Sexual Misconduct in the Police

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Since the dreadful murder of Sarah Everard and the appalling revelations of the abuse of police powers by her killer, there have been many other shocking allegations of the failure of the police to deal with misogyny and sexism in their own ranks. Today, we learned from the Independent Office for Police Conduct that, in the last three years, 66 officers and members of staff have faced disciplinary proceedings for alleged abuse of position for a sexual purpose; let alone those not reported, that is a big rise in the last year. The trust we rightly have in the police is everything. What, as well as the inquiries, are the Government doing now to change a culture where there are too many examples of totally inappropriate behaviour, which, at its worst, allowed a serving police officer nicknamed “The Rapist” to continue in post?

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

I must join the noble Lord in expressing my disgust. Every one of those numbers represents a person who has been the victim of sexual misconduct by a serving police officer. On the one hand, any number is too many but, on the other hand, we should look to the legislation that we introduced last year to give additional powers to the IOPC. That includes the power of initiative, which allows it to bring forward and investigate allegations without requiring referral from the police. In addition, forces must refer all allegations of serious sexual offences or of police officers abusing their position for a sexual purpose to the IOPC. For the first time now, the Home Office will be able to collect and publish data on internal sexual misconduct by officers, and we aim to publish the first tranche in the new year.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Monday 25th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interests in the register of interests. I am the independent chair of the Nottingham Crime & Drug Partnership. As this may cross some of the things I say, I am also a principal research fellow at the Rights Lab at the University of Nottingham.

The Bill requires authorities involved in the serious violence reduction duty to prepare and implement a strategy to prevent and reduce serious violence in their local area. These amendments are incredibly important because the strategy is about how we implement all the other things we are talking about. The amendments are about that strategy, what it should involve and how it can be made more effective. Such detail is what the Committee stage is about.

The Government’s figures from the impact assessment published on 30 June 2021 are simply unacceptable and we have to do something about them. They say:

“Since 2014 certain types of serious violence have increased markedly in England and Wales. Offences involving knives increased by 84 per cent between the year to June 2014 and the year to June 2020. Homicides increased by around 38 per cent and gun crime rose by 28 per cent between year to June 2014 and year to June 2020.”


In the year ending June 2020, 262 people were stabbed to death. In 2019-20, 4,800 admissions for assault by a sharp object were recorded, with some offences never reported. Redthread, which the noble Lord mentioned, is one of the special projects in Nottingham which deals with that. I say those figures not to be alarmist or to criticise, but to outline for the Committee, those who read our affairs and some who are no doubt watching them, that this is a colossal problem for us as a society. We are struggling to deal with it and do something about it.

I asked many Ministers in the other place and am starting to ask in this place, why this Bill will be different from other Bills. Nobody has passed a Bill on serious violence over the past 30, 40 or 50 years that has not sought to do exactly what this Bill is seeking to do. There has not been a police force, a justice system or a local authority across the country that has not sought to reduce serious violence. It is a failure of public policy for decades, but it is particularly pronounced at the moment. Whether it is drugs, alcohol or other things that are motiving and pushing it, the Committee are considering how this time it will be different. Why will the strategies we are putting forward now mean that the police, local authorities, NHS bodies, youth services, residents’ associations, wherever they are, are empowered to succeed in a way that strategies that were implemented before have not been successful?

I have been listening carefully to how many Members of your Lordships’ House are using their experience from wherever they have come from to inform the Government, because we want the Government to succeed. Virtually every single morning at the weekend you wake up to the news that somebody has been stabbed. Sometimes there is a 14 year-old involved in the stabbing, as was on the news recently. I listen to that with horror. How will this be better? The challenge for the Government in the best sense of the word is about how these strategies will work and how we will make them work.

I am really grateful for the work of the Delegated Powers Committee, which is not seeking to embarrass the Government. It wants to improve the legislation. What the noble Lords, Lord Blencathra and Lord Beith, said is quite significant. To repeat what the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, very powerfully said, there is no statutory requirement on the Government in the Bill to publish the guidance. It said that it considers that there perhaps should be. It did not put it like that, but that is essentially what it said. In parliamentary language, it is saying to the Government, “You aren’t required to do it, but that’s not a very good idea, and you should.” Common sense would dictate that if guidance is going to guide people, surely the Government should be required to publish it or have it, and that is why the amendment is there.

