Protection of Freedoms Bill

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, the Government are indeed to be congratulated on having moved so positively and with such comparative speed following the report and their own consultation. I also congratulate the members of the parliamentary group and the individuals who have so bravely spoken out. I have one point to put and one question to ask.

The point is to encourage the Minister—not that I think he needs to be encouraged—with regard to the terminology, “fear, alarm, distress or anxiety”, as well as violence. I want to mention to the House that last week during the Report stage of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, my noble friend Lord McNally, the Minister at the Ministry of Justice, put forward a definition of domestic violence that was agreed. It covers,

“threatening behaviour, violence or abuse whether psychological, physical, sexual, financial or emotional”.

As I say, I do not think that my noble friend needs encouragement, but if that is useful ammunition to pass on to those who are doing the drafting and who might be a little resistant to the extension, I hope he can use it. My question is about remedies. There is a provision in Section 3 of the 1997 Act for a restraining order. When the Act is amended, will that section remain available for use by a victim of an offence under either of the new sections? I am sorry that I did not give my noble friend notice of my question, but it only occurred to me during the first speech in this debate. Would Section 3 have to be used or is there an inherent right in the courts? I am thinking of an extreme situation, although they are all extreme, where someone is given a custodial sentence, but there is also a concern that he should stay away when he comes out of prison. I am particularly prompted in this because of the provision in Schedule 1 to the legal aid Bill which allows for civil legal aid services to be provided in relation to an injunction made under Section 3 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. I hope that everything which needs to be can be swept in the last knockings of this issue.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on having brought forward these amendments. I was the subject of stalking for four or five months and a truly terrifying experience it is, too. I was stalked by a woman who rang me at all hours of the day and night and who I believed did not know where I lived. However, the day that I moved house and returned from the other place to my new home, I found a note through the door, saying, “I hope that you will be very happy in your new home”. Such an experience leaves you with an impression that there is somebody out there, waiting for you and watching for you. I am very pleased that the Government have moved on this because it is a very serious social problem.

My stalker was in the end revealed to be much more harmless than many, in the sense that her real name was Anita Hodgson—that is why she had appealed to me. She called herself Anita Windsor and believed that she had been married to Prince Charles and that people were denying her rights to join the Royal Family.

[Lord Marlesford]

Perhaps I may say a word on Amendments 13 and 14, Amendment 13 already having been referred to by my noble friend the Minister as a government amendment and Amendment 14 being in the name of the former Leader of the House. I support both amendments and rejoice that Amendment 13 sets out exactly the right conditions and constraints on powers of entry. In the first instance, it requires a warrant; in the second, following your Lordships’ amendment on Report, it points out that premises may be entered without the agreement of the occupier in cases where the authority using the power can demonstrate that the aim and use of the power would be frustrated if a warrant or agreement were sought. That is very neatly replicated in the government Amendment 13. I am glad that the Government are at last taking an approach that should be used for all powers of entry. I totally support the Leader of the Opposition’s Amendment 14. Again, it will ensure that the amendment proposed by your Lordships' House on Report is perfectly consistent with all matters connected with the Bill. They are worthwhile changes, as well as dealing with the serious problem of stalking.

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I look forward to the Minister’s response and I very much hope that he will be able to reassure us that the Government have taken the purpose of this amendment to heart.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, I participated in the Second Reading debate in November. I have not participated in the stages since, although I have read the proceedings in Hansard with some care. I intend to ask my noble friend to reject these amendments but, before I turn to the substance of my remarks and because this is such a difficult and emotional subject, I hope the House will permit me a brief diversion.

At Second Reading, I made it clear that I thought the activities of those who preyed on children—or vulnerable adults, as the noble Baroness has just said—were repulsive. That was the word I used then and I use it again this afternoon. I went on to argue for the need for proportionality and the measurement of effectiveness and impact and so forth. Therefore, I was very disappointed when the noble Lord, Lord Rosser—I am pleased to see him in his place on the Front Bench—said in his winding-up remarks:

“It is all very well wanting to reduce regulation, as clearly the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, does, but not if it is at the expense of someone else’s safety”.—[Official Report, 8/11/11; col. 219.]

I regard that as a cheap shot. I am happy to be told that my judgment is wrong, that my understanding of the law is wrong or that the practical implications of what I am proposing are wrong, but I am not prepared to be told that I put the reduction of the regulatory burden before the safety of children. That was unfair.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, gave the House a graphic explanation of her work in this area. I will just add my own few words. My wife’s cousin is a forensic pathologist, and he undertakes for the noble Lord’s department post-mortems of the most searing kind. I talked to him about his work and I asked him if he did not find it rather macabre. He said, “Not really, because I am a detective. Some detectives will crawl across the carpet looking for clues in the fibres. I am finding the clues in people, and I am therefore able to convict the guilty and let the innocent go free”. Because I am squeamish, I also say, “Isn’t it rather strange to be dealing with corpses?”. He said, “By the natural order of things you get used to it but when we have a child brought into our post-mortem room, there is a palpable change in the atmosphere, the tension and the behaviour of the team”. Whatever I am saying about the need to not accept these amendments, it is not because I think that children should not be protected. That forensic pathologist’s stories of the things he has seen are harrowing beyond belief.

On 6 February 2012, the second day on Report, in moving his amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, said,

“first, that we cannot create a risk-free society; secondly, that the steps we take to minimise risk should be proportionate. For those reasons, I very much sympathise with and support the Government in seeking to strike the right balance in this very difficult area”.—[Official Report, 6/2/12; col. 107.]

I say amen to that. I entirely agree with the noble Lord. I further agree that getting the balance right is exceptionally difficult.

