Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Wednesday 27th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to support the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, taking us back to very late on Monday night, if the Minister remembers, when we were discussing Clause 15, on the disclosure of information. The Minister—I think, from memory, although it was late—implied that the disclosure of information was voluntary and that the clause was there simply to facilitate the disclosure of information. In challenging the Minister in that, I quoted from Clause 17.

I can be brief. Clause 17 enables the Secretary of State, if satisfied that a specified authority, educational authority or youth custody authority has failed to comply with the duties to collaborate or disclose information—including, presumably, sensitive personal information and information covered by a duty of confidentiality—to direct the authority to comply and enforce her direction through a mandatory order. That is what Clause 17 says.

I have already explained at length why professionals should use their professional judgment—as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, just said—within existing policies, procedures, practices and protocols, rather than being forced to divulge sensitive personal information when it is not, on balance, in the public interest to do so. For example, there will often be a greater good to be derived from maintaining a relationship between, say, a youth worker and a young person at risk of becoming involved in serious violence than from divulging sensitive information to the police. All authorities dealing with these issues are committed to preventing and tackling serious violence. They may, from time to time, have a different perspective on the problem, or a different view on the best way to achieve what we all are desperately seeking to do.

This clause is one of the reasons why so many organisations believe that the Bill is really about a police-led enforcement approach, because it is the Home Secretary who can force them to comply, rather than the public health, multiagency, multifaceted approach that has been so successful in preventing and tackling knife crime in Scotland. Can the Minister give examples of where public authorities involved in preventing and tackling serious violence have obstructed efforts to achieve those objectives? If not, why is this clause necessary? We believe that Clause 17 should not stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, this group starts with government Amendment 72, which I will say a brief word about. The amendment requires the Secretary of State to obtain the consent of Welsh Ministers—not just consult them—before giving a direction under Clause 17 to a devolved Welsh authority. I understand that the change was requested by the Welsh Government, and we support it on this side of the House.

I turn to the debate on whether Clause 17 should stand part of the Bill, which was tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, who introduced it, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. Their explanatory statement says that:

“The purpose of this amendment is to explore the extent of the Secretary of State’s powers to issue directions under this section and the consequences of failure to comply with such a direction.”


A number of very searching questions have been raised, and I have a few questions myself. It would be helpful if the Minister could give some more information on what a “direction” might be and what it might consist of under this clause. The central point made by both the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, was about the context of police-led enforcement rather than a more equal arrangement between other agencies such as education and the National Health Service.

In the House of Commons, the Minister said that it is envisaged that this power will be used extremely rarely. Nevertheless, could the Minister give an example of when this power might be used and what checks might be in place when it is used? What would the prior steps be before a direction is considered? How would an authority’s progress in acting upon a direction be measured? Further, can the Minister say something about how the Government see this power working in practice?

I thought the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, raised a particularly interesting question about what the sanction might be if a public servant fails to comply with an order to disclose information. My noble friend Lady Chakrabarti also spoke of the rare disputes between professionals and how these may be resolved by direction from the Secretary of State, rather than through the courts. She gave a historical context, if you like, to that status of professionals making their own judgments.

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[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 73, I will speak also to Amendment 74 in my name.

Clause 18 states that those authorities that are, under this chapter of the Bill, under a duty to prevent and tackle serious violence

“must have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State”.

However, in the Bill, the only people the Secretary of State must consult are Welsh Ministers. As we will see in a later group, when it comes to similar guidance in relation to offensive weapons homicide reviews, Clause 31 requires the Secretary of State to consult

“persons appearing to the Secretary of State to represent review partners”

and

“such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.”

That is in addition to Welsh Ministers.

We on these Benches believe that the Secretary of State should also consult representatives of the authorities that will be subject to the guidance, and such other persons as may be appropriate to consult. That is the intention of Amendment 74. We also believe that such guidance should be statutory—that is, contained in regulations—to enable Parliament to scrutinise the guidance before those involved become subject to it, as set out in Amendment 73. I beg to move.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, we support the amendments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. On Amendment 74, we believe it is vital that the Government should consult front-line organisations on the content of the guidance. They are the ones who know how this will, or will not, work in practice and their expertise is the driving force behind the duty. The Government have of course published draft guidance on this, and I ask the Minister whether this guidance is being consulted on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has made it clear that these are probing amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Beith, has just expressed scepticism about the number of initiatives which the Government have put forward in this section of the Bill.