Amendments 28 and 30 would add NHS bodies, young people’s groups and religious and cultural groups to the list of groups that must be consulted. The Minister will no doubt say, “It is our intention to do that; of course they will be consulted. We would never dream of doing it without consulting them”, but people want reassurance that these bodies, groups or parts of society are actually in the Bill.

On 13 September, the Government published the Home Office Measures in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill: Equalities Impact Assessment. The Government’s own advice to themselves says that

“there is also often a disproportionate impact of certain knife crime offences on young people. Therefore, greater benefits could fall to those with the same characteristics”,

and it goes on to talk about ethnicity and some other issues. So the Government’s advice is that young people are disproportionately impacted, therefore it might be a good idea to consult them about the solutions to this. I say to the Minister that that surely should be included in the Bill. There is nothing lost by it, whether with NHS bodies or young people. I can hear the reply now: “There is no need for it, because of course we will.” But it is so important for those things to be listed in the Bill. That legislation needs to be there, and those points were made by a number of honourable Members in the other place.

Amendment 32, from my noble friend Lord Brooke and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, as was outlined by my noble friend, is on alcohol and drugs as drivers of serious violence. I do not know whether my noble friend would agree, but alcohol and drugs are often, somehow or other, not given the same prominence in how we deal with this. I will give one example of how serious violence and alcohol are linked: if the police regard a particular football match as difficult, they will start much earlier in the day, before the pubs are open, essentially. Why do they do that? I am not a police officer—the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, might know better—but I presume that, if you start it then, the incidence of violence is likely to be less, although this is not definite. This cannot be overstated, so what will the strategy say about dealing with alcohol and drugs? This is fundamental to public health.

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and my noble friend Lord Rosser on Amendment 53. I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, is yet to be convinced by the national serious violence oversight board. It is a mechanism by which the signers of the amendment and those who support it seek to ensure that these strategies will work and contain something so that not just the local authorities delivering them but, somewhere along the line, somebody holds people to account for trying to deliver them. If a national oversight board does not do that, who will? Correct me if I am wrong, but I think the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said that Her Majesty’s inspectorate might be able to.

To be honest, I am open to persuasion about what the mechanism should be, but the importance of the amendment cannot be overstated, because it says that the Bill and these strategies will work if there is some way of trying to understand whether they are working. What measures will be used and who is going to look at whether they work? Who is going to review the strategy to ensure it is any good? Who is going to share relevant data and good practice? Who is going to do that if not an oversight board? Somewhere along the line, people have to be held to account so, if Amendment 53 is not a good idea, what is? We cannot just let it run free and work; we need some way of measuring it and knowing that it is working.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Wednesday 20th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, this amendment, proposed by my noble friend Lord Paddick, is one that I wholeheartedly support. Many years ago, when I was a magistrate, it was one of my happiest duties to swear in the new special constables. It was fascinating to hear their reasons for wanting to serve their communities voluntarily and to learn about their day jobs. Whatever motivated them, whatever their background, they shared the same driving commitment to help to keep us safe. They put themselves in as much danger as a full-time officer, and they do it voluntarily.

For many years, as my noble friend Lord Paddick, has said, full-time officers derided them. Fortunately, they began to see their worth and special constables are now, almost, fully integrated into the workforce and finally treated properly. I am delighted that my noble friend has brought forward this amendment and I support it totally.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very happy to discuss Amendment 12, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. It is really interesting and certainly gives us cause to think about the issues he has raised about special constables being members of police forces in England and Wales, as they are in Scotland. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s response as to why that is not appropriate, or whether the legal difference between England and Wales and Scotland with respect to specials is an important difference and there is some logical reason for it. It is certainly something for this Committee to think about. We are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for bringing this amendment forward.

We also very much support the provisions in Clause 3, which allow special constables to join the Police Federation. This is a long overdue change, so the Government are to be congratulated on bringing that forward.

