delivered? What, if any, additional resources will be made available to implement even the actions announced today in the Statement, let alone if we implemented all the recommendations set out in the report?

In the light of the recommendation in the report, can the Government say any more—since I have questioned them—about the arrangements that will be introduced to make sure that there is proper legal representation for the families of those who have died in police custody at coroners’ court inquest hearings? Surely, the Government can be a bit more specific than they have been, because this report was submitted many months ago. Indeed, that applies to most of the recommendations in the report, bearing in mind that they have said that they do not intend to give a detailed response to all the recommendations today—and, indeed, they have not.

The report states that its recommendations are necessary to minimise as far as possible the risk of deaths and serious incidents in police custody occurring in future and to ensure that, when they do, procedures are in place that are efficient, effective, humane and command public confidence. It is now principally, although I accept not solely, up to the Government to make sure that those objectives are achieved within the shortest possible timescale. So far, the Government will appear to many to have dragged and still be dragging their feet. To allay those fears, will the Government report back to this House within no more than six months on the progress being made on the implementation of the recommendations in this comprehensive and valuable independent report?

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for repeating the Statement and express our sympathy to all those who have lost loved ones as a result of deaths in police custody. I declare an interest in that, when I was borough commander in Lambeth in south London, there were a number of deaths in custody. It is important to express that to the House, because the impact that it can have on the officers involved is also something that needs to be taken into account—particularly those officers who have acted in good faith and have done nothing wrong.

There are 120 recommendations, and it would be impossible to cover the whole ground, but there are a couple of issues that I want to highlight. The Minister has said, and the report talks about the fact that inquests are intended to be inquisitorial and should not be adversarial. When I represented the family of somebody whose son died as a result of a police action, it was the most adversarial court appearance that I have ever appeared in, bearing in mind that the overall majority of my experience had been in adversarial criminal courts. Surely, in those circumstances, and unless and until that situation is changed, families of those who have lost loved ones at the hands of the police should receive equality of arms in terms of legal representation with the police as recommended in this review—no ifs, no buts and no conditions.

On another issue, 15 or more years ago I was the Association of Chief Police Officers lead on mental health issues in policing. Following a number of deaths in police custody, training was introduced on the safe restraint of those suffering from mental illness. That was 15 years ago. Why does this report say that:

“National policing policy, practice and training must reflect the now widely evident position that the use of force and restraint against anyone in mental health crisis … poses a life threatening risk”?


This has been evident for decades, yet people are still dying in those circumstances at the hands of the police. What are the Government going to do differently this time to make a real difference?

[Noble Lords]

My Lords—

Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2017

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

Since I, too, was caught out by the earlier than anticipated start of this debate, I can thank the Minister for only that part of her explanation of the reasons for and purpose of the draft order that I actually heard. The purpose of the draft order, as has been said, is to make it an offence to possess, import, export, produce, supply or offer to supply the drug methiopropamine, or MPA, without a Home Office licence. MPA is a stimulant, psychoactive substance that has been subject to temporary control orders, the latest of which is about to expire—at the end of next month, if memory serves me right. There is evidence of MPA having adverse effects when taken, including abnormally fast heart rate, anxiety, nausea and breathing difficulties. I have to say that my list is more abbreviated than that given by the Minister when she introduced the order.

MPA has been associated with a number of deaths in the last five years and, as the Minister said, there were 46 cases where MPA was found in post-mortem toxicology, with MPA being implicated in the actual cause of death in 33 of those cases between 2012 and 2017.

MPA has not infrequently been marketed as a legal alternative to cocaine. In June of this year the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, the ACMD, indicated that MPA continued to be misused and, as a result, was having harmful effects that could constitute a social problem. The ACMD recommended that MPA should now be permanently controlled as a class B drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971—which means, as I understand it, that among other things, including higher maximum sentences, possession of MPA also becomes an offence, which is not the case for substances controlled under the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016.

The ACMD also found that MPA had no recognised medicinal use, or industrial or commercial benefits other than potentially for research. I simply conclude by saying that we support the decision to accept the ACMD’s recommendation, and hence we support this order.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Newby made the point last week, when the Leader of the House asked for this House to suspend its Standing Orders in order to consider this matter today, that this legislation has not been scrutinised by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments because of the Government’s failure to appoint their Commons members of that committee. This is clearly unacceptable and must be resolved as soon as possible.