Having said that, we support this part of the Bill on offensive weapons homicide reviews. Amendment 75 raises the question of what happens if a death is already covered by an existing review mechanism, and not duplicating reviews. When this question was raised in the other place, the Minister said:

“To avoid duplication of work, the Bill provides that these new offensive weapons homicide reviews will be required only where there is not an existing statutory requirement to review the homicide”.—[Official Report, Commons Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill Committee, 27/5/21; col. 268.]


Clause 23(5) provides that a review is not required under this chapter if a review of the death is already taking place under different arrangements. If I understand it correctly, I think this meets one of the questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, in his amendment.

Amendment 76 deals with data protection. It would prevent data being shared for these reviews if it breaches an obligation of confidence or any other restriction other than the Data Protection Act. These issues were debated in detail on Monday in relation to the serious violence reduction duty. Obviously, data sharing is absolutely key to a homicide review to allow us to identify and learn lessons from the death, and to decide on actions to take in response. However, as raised in the earlier debate, we must know how this is to be balanced with safeguards.

Clause 29 provides that a person may not be required to disclose information under this chapter that they could not be compelled to disclose in High Court proceedings. It would be helpful if the Minister could talk us through the specific provision of potential High Court proceedings.

Amendment 77 is based on a recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. The DPRRC has said that guidance on this chapter of the Bill provided by Clause 31 should be subject to parliamentary scrutiny and done through a statutory instrument subject to the negative procedure. We support the committee’s suggestion and call on the Government to look carefully at all the committee’s recommendations.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for explaining his amendments to the provisions in the Bill which establish offensive weapons homicide reviews. Before I turn to the specifics of the amendments, it may assist the Committee if I first set out the context and rationale for the introduction of these reviews. Noble Lords asked a lot of questions and I will do my best to get to all of them. If I have missed any, I will write to noble Lords.

Every homicide is a tragedy and the Government are committed to doing all they can to prevent the senseless loss of life and tackle serious violence. We are naturally disturbed by data showing that homicide has risen by about a third in England and Wales between 2014-15 and 2018-19. We have also seen that homicides involving offensive weapons now make up a large and growing proportion of all homicides—approximately 354 out of 732 in 2019. Homicide is now the fourth leading cause of death for men aged 20 to 34, behind suicide, drug overdoses and car accidents. Yet there is currently no legal requirement to formally review the circumstances around the majority of homicides involving an offensive weapon.

This provision will require local agencies to consider the circumstances of both the victims and perpetrators during an offensive weapons homicide review, and identify lessons that could help prevent future deaths. By deepening our local and national understanding of homicide and serious violence, together we can improve our response and ultimately save lives.

The amendment would change the definition of a “qualifying homicide” whereby, alongside the other requirements already set out in Clause 23, an offensive weapons homicide review would be applicable only if no other mechanism is available to review or hold an investigation or inquiry into the death. We agree with the sentiment of the amendment that it would not be necessary or proportionate to require the review partners to conduct an offensive weapons homicide review where the homicide already meets the conditions for an existing review—for example, a domestic homicide review—as this would involve duplication of work and create an unnecessary burden on the review partners, yet produce the same outcomes. However, we do not consider the amendment necessary as Clause 25 already provides for the relationship between offensive weapons homicide reviews and other review requirements to avoid duplication of effort, including disapplying the duty to conduct an offensive weapons review in certain cases.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, cited coroners’ inquests as an example of existing reviews that would preclude a homicide from qualifying for a review under Chapter 2 of Part 2 of the Bill. We should remember that inquests are designed for a different purpose. They are legal inquiries into the cause and circumstances of a death, and are limited to the four statutory questions of who, where, when and how or by what means a person came about their death. Further to this, in many homicides where an offensive weapon is used, there will not be an inquest because the criminal trial will answer the statutory questions and an inquest will not need to take place.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, also asked if consultation with coroners had taken place at an official level. It has and that will continue during the design phase.