It is really important for us to put on record—given that our proceedings are read by many outside and watched by others—what will be the Committee’s unanimous view of the importance of specials and the work they do. All, or many, of us will have been out with our local police forces on the beat. I have at times been out with the specials. It is important to remember that, when a special turns up at an incident in a uniform, with the full powers of the police constable, the people to whom he or she is going do not ask them whether they are a special or whether, because they are special, they do not somehow put themselves in danger in the same way that a full-time police officer would. They are just grateful that a police officer—a uniform—has turned up to support them.

It is really important for us to state in this Committee debate that we support the specials and value the work that they do across communities up and down the country. It is also worth reiterating the evidence given to the Bill Committee in the Commons by John Apter, who said that special constables

“stand shoulder to shoulder with my colleagues. They have exactly the same powers and they carry exactly the same risks.”

In that short phrase, John Apter has completely summed up our view of the work that they do. Alongside that, Chief Superintendent Paul Griffiths, president of the Police Superintendents’ Association, said that special constables

“epitomise the relationship between the public and the police”.— [ Official Report, Commons, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill Committee, 18/5/21; col. 26.]

It is important, in this short debate on the amendment, to put that on the record. I know it will be the unanimous view of the Committee, but I am also interested in the noble Baroness’s response—sorry, the Minister is the noble Lord; I will get it right. I have been in the Commons for a long time and it takes a little while to get used to—I am nearly there.

The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, raises an important issue on which we need some clarification, and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I want to amplify one point made by both previous speakers. I am sure that the Minister would agree that what we want to do in the police force—all parts of the police force—is to encourage recruitment. The feeling that one has standing encourages that enormously. I would just like to make this point: we want to encourage recruitment, and therefore if police special constables feel that they are part of the police force, they are more likely to join and stay.

--- Later in debate ---

As with so much in this Bill, it appears to us on these Benches that Clauses 4 and 5 do not appear to have been thoroughly thought through.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, to his place, and wish him well in his role. If I had realised that he was responding, I would have said that when I made my initial remarks. I apologise and look forward to our discussions.

One thing I did before discussing this group and the next group of amendments—which are incredibly important and deal with really difficult areas of law—was to Google some of the problems. Before I look at some of the examples, just from Googling, of where there have been problems around police pursuits of one sort or another, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for sharing her horrible, terrible and awful experience with the Committee. That is another example of the sorts of issues that can arise from a police pursuit, and thankfully she is here to tell us the tale. We all found it very moving.

As I say, just from Googling, there are various examples that show some of the difficulties: an M27 police pursuit and 100-mile-per-hour chase, with a driver weaving in and out of traffic; “Driver, 18, narrowly misses bus in police pursuit”; “Driver loses police in wrong-way pursuit”; “Car driven along a railway track to escape the police”. This is not to question any of those individual cases—I did not read them; I just looked at the headlines—but a quick Google shows the extent of the problems that arise. Clearly, as it stands, the Government are seeking to address a very real issue. It is not easy, because if you are the victim of a crime, or something is going on, you want the police to respond as quickly as possible. It is a difficult situation for the police, and these clauses seek to deal with that. I appreciate that these are probing amendments, as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, but they raise important issues that will need clarifying in both this group and the next.

We welcome these clauses because, like most people, we have been saying for a long time that there is a need for proper and improved protection for police drivers, who regularly put themselves in danger in the line of duty to pursue suspects. That is what we all want them to do. These clauses put recognition of the training that officers have had and the purposes of the journeys that they take into law. We should pay tribute to the Police Federation for the work it has done in campaigning consistently for this. As I have said already, however, we can see that issues arise from it—indeed, they have already been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and the noble Earl opposite.

Amendments 13 and 16 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, narrow the clauses to police pursuit. We can see the purpose of the amendments when rereading the Bill, which says:

“Subsection (1B) applies where a designated person … is driving for police purposes”.