However, I argue that to some extent the Government have already got the balance right, which is why I shall ask my noble friend to resist this amendment. I do so for three reasons: first, it changes the relative importance of judgment as opposed to process; secondly, there is a bandwagon effect in this whole area, which will result from some of the wording of the noble Lord’s amendment; and, thirdly, there is the danger that this amendment will contribute to the further atomisation of our society.

On judgment versus process, I follow some of the remarks made by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll. When I was taking evidence on the preparation of the report Unshackling Good Neighbours, it was astonishing how many people saw the official check as the beginning and end of the matter. There is health and safety, and other areas, as well as the CRB. Too often, individuals did not wish or saw no reason to use or trust their individual judgment. My fear is that the more we push the process forward, the less people will feel that they need to use their judgment and intervene, because they feel that it is someone else’s responsibility.

Strangely, in the briefing we received from Fair Play for Children, some of that attitude reveals itself. It states:

“We also point out the possibility that the person, in applying for another post within the organisation, might find himself subject to scrutiny against the barred list, and barring revealed. That places employers at that stage in an invidious position of having had such a person working for them with children and then having to comply with statute to refuse the new job”.

I cannot for the life of me see what is “invidious” about this. It is about a proper, disciplined and clearly run business. If a person changes his job and has different responsibilities involving further exposure and involvement with children, at that point the employer is entitled to say, “I am afraid this is not something which you can become involved with because of the role you are now undertaking”. When I read that the,

“day to day supervision is a reference to such day to day supervision as is reasonable in all the circumstances for the purpose of protecting any children concerned”,

I believe that the Government have got the balance about right.

On the bandwagon effect, subsection (4) of the new clause proposed under Amendment 5 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, states:

“Guidance produced for the purposes of subsection (3) … shall recommend that such organisations as described, should seek to obtain a relevant enhanced criminal record certificate as a matter of best practice”.

The noble Lord may think that he will cut down the number of criminal records checked but, faced with the matter of best practice, individuals running charities, voluntary groups and sports clubs will face ever greater pressure to obtain an enhanced criminal record certificate. It will be argued that this is needed to be on the safe side. Charities have groups of people which depend on CRB checks, so they are not going to say it is not needed; rather they will say that, for access, it is best practice.

We saw lots of examples in the evidence given to us before we completed our report, Unshackling Good Neighbours. It is tragic to see how many people, rightly or wrongly, are put off from volunteering because they do not want to be CRB-checked. In many cases they did not need to be CRB-checked, but the authorities thought they should be in order to be on the safe side. The University of Oxford has advertised for students to help invigilate in its museums. The job requires sitting in a room or corridor and watching the exhibits so that visitors cannot remove or destroy them. But they now have to be CRB-checked. It is hard to see how the job falls within the requirements of a CRB check but, to be on the safe side, that is what the university wants to do.

Last, I turn to the atomisation effect. Social scientists say that our society is becoming atomised, as they call it, and social media mean that we live increasingly isolated lives. The noble Lord, Lord Bichard, in an interesting article in the House Magazine this week, talks about how social media provide the opportunity for grooming, and I agree with him absolutely on that. I said in my speech at Second Reading that this is one of the most difficult areas we have to tackle going forward. However, if we are not careful, we will enhance the selfish gene which lies within all of us. People say that they see no reason to help their town, village, street or community. To reverse this trend and encourage people to reconnect and get involved, we need to welcome them, not treat them as criminals.

It is a fact, thank goodness, that a fractional minority of people seeks to prey on children. The overwhelmingly vast majority of our fellow citizens are decent, law-abiding and want to do their best. It is with these people in mind that I urge my noble friend not to accept these amendments.

[Lord Peston]

Is the noble Lord saying that if we accept these amendments, there would be no net increase in the number of children who would be protected?

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

I cannot prove a negative, and that is one of the difficulties of arguing either for or against any form of regulation. You cannot prove what will happen. I suspect that there will be no net increase in the risk to children. I suspect that but I cannot prove it, just as the noble Lord cannot prove the contrary.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, I rise to speak very briefly. Would my noble friends on the Front Bench explain one point? I dealt with a series of amendments that were quite well received by the government Front Bench—“better than half a loaf” was how I described it. Can they explain to the House the process of giving guidance to individual groups so that they know how the process of getting information from the group works and what guidance they will be given as to what they are supposed to do? A little more information about this might help.

I have come to the conclusion that everyone thinks the world they are talking about is totally unique. Sports bodies think that they are totally unique, as do schools. We now ask representatives from sports governing bodies to go into schools, which is an extension of good practice because when people get involved in a club early, that produces the best coaching, the most enthusiasm and the lowest drop-out rates in a sport. It is good for public health and everything else. Putting representatives of sports governing bodies into schools makes, I hope, for a better and more rounded system. Indeed, we tried something similar under the previous Government. There must be an interchange between these two groups.

I hope that my noble friend will tell me that we are talking to all these groups so that they know what they are doing and are having an effective interchange. If we do that, many of the concerns being expressed here will start to become, shall we say, more realistic. Moreover, there is no perfect system, and that is something we have to take into account. I call upon my noble friend to give us a little more insight into the process that the Government want to initiate because there is a great deal of chasing of shadows and fears being expressed in this area. Some of those fears are real and some are not, while some of them are potential fears. We cannot deal with them all, and we never have been able to. It does not matter how many checks you have if you have not caught that one person yet. Can my noble friend give us an idea about the ongoing structure that will be needed for this, because surely that is going to be the best way forward? We are all on the side of the angels, so let us not fight over which angels.