In this particular case, the order is the result of a recommendation, as we have heard, by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to permanently classify the drug MPA as a class B drug. I am therefore confident in supporting this order as the recommendations of the ACMD are evidence based.

However, the comments of the parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Office to the first Delegated Legislation Committee in the other place yesterday, which presumably were a repetition of what the Minister said this evening to the House—again, I apologise for being slightly caught out by the early start of this particular debate—draw questions around bigger issues about the Government’s approach to controlling drug misuse.

MPA is a synthetic drug designed to replicate the effects of cocaine or MDMA. MPA started off life as a legal replacement for these class A controlled drugs. Prior to the Psychoactive Substances Act and the temporary class drug order, MPA would have been legal to both supply and possess. As we have heard, the Psychoactive Substances Act permanently made manufacture and supply of the drug illegal, but not possession, while the TCDO and this measure make possession as well as manufacture and supply illegal. Whether it sends a message to users about how dangerous the drug is is questionable.

The development of synthetic alternatives to existing controlled drugs—and in this case I am thinking in particular of things such as spice, the synthetic alternative to cannabis—runs the risk of creating even more toxic, and far more dangerous, drugs than the drugs they are designed to replace. The risk of continuing with a prohibition-based strategy of controlling the misuse of drugs is likely to increase the number of drug-related deaths.

Can the Minister tell the House, or write to me subsequently to tell me, how many deaths have resulted from the misuse of cocaine and MDMA between 2012 and 2017, compared with the 46 cases where post-mortem toxicology showed traces of MPA, and the 33 cases where MPA was implicated in the actual cause of death, as a proportion of arrests for possession of each type of drug—which we can assume is a proxy for how much cocaine, MDMA and MPA is being used? Can the Minister also tell the House how many deaths have resulted from the misuse of cannabis between 2012 and 2017?

If MPA is as dangerous, or more dangerous, than cocaine or MDMA, the question must be: why is it being classified as a class B drug while the others are classified as class A drugs? If MPA is, as I suspect, more dangerous than cannabis, at least in terms of fatalities, why is it in the same class of drugs as cannabis? Assuming, as I do, that the ACMD has made the right evidence-based decision in terms of its recommendations as to which class MPA should be placed in, what does this say about the classification of cocaine, MDMA and cannabis?

The point I am trying to make is that the current classification of drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act lacks credibility, certainly with users. No one I know who misuses drugs starts from a point of asking, “What class is it in?” when deciding which drug to take.

We should be taking a harm reduction-based approach to the misuse of drugs, which should be treated as a health issue and not a criminal justice issue. That having been said, just because the classification of drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act lacks credibility and other drugs may be wrongly classified, this does not mean that this evidence-based recommendation from the ACMD is wrong. On that basis, we support the order.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, made reference to the unusual circumstances in which this order comes to the House this evening. It has not been scrutinised by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments because that committee has not been re-established because of the failure of the other place to provide its members to the committee. I was a member of the Joint Committee in the last Parliament, and I am looking forward to resuming work, I hope, at an early point in this Parliament.

The committee receives advice from a formidable array of legal experts. They invariably find points that need correction—sometimes smaller, sometimes larger. I have just one question for my noble friend. In the absence of the committee, is she satisfied that this order has been subjected to sufficiently rigorous scrutiny by legal experts?

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Lord Paddick Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 10th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting, and for me at times a rather confusing, debate on the issues associated with the Bill. The Bill is complex, but I understand that it is necessarily complex. For example, under European law it is not allowed to reproduce the GDPR in domestic legislation. The incorporation of the GDPR into British law is happening under the repeal Bill, not under this legislation. Therefore, the elephant and the prints are in the other place rather than here.

We on these Benches welcome the Bill. It provides the technical underpinnings that will allow the GDPR to operate in the UK both before and after Brexit, together with the permitted derogations from the GDPR available to all EU member states. For that reason it is an enabling piece of legislation, together with the GDPR, which is absolutely necessary to allow the UK to continue to exchange data, whether it is done by businesses for commercial purposes or by law enforcement or for other reasons, once we are considered to be a third-party nation rather than a member of the European Union.