I suggest to the Minister that that is a bit vague. What on earth does it mean? Without being sarcastic, “police purposes” could mean that you get in a car to drive down the road because you have to go and see somebody about a crime. That is a police purpose. I am not suggesting that any police officer would therefore drive at 100 miles per hour to do that, but we can see the problem that the noble Baroness is trying to get at; “police purposes” is really wide-ranging. On the other hand—and no doubt the Minister will say this when he responds—saying “police pursuit purposes” narrows it down to the extent that we end up excluding the possibility of the police having an emergency response to things that we would all wish them to have an emergency response to. That is why, I suspect, the noble Baroness has made them probing amendments. Indeed, she said that if you thought somebody was in danger, or if a murder, serious rape or something like was that taking place, you would not want the police driving along slowly to get there. You would want them—in a proper way—getting there as soon as possible with an armed response or whatever response was appropriate.

On one hand, the Bill has, “police purposes”, and I am not sure that that is drafted as well as it might be, but then the definition we would want—“police pursuit purposes”—probably narrows it too much, which is why I am pleased it is a probing amendment. The Committee wants the Government to come back, I think, with something that encapsulates that competing and conflicting point about where we go with respect to that.

Amendment 17 from the noble Earl, Lord Attlee—again, this is the point of any Committee—removes any driver from the Bill who is not a constable or civilian driving instructor who is training a police driver. He is saying to the Government, and I think it is a really good point, that they have a long list of designated persons in the Bill—I will not read them all out. I remind the Committee that it does not apply just to the police force; it applies—and it is a good thing the Government added this to the Bill—to the British Transport Police, the Civil Nuclear Police Authority, the Chief Constable of the Ministry of Defence, the Scottish Police Authority and the National Crime Agency. These can be designated and it gives power to the chief constables and chief officers of those to designate a person, to give them the authority to drive in that way if they have received training. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, is therefore right to ask why. What is the Government’s justification for extending this to that range? There might be a very good reason for it, but it is a point we need to understand.

To conclude on this group of amendments, can the Minister shed light on my earlier point as well as who is covered by the current list of designated persons in the Bill and why they have been included?

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, if I may come in briefly before my noble friend the Minister speaks, I think the term “for police purposes” appears in other forms of road traffic law. I am not certain, and maybe the Minister can help us on that.

On “police purposes”, I have given the Committee an example of where a police driver might choose to go very fast indeed but perfectly safely. Suppose a passenger carrying vehicle, a minibus, breaks down on the motorway somewhere. As soon as the driver tells the police control room they are a passenger carrying vehicle and they have passengers in the back of that vehicle, I imagine that the police will try to get there as fast as they possibly can, to get a police car behind that broken-down vehicle. That would be a “police purpose”. It is not a pursuit, it is not after criminals; however, a police driver in those circumstances, because he is properly trained in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, says, would be expected to identify a change in road surface. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, will remember being trained to identify a change in road surface, so actually, if he fails to identify a change in road surface, he could in fact be caught by the changes proposed by the Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I have a confession to make: I love the traffic police. I have spent many happy hours in the front of a police van with an automatic number plate recognition machine, spotting illegal drivers. The fascinating thing about criminals is that not only do they break the law on drugs, guns and so on, but they do not pay insurance on their cars either. If I were a criminal, I would make sure that my car was perfectly legal, but for some reason they do not. So the traffic police are incredibly successful at catching criminals; at one point—I do not know if this is still true—their arrest rate was far higher than that of the average police officer here in London.

In the 12 years that I sat on the police authority, I took advantage of that to go out with the traffic police. I remember one spectacular day when they had a car-crushing machine next to the A1. All the vehicles speeding down the A1 saw that machine and slowed to legal limits. We were not actually crushing cars that had been taken that day; they had brought some cars out with them from central London. So I am a big fan. The traffic OCU serves an incredible function of keeping our roads safe.

I support Amendment 19. Of course, everybody expects the police who respond to blue-light emergencies to drive fast, overtake, go through red lights and so on, and it is right that the police are given the necessary legal protections to do their job in these situations. Then there are more controversial and dangerous tactics, such as officers aggressively ramming moped drivers who refuse to stop. We cannot leave that for the courtroom to decide—it has to be a political decision. Whether a tactic meets the standard of a reasonable and careful constable is political, because you cannot leave police officers uncertain about whether their behaviour is legal. It would also leave the public unsure about what standard of driving you can expect from our public servants. Amendment 19 addresses that issue and is an extremely neat solution.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments would improve the Bill. The legislation in some respects is too loose, and needs to be tightened. I hope that, when we move from Committee to Report in a few weeks, the Minister will have had time to reflect on the previous group but also on some of the points being made here, because that will make what we all want much more likely to happen. I hope that he will be able to reflect on the points that noble Lords have made and come forward with the Government’s own amendments to take account of those points, some of which are exceedingly logical and good and would enhance the Bill and what the Government are seeking to achieve.

