Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, I will be brief. My noble friend Lady Henig indicated that this is a probing amendment which has been tabled as there are doubts about whether undertakings given previously still stand. In view of the obvious importance of this issue, which is clear from the contributions made to this debate, we shall certainly listen with interest to the Minister’s answer.

--- Later in debate ---

I have two questions for the Minister. First, would there be any technical inhibitions around vetting that would prevent an overseas candidate either from carrying out the full range of their duties or from being appointed? If that hurdle is cleared, secondly, can the Minister give us some reassurance that the Prime Minister and Home Secretary of the day will take into account the issues that we have raised today before appointing an overseas candidate?

[Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington]

My Lords, I, too, support my noble friends Lord Blair and Lord Condon and have little to add to what they have said. However, I would flip the coin on to the other side and ask the Minister and the Government what the strong reasons are for doing this. If there are strong reasons, let us hear them.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)]

My Lords, I am sure that it will come as no surprise to the Minister that I take exactly the same view as that put forward with so much restraint and moderation by the three noble Lords who have spoken. I considered the appointment of police and crime commissioners a tremendous mistake on the part of the Government and the Opposition. Both parties, I think for the best reasons in the world, believed that there had to be some supervision of the police force that would satisfy certain doubts and fears rampant among the public at the time. I believe with all my heart and conviction that they were wrong. It was wrong to consider that a commissar—for that is really what a commissioner is—could be introduced into a force that has a structure of disciplined hierarchy without defeating the very basic element of discipline in that force. You could not do it in the armed services unless it happened to be the Red Army or the army of the People’s Republic of China. You would not think of doing it in the armed services. It has the effect of eating like acid into the morale of the police—we have already seen very many instances of how the life of a chief constable can be made absolutely impossible by a commissioner, and we will see worse.

I am no prophet or son of a prophet but I am sure that as time runs on and the period of a commissioner’s tenure comes towards its end, where that person gave huge promises and undertakings as a candidate that have not been delivered, he will turn round and say, “This is all due to the chief constable. This man”—or this woman—“has to be removed”. I cannot imagine anything that would eat into the morale of the police service in a more destructive way than that. If my noble friends had proposed cancelling the powers in Clause 126, I would have supported them. I would support anything that diminishes the authority of a commissioner and, for that reason, I support this amendment.

I say, with great humility, that my attitude has everything to do with what I conceive a police service to be. I had the very high honour—believe it or not, 45 years ago—to be police Minister in the other place, serving under James Callaghan. James Callaghan would say very often, “Do you know what the police service is, as far as I am concerned? It is a case of citizens in uniform”. The powers that the ordinary constable has today have been increased over the past 45 years but they are still moderate in relation to the general powers and responsibilities that the ordinary citizen has. The powers of arrest are not immensely greater, but I am not here to lecture the House on that matter.

I will say that the concept of a commissioner was wrong. Anything that can dilute those powers will be right and anything that would give him the power that is possibly inherent—there is dubiety about the matter—in the execution of Section 126 is to be very much welcomed.

At the moment we have a clutch of scandals in relation to the police. It gives me no pleasure at all to make that point. The situation was not very different in the early 1960s, when the royal commission under Sir Henry Willink was set up. The work that was done was brilliant and imaginative. It led to the Police Act 1964, which was one of the most progressive advances made in relation to policing in the United Kingdom. I think that such a study is due again, and should examine very carefully whether we need the office of a police commissioner.

I will end with an edited quotation from Oliver Cromwell, to his Long Parliament: “Consider that you may yet be wrong”.