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Terrorism Bill

moved Amendment No. 82B:"After Clause 36, insert the following new clause—" ““REVIEW OF CODES OF CONDUCT (1)   Within one month of the coming into force of Part 1 of this Act, the Secretary of State shall convene an advisory panel to consider the statutory codes of conduct in force and applicable to the treatment of all persons questioned, arrested, interviewed or detained under this or any other Act of Parliament by the persons responsible for their questioning, arrest, interviewing or custody. (2)   The panel shall also consider the draft of any such code of practice submitted to it by the Secretary of State. (3)   The panel shall comprise a chairman and not less than 12 members of whom— (a)   one shall have at least 6 months’ experience as a member of the teaching staff of the Hendon Police College; (b)   one shall have at least 6 months’ experience as a member of the teaching staff of the National Police Training Centre, Cwmbran; (c)   one shall be appointed following consultation with the Association of Chief Police Officers; (d)   one shall be appointed following consultation with the Police Superintendents’ Association of England and Wales; (e)   one shall be appointed following consultation with the Police Federation of England and Wales; (f)   two shall have at least 10 years’ experience call to the Criminal Bar; and (g)   at least one shall have experience of criminological research. (4)   By appointing a person who qualifies for appointment under two of the paragraphs of subsection (3), the Secretary may satisfy the requirements of both those paragraphs. (5)   The said panel shall consider— (a)   the provisions of each code referred to in subsections (1) and (2); (b)   the effect, if any, of the provisions of each code on those of another; (c)   the readiness with which each code can be understood by those responsible for and affected by its implementation, and by the courts; (d)   the effectiveness and timeliness of instruction given on the codes to police officers and custody officers; and (e)   the effectiveness of the arrangements made for drawing the provisions of each code to the attention of those interviewed or affected by them and their advisers. (6)   The panel shall report to the Secretary of State with recommendations for the increased simplicity, effectiveness and accessibility of the codes. (7)   The panel shall make its first report not later than 12 months after the coming into force of Part 1 of this Act.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, in Committee, I expressed some concern about the complexity of the codes of conduct under which people would be held in detention under the Bill. I received a letter of assurance from the Minister—I thank her for it—setting out in what she took to be reassuring terms what the situation was. If I quote little bits of it, noble Lords may be less reassured than she intended. She said:"““Those arrested under section 41 of TACT””—" the Terrorism Act 2000—"““are subject to Schedule 8 to TACT . . . The Schedule provides extra provisions which are not provided for by PACE””—" the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984—"““in cases where extended detention may be sought. The wider provisions of PACE Code C on the detention, treatment and questioning by police officers also applies to