The amendments raise key issues in relation to the police driving provisions. The aim of the clause is not to allow the police to drive without safeguards or scrutiny but to ensure that they are not criminalised for what they have been trained to do. Amendment 19 raises a reasonable question about national standards for competent and carefully trained drivers. As we will come on to in Amendment 20, there are various levels of training, and the number of fully trained officers will differ between forces. However, that does not alter the fact that there is a need to set out in more detail and with more clarity what a nationally recognised standard will look like. Will it be covered in the training that officers receive, and is the Minister confident that the Bill makes it clear what a national standard means? The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, posed a reasonable question, which was answered well by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, about what that means between different police forces such as Devon and Cornwall and the Metropolitan Police, and how they do things. Those are the sort of points that the Minister needs to raise.

On Amendment 20, the idea of a reasonableness defence is an issue that officers are concerned about, which was raised consistently in the Commons. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, did not mention that quite as much as he did the national standards, but we need to ask how this whole area of reasonableness, which is used in the courts, stands with respect to this Bill. It is difficult to craft an answer, but the issue goes back to the level of training that an officer receives, which varies from force to force. It not only varies from force to force, however: the level of training varies within the police force.

Let me give an example for clarity. If I am a member of the public on the street, I know generally what a response car looks like, and you would expect a response car driver to have had the highest level of training, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said he had received in the past. It is about a proper response driver responding to emergencies or pursuing a vehicle. That is what you would expect if you were a member of the public. But not all police cars are response cars. What about a police van? I have seen police vans driving after people. What happens then?

Is this level of training—police pursuit—available only to response drivers? What about other drivers, or will they be compared to the normal standard? This takes the police into very difficult territory. I have not been a serving police officer like the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, but I can only imagine that if someone said, “Officer, a mile down the road there is a really serious incident”, and a police van driver did not put the blue lights on and go down there, and as a consequence a murder or a rape took place, people are not going to say, “That officer driving the police van was quite right; he did not respond in the way that he should because he has not had the proper level of training”. This takes us into difficult territory, and it is also about the reputation of the police.

What happens, however, if the police van driver does that, but then crashes or injures somebody else? I thought that was the point of Amendment 20 and the reasonableness defence: you would expect the police officer driving the van to do that, even though they are not trained to the level of the police response driver. From the Bill, however, it is not clear whether the police van driver—I am making that up as an example—would be able to do that and respond to an emergency situation with the same level of protection that the Bill tries to give to a response-level trained driver, whereas the public would expect them both to respond in the same way.

That is the point of the reasonableness test that Amendment 20 seeks to drive into the Bill. I hope that I have given a clear enough example of the sort of situation that might arise for a police officer, whether operating in Devon and Cornwall, the middle of London, Sheffield, Cardiff or wherever.

This is the point of the Committee: it drives that level of detail that seeks to clarify the way the legislation is drafted—as we saw with the previous grouping, where there is a real problem around the phrase “police purpose”—but also tries to ensure that the legislation delivers in both its wording and its intention.

On the drafting of the Bill, can the Minister just give us some assurance that officers with basic police driver training would be protected if they found themselves having to respond to an incident that ideally required a higher level of training? That is a fundamental question and if I were a police officer driving a vehicle that was not a response vehicle, I would want to know whether I was protected by law in the way that we seek to protect other drivers.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I think the answer to the noble Lord’s question is that, if the police officer is driving more aggressively than he is trained to do and he has an accident, he is in trouble because he is driving outside of what he is trained to do.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

May I speak? Sorry, I do not know what the rules are. That is the point that I was making, and I am asking the Minister: what is the answer? The public’s perception of that would be, frankly, dreadful from the police point of view. There is an issue here for the Minister to resolve and to clarify for the police forces and the people driving.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

I have two points: one is that we are in Committee, so we can speak as many times as we like, and the other is that the public may have to be disappointed, because the police officer may not be able to do everything that the public expect. The public could complain; there is a complaints procedure, so the police could explain why they could not respond in the way that the public would expect.