We also welcome the extension of the effect of the GDPR—the rules and regulations that the GDPR provides—to other areas that are currently covered by the Data Protection Act 1998 but which are outside the scope of the GDPR, thus, as far as I understand it, providing a consistent approach to data protection across the piece. This leaves law enforcement and national security issues outside of the scope of GDPR and the “applied GDPR”, which are covered in Parts 3 and 4.

The enforcement regime, the Information Commissioner, is covered in Part 5, because we will repeal the Data Protection Act 1998 and so we need to restate the role of the Information Commissioner as the person who will enforce, and we will need to explore concerns that we have in each part of the Bill as we go through Committee. However, generally speaking, we welcome the Bill and its provisions.

Of course, what the Government, very sensibly, are trying to do but do not want to admit, is to ensure that the UK complies with EU laws and regulations—in this case in relation to data protection—so that it can continue to exchange data with the EU both before and after Brexit. All this government hype about no longer being subject to EU law after Brexit is merely the difference between having to be subject to EU law because we are a member of the EU and having to be subject to EU law because, if we do not, we will not be able to trade freely with the EU or exchange crime prevention and detection intelligence, and counterterrorism intelligence, with the EU. That is the only difference.

For most aspects of data exchange, compliance with the GDPR is required. The GDPR is directly applicable, so it cannot simply be transposed into this Bill. Coupled with the derogations and applying the GDPR to other aspects of data processing not covered by the GDPR makes this part of the Bill complex—and, as I suggest, probably necessarily so.

For law enforcement purposes, data exchange is covered by an EU law enforcement directive, which can be, and has been, transposed to form Part 3 of the Bill as far as I understand it. A data protection regime for the processing of personal data by the intelligence services—in the case of the UK, MI5, MI6 and GCHQ —is covered by Council of Europe Convention 108. Part 4 of the Bill is based on a modernised draft of Convention 108, which has yet to be formally agreed, but this puts the UK in effect slightly ahead of the curve on that aspect of regulation.

Clearly, we need to probe and test the derogations allowed under the GDPR that are proposed in the Bill, particularly when hearing about the potential consequences, as outlined by, for example, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross. We also need to examine whether applying GDPR rules and regulations to other areas of data processing provides equivalent or enhanced safeguards compared with those provided by the Data Protection Act, and we need to ensure that the safeguards provided by the law enforcement directive and Council of Europe Convention 108 are provided by the Bill.

As regards our specific concerns, as my noble friend Lord McNally mentioned in his opening remarks and as reinforced by my noble friend Lady Ludford, if the Bill results in a refusal to allow not-for-profit bodies to exercise Articles 77 to 79 to pursue data protection infringements on their own accord, we will have to challenge that, but perhaps the Minister can clarify whether that is the case.

As my noble friend Lady Ludford also mentioned, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington, various provisions to allow Ministers to alter the application of the GDPR by regulation is something that we need much further scrutiny of, albeit that Ministers’ hands are likely to be tied by the requirement to comply with changing EU law after Brexit—de facto even if not de jure. Could it be—perhaps the Minister can help us here—that the purpose of these powers, put into secondary legislation, is to enable the UK to keep pace with changes in EU law after Brexit?

Although we welcome the ability of individuals to challenge important wholly automated decisions, requiring human intervention at the request of the data subject, research shows that the application of algorithms and artificial intelligence, even in machine learning of language, can result in unfair discrimination. Even when human decision-making is informed by automated processes, safeguards still need to be in place to ensure fairness, such as transparency around what the automated processes involve. While decisions around personal finance, such as credit scoring and the assessment of insurance risk, are important, in the United States the application of algorithms in the criminal justice arena has resulted in unfair discrimination that has even more serious consequences for individuals. Even if such automated processes are yet to apply to the UK criminal justice system, the Bill must safeguard against future developments that may have unintended negative consequences.

As other noble Lords have said, we have concerns about the creation of a criminal offence of re-identification of individuals. As the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, said, criminalising re-identification could allow businesses to relax the methods that they use to try to anonymise data on the basis that people will not try to re-identify individuals because it is a criminal offence.

