Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Henig (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving this amendment I must first declare interests as a former chair of the Security Industry Authority, and as a current adviser to the British Security Industry Association and a Scottish private security company.

At this stage these are probing amendments to try to find out to what extent the Government are retreating from their commitments to the private security industry, first made three years ago by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, in this House, and again last autumn by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, at a Security Industry Authority conference, when he pledged that the Government would introduce business licensing of companies in the private security sector along with individual registration by the end of this calendar year—which is to say, in the next three weeks. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, also promised appropriate enforcement powers to back up the new arrangements.

We are in quite a novel situation. An industry is begging the Government to regulate its businesses with a range of proportionate penalties for non-compliance, and despite the promises and the Home Office consultation, which shows that the great majority of representative bodies and companies support that, nothing is happening. How strange, then, that in other arenas the Government are rushing to regulate: trade union activity, to give one example.

In the context of these amendments I must spell out why business licensing of private security companies that work alongside the police and of those that carry out extradition escort duties is so necessary and so important. It is because we need to continue to drive up standards across the industry. That started with individual licensing, which was introduced 10 years ago but which must continue, to protect the public and to win both their confidence and that of the strategic partners with whom private security companies work, such as the Government and the police.

We also need to tackle the continuing influence of organised crime gangs in this important sector and to focus regulation on companies while reducing the burden on individuals. The public need to be able to hold companies to account for failures and wrongdoing, not just individuals. Thus far, the Government have proposed only secondary legislation to introduce a form of mandatory approvals for businesses under existing legislation. They have not, they told industry representatives, identified the opportunity for the necessary primary legislation. Given the wide-ranging nature of this Bill, I am surprised that it has not proved possible to insert into it somewhere along the line business licensing for private security companies.

The need for primary legislation is urgent; the benefits that the change would bring are significant for legitimate businesses and for public safety. Furthermore, the uncertainty created by the failure to bring forward this legislation is having an adverse impact on businesses and industry leaders, because they have to cope with continuing lack of information as to how their industry will be regulated, if and when changes will be made, and how much it will cost. My amendments at this stage seek to ensure that companies working alongside the police, and those involved in extradition escorting must be regulated by the Security Industry Authority. My objective is to ensure that all businesses providing security services in the areas covered by the Private Security Industry Act are licensed and that there are powers available to the regulator to allow effective and proportionate enforcement of the regime.

The question that I want to put to the Minister and the coalition Government is this. Are you still intending to carry through the changes you promised in 2011 and said were so urgent that they had to be implemented by the end of this year, or have you decided to abandon them? If the latter is the case, can you please tell the industry and the regulator, so that we can decide how to respond? If you are still going ahead, please could you come back at Report with some appropriate amendments? If you are not able to do that, I and colleagues will be happy to draft some new clauses for you to adopt. But please make up your minds on this issue, which is very important, not just for the industry but for public protection. I beg to move.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD)]

I have added my name to this amendment, and refer Members to my former policing interests in the register. I have long felt that it was important to ensure that adequate training was given to anyone from the private security sector who would be working with the general public and, especially, the police.

Many years ago, when I was a member of my police authority in North Yorkshire, we pioneered doorkeepers, who were specially trained and motivated to work in a range of areas, in particular in nightclubs. Up until that time, it was customary to employ hefty and largely untrained men who would quickly get involved in any scuffles that were going on in the nightclub, or outside it, and who escalated the incident more often than not. Eventually, the police felt that they needed to do something about this and proposed that they trained the doorkeepers. They received a certificate at the end of their training, which became the basis of our having properly trained people dealing with potentially difficult situations, with the help and support of police officers who knew their abilities and limitations.

Fast forward a lot of years to the introduction of the Security Industry Authority, which regulated the private security industry and introduced individual licensing, which has proved to be an enormous success and gained, as we have heard, much support from both the public and police, who saw their registration as being a sign that they had been properly trained and accredited. But it should not end there, and this is the purpose of bringing this probing amendment to your Lordships’ attention. Accountability for actions must not be simply laid at the door of individuals. Companies have a great deal of responsibility in this area and they, too, need to be held accountable if they have been lax about ensuring the proper training and professionalism of their operatives.

We have, I hope, gone long past the time when we saw rogue companies getting away with questionable practices, and unless proper regulation is undertaken we may find ourselves once again in a position of trying to fend off organised crime, which will impact on legitimate businesses. You can be sure that the rogue operators will be looking carefully at what is proposed in the Bill so that they can bypass having to regulate their staff and businesses, especially those who will be working with the police.

However, the words in the briefing note—which was kindly sent to me by the Home Office and I thank it for that—do not really give me much comfort. The consultation proposed,

“a phased transition to a new regulatory regime of business licensing, together with some changes to how individuals are licensed to work within the industry. Following the consultation, the Home Office is enacting reforms in two stages, with provisions that require primary legislation being implemented later, so that the industry can begin to benefit from business regulation introduced by secondary legislation as soon as possible. We are working towards businesses being able to apply for a licence from April 2014”.

In the mean time, what has happened? Businesses do not need to bother ensuring that they will be able to comply with the spirit of regulation. The police need to have confidence in the people they are operating alongside. The public also need to be confident that private security personnel are properly registered and accredited and that companies which make a lot of money out of guarding, escorting and handling extremely important items and persons can be held to account for their actions. This was promised and I hope my noble friend the Minister will be able to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, who has an enormous amount of experience in these matters, that the proposals given to this House previously have not been abandoned.

[Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington (CB)]

I support the noble Baronesses, Lady Henig and Lady Harris of Richmond. I also remember the promises made to this House by Ministers who preceded the noble Lord. There has been a long history in relation to the private security industry and I declare my interest as chairman of Skills for Security, which does all the training for the private security industry. I have been in that position for some time.

The history of this goes way back. The police service has had grave concerns over the past 10 to 15 years about rogue companies in the private security industry, with some issues that were very much into the criminal arena of behaviour. It surely makes sense for there to be an approach that follows the promises made to this House and talks about the responsibility not just of individuals but of companies. Large companies in this country have a responsibility. They do a very good and important job in the private security industry. It makes sense for these companies to be held accountable as an identity rather than individuals within the company. It follows government policy in terms of making companies responsible for the negligent and highly negligent actions of their employees. It would ensure that companies can be held to account and investigated by the IPCC, something we talked about earlier in this House. It would also address the continuing uncertainty that is impacting on business planning, which some of us involved in this area have identified with other people also talking to us about their concerns.

Everyone in this House will know about the increase in organised crime. A number of organised crime gangs operate in this area. Some of them infiltrate companies and some are part and parcel of companies. It makes sense, if that is the case, that companies in general should be held accountable. The other area which is important—and my noble friend Lady Harris of Richmond talked about it—is training. It is something I know a little about, having borne that responsibility for some time. It is essential that when training is done it is done with certainty. That means that if there is accountability, it is there for those people in the company as a whole, whether it be big companies such as G4S or the smaller companies that some of us are involved in.

If this amendment were taken up—it is a probing amendment, of course—it would add to public confidence. The police service in general would know where it stood and government agencies also would know exactly what they were working with and exactly how to tackle some of the difficulties that sometimes happen in the private security industry.