Iraqi Interpreters

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, due to the very nature of a war-torn country, these processes are not swift. We have gone above and beyond what is necessary to try to get as many people out as quickly as possible. I, too, have been to Bosnia and I recognise the points that the noble Baroness makes.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The Minister has just told this Chamber that we owe the people who have helped us a debt of gratitude and that this country will not abandon those who have helped us in areas such as Iraq, so why are these eight translators still trapped in Iraq, despite the fact that this has been raised in numerous Questions and debates? Why are they still there, if we owe them a debt of gratitude and will help those who have helped us? This Chamber wants to know when those eight and their families will be given safe routes to this country and repaid the debt that we owe them.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

As I say, anyone from Iraq now wanting to come to the UK can apply for a visa through the wider immigration system and applications can be made through the UK’s resettlement schemes, which offer a route for UNHCR-recognised refugees in need of our protection who have fled their country of origin.

Alcohol Licensing (Coronavirus) (Regulatory Easements) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Grand Committee

Therefore, I have concerns about whether these regulations are necessary. Local authorities seem to be taking a different view, and I am concerned that the apparent proposal to insist on Covid passes for entering many premises within the hospitality industry will have the reverse effect to what the Government are trying to achieve through these regulations.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, it is good to be here discussing this important SI. I say at the outset that we support the regulations but, as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and my noble friend Lord Jones, there are some questions which quite rightly people will want asked. However, I thank the Minister for a helpful introduction, particularly in trying to answer some of the questions before we had asked them—for example, on the consultation with the national police chiefs.

My noble friend Lord Jones got off to a good start by saying how well I did in the other place—so I thought his was a brilliant speech. e made some important points. It is interesting to look at the history of Wales around the referendum on drinking on a Sunday, some of the implications of that and changes that have taken place over the years. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, is absolutely right: the Explanatory Memorandum talked about all the difficulties that there have been, with 6,000 licensed premises closing and over £7 billion lost, but the point of the regulations was to help. It would be helpful, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, was saying, to ask what the positive outcome of some of that was. How many places would have closed and how much money would have been lost had that not happened?

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, that there clearly is a real problem. You cannot drive around the country without seeing closed restaurants, closed hotels and closed pubs. I am not a statistician but I can see where I live—Cotgrave in Nottinghamshire—that there were two pubs and now there is one, which is working as hard as it can but is facing difficulty. The hospitality industry needs support and help. I accept the point about the need to be positive, particularly as some of the regulations have been relaxed, so what additional benefits are there? That is an important point about why the regulations are necessary and what we say to the public about them. From the evidence of my own eyes as I drive around, I cannot believe that there has not been a disastrous effect. I have a number of questions, as it has made a difference to the industry as a whole.

I turn to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, about crime and disorder as there are questions we need to ask about that. When the SI went through before, my colleagues raised a number of issues which were taken on board, including the cost and the increased workload for local authorities. What assessment has been made of that? What support has been given to the licensing authorities in local authorities to deal with it? Have any problems emerged as a consequence? I will come on to anti-social behaviour and the potential for crime.

On access to toilets, I am bemused by the fact that the availability of public conveniences is shocking across the country. I know everybody blames everybody else. Whoever’s fault it is, it is a real problem. If you look at the night-time economy, there was a problem before and there continues to be a problem with shop doorways being used and so on. The issue has been raised before, and is important. I do not know whether people are embarrassed to talk about it or just assume the worst, but the reality is that we all need a toilet and sometimes a public toilet is not available and perhaps it should be. We raised that as the SI went through before.

The availability of support for smaller breweries is an issue. They provide so much of the local pub scene. Has any work been done to see whether the help for them has been significant?