Despite what is contained in this Bill, we have serious concerns that there are likely to be delays to being granted data adequacy status by the European Commission when we leave the EU. That means that there would not be a seamless continuation of data exchange with the EU 27 after Brexit. We also have serious concerns, as does the Information Commissioner, that there are likely to be objections to being granted data adequacy status because of the bulk collection of data allowed for under the Investigatory Powers Act, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, said in his opening remarks. We also intend to revisit the issue of the requirement under international human rights law, and upheld by the European Court of Human Rights in 2007, that as soon as notification can be made without prejudicing the purpose of surveillance after its termination, information should be provided to the persons concerned.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, mentioned, it is essential that the Information Commissioner is provided with adequate resources. My understanding is that there has been a considerable loss of staff in recent times, not least because commercial organisations want to recruit knowledgeable staff to help them with the implementation of GDPR, plus the 1% cap on public sector pay has diminished the number of people working for the Information Commissioner. It is absolutely essential that she has the resources she needs, bearing in mind the additional responsibilities that will be placed upon her.

The age of consent will clearly be an interesting topic for discussion. What we are talking about here is at what age young people should be allowed to sign up to Facebook or other social media. Most of us would acknowledge that children have a greater knowledge and are more computer literate than their parents and grandparents. As one of the surveys mentioned this evening showed, it would be very easy for young people to circumvent rules around the age of consent as set in legislation. For example, any teenager would know how to make the internet believe that they were in the United States when they were physically in the United Kingdom, and therefore they would have to comply only with any age of consent set in America. While I understand the burning desire for people to protect children and ensure that they are not exploited through social media, one has to live in the real world and look for solutions that are actually going to work: for example, educating young people on how to avoid being groomed online and the dangers of social media, and informing parents about how they can keep an eye on their children’s activities, rather than trying to set an unrealistic target for the age at which someone could sign up.

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, talked about the data privately stored on iPhones, which was informative. Last week, I was rather shocked when, in California, I went to a gym that was rather busy. I looked on Google Maps, which very helpfully informed me when the busiest times were in that particular gym on that particular day. I found that very useful, but I found it very frightening that it also told me that I had been at that gym three hours before.

Child Sexual Abuse

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend makes the crucial point that where people are falsely accused and have their names in the media, their lives can literally be ruined. Noble Lords may have seen things in the paper over the weekend. The College of Policing guidance provides that, where an investigation identifies a false allegation, it may be appropriate to support a prosecution for attempting to pervert the course of justice. Steps should be taken to test the validity of statements and corroborative accounts and to establish an accurate picture. The decision to support a prosecution would be an operational matter for the relevant chief officer.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, Sir Richard Henriques did an independent review of the Metropolitan Police’s conduct in these matters. His conclusion was that:

“Until anonymity is enforced by statute, it is inevitable that many accused will lose their anonymity at an early stage of an investigation”.


Why will the Government not legislate?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, we touched on that extensively on the then Policing and Crime Bill; the noble Lord was part of that debate. The police’s decision on whether to name a suspect is a matter for the chief officer, who must authorise any such disclosure. Following some of the debate, and ongoing with the College of Policing’s authorised professional practice guidance on relationships with the media, the College of Policing recently undertook a consultation on a fresh iteration of the guidance. That guidance is clear that the rationale for naming an arrested person before they are charged must be authorised by the chief officer, and that the authorising officer must also consult the Crown Prosecution Service if considering the release of a name.

Prevent Strategy

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, it is extremely unhelpful and can be divisive when such stories hit the media. With regard to how that might fit into Prevent, the Prevent programme is fundamentally about supporting vulnerable individuals and safeguarding them from being drawn into terrorism. It is safeguarding in a similar way to how we would safeguard people from drug abuse or physical and sexual abuse. I will not comment on individual cases, but that would be the clear distinction between the two.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, can the Minister remind the House why the Government refuse to allow an independent review of Prevent, as recommended by the former reviewer of terrorism legislation, and why they refuse to publish their own review? At the moment, we have criticism of Prevent which the Government say is without foundation, but that assertion is in itself without foundation.