The Minister answered a question about the National Police Chiefs’ Council. It would be interesting to see whether there are any differences between what it is saying and what local police forces say. The Local Government Association talks about informal discussions with it. I am not sure what the Minister said about what it said, unless I missed it. I notice from the Explanatory Notes that no formal review of the impact of the regulations will take place. I think everything needs to be reviewed. It can be a quick review, but it is important to look at what we have seen and what we can learn from it.

I want to make a suggestion on crime and disorder that I hope the Minister will take on board and find helpful. It may answer the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. Paragraph 23 of the Explanatory Memorandum explicitly says that there may well be an increase in crime and disorder. The Government’s publication in evidence states that we could see an increase in crime and disorder because of pent-up demand for alcohol, that it is possible that it may be at a greater than previous level due to pent-up demand for drinking alcohol in a public house social situation, and that there is considerable uncertainty around the impact given that the current situation is novel and has few comparisons. There is clearly potential for a problem here. That is not to say that the regulations should therefore be imposed but, given that the Government think there is a potentially a problem, the public, the police, local authorities and the sector itself would expect something to be done about it.

Policing: European Championship Final

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]]

My Lords, as regards the chaos outside, the noble Lord is absolutely right. In fact, I understand that many of the people who did not have tickets had no intention of watching the match; they came to cause trouble. On the numbers of police, I understand that almost 2,000 officers were deployed to Wembley on Sunday. To put that in context, it is the size of an average police force.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The scenes at Wembley were frankly appalling, and they ask serious questions of the police and the authorities. Given the risk, why was there not a greater police presence at the gates and turnstiles? All of us have seen the shocking scenes and images on social media, so what people in the country want to know is how many of these individuals are being investigated and how many have been arrested so far.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]]

The noble Lord will know that this is obviously an ongoing investigation, and therefore I cannot comment on exact figures at this point. However, as I say, almost 2,000 officers were deployed to the stadium on Sunday. It was a very unfortunate episode and I am not in any way trying to defend it. What I am trying to defend are police’s efforts to restore law and order when chaos broke out.

Police: Body-worn Videos

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I think the noble Lord points to the fact that the police need to make decisions about what happened before the video was started, after the video was started and what might be put online. These are all factors that might undermine a criminal justice process, and I very much agree with his points.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Everyone accepts the need for police accountability, but surely there is a need to redress the balance as more and more cases occur of police officers being vilified on social media following selective clips of their interaction with the public. However, given that the Minister has just said that this is a matter for police forces, and that the Government accept it is a real problem, how are they going to get this changed for the better?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Body-worn video is an incredibly useful tool for the police, not only to bring criminals to justice, ultimately, but to protect the police against accusations regarding how they treat potential criminals. That latter factor is very important. Clearly, we make policy decisions and the police implement them. They are operationally independent of us and it is for them to issue those decisions. Of course, the National Police Chiefs Council’s advice on the whole framework of their use is very important.

Law Enforcement Agencies: Duty of Candour

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, the Home Secretary fully expects the Metropolitan Police to respond positively to this report and to set out publicly the clear steps it intends to take to avoid making the same mistakes again. She has written to the Metropolitan Police Service Commissioner setting out her expectations and she will update the House on progress following a response from the Metropolitan Police and others.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

This absolutely terrible and shocking incident adds to the legacy of the damaged trust of all aggrieved Hillsborough families and others in the police. It is devastating for the Morgan family, who fought so hard to get the truth; it is painful for the communities the police serve; and it is painful for the vast majority of officers, who serve with integrity. It is plain to see just how urgent the need is to get this statutory duty of candour in place. Notwithstanding what the Minister has already told the House, what work has begun to get that recommendation implemented? When will the duty be in place and how will it be enforced, thereby earning and maintaining public confidence in the police? This is urgent, and we want the Government to move as quickly as possible.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I say to the noble Lord that I agree with pretty much everything he says. This work is urgent. I know that work is progressing at pace and that the Home Secretary wants to speak to the family before making further progress on it.

Passport and Visa Measures

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Again, I put it back to the noble Baroness: what about people who cannot afford a passport and do not live in the EU? Do they not matter?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I think that many in the House will be extremely disappointed with the responses the Minister has given. Last year, noble Lords raised this issue, warning of potential problems. Given that these have now arisen, can the Minister tell the House how many EU schoolchildren she estimates will be affected by the changes? Is she not concerned in the slightest that barriers to visiting and learning in the UK will give a negative impression of our country to those young people and their families—one that might, in time, be to the detriment not only of our economy but of our cultural and global reputation?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The noble Lord will not be surprised to know that I do not agree with him. In terms of numbers, it is very difficult to prove a negative: for example, how many children will not be able to visit because of the system we have. One might also about children who are currently outside of the EU. I mentioned collective passports, which are a route for groups of children to come to this country and are, I think, very affordable.

Immigration Rules: Statements of Changes

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I refer to the register of interests and my role as a research fellow on modern slavery at the University of Nottingham. It is an honour to make my first contribution from the Opposition Front Bench. I start by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, for her usual courtesies in welcoming me. I look forward to our future discussions.

The three instruments before us include 640 pages of policy changes. I have six minutes to speak, which would optimistically work out at over 100 pages per minute. Whatever our differing views, the whole House—including the noble Lord, Lord Green—is perhaps united on the way these changes have been made, which has lacked transparency and made scrutiny harder. The instrument published in October 2020 covers everything, from the simplification of existing rules to citizens’ rights after transition and the Afghan interpreters scheme. As the SLSC reported, its scope is “wholly unjustifiable” and makes the law less accessible. What do the Government say to that and what will they do differently going forward?

The Minister knows of our disappointment that the health and care visa did not cover significant numbers of care workers, who, alongside other key workers, kept this country going through the pandemic—though I note that “senior care worker” has now been added to the shortage occupation list. Where is the Government’s detailed plan on social care?

On the BNO route, Labour has pushed the Government to ensure this scheme is genuinely accessible. Does the support package announced earlier this year cover issues including recourse to public funds and tuition fee status? Can the Minister give an update on routes for younger people in Hong Kong born after 1997—for example, ensuring that the existing youth mobility scheme can offer a clear path to citizenship?

I turn to the EU settlement scheme. The 30 June deadline is approaching, and we welcome that guidance on the “reasonable grounds” for late applications has now been published. But for those who miss the deadline, what support will be in place to signpost them to application? We understand that the Government intend to continue funding grant-funded organisations to support late applications to the scheme, but the crucial question is: how long will that support last?

The report from the3million says that people in the middle of university admissions or mortgage applications are finding themselves impacted by the Home Office’s delay. Can the Minister please give an update on how many hundreds of thousands of applications are currently held up? What will be done to prevent people losing rights while their application is pending?

According to the latest figures, fewer than 50% of EU looked-after children and care leavers have secured settled status, with one-third yet to apply—that is only the children who have so far been identified. Could the Minister therefore give an update on efforts to identify and support looked-after children?

Buried—this is why more debate is important—in the first instrument are the really concerning powers to deport a person solely on the grounds of being homeless. Have the Government used this power during the pandemic?

The Statement published on 10 December lays some groundwork for government plans on asylum. The SLSC raised concerns that these changes

“may imperfectly achieve their policy objectives.”

We agree. The Government’s two-tiered plans for asylum take their eye off people smugglers and instead seek to penalise the refugees exploited by them.

On enforcement, how many—if any—of the international agreements needed for this policy are now in place? How many people smugglers have been successfully prosecuted since 2019? The UNHCR says that the plans are damaging, expensive and will not work, so what conversations have Ministers had with the UN and other partners since the policy was announced?

What is so far missing is the crucial information on safe and legal routes, which are vital for people fleeing situations that we can barely imagine. How many refugees will be welcomed under the new UK resettlement scheme? Where are the detailed plans for family reunion? I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Dubs for all his work on this issue. Safe Passage reports that, despite this Government’s assurances, children are facing ever-longer waiting times since Dubs and Dublin closed.

There are so many other issues that I and many other Members, whatever our views, would have wished to have had the time to cover. I close by briefly welcoming the expansion of the Afghan interpreters’ ex gratia relocation scheme and the introduction of the ARAP, which we hope we will be able to continue to discuss in future debates. Really, a debate as important as this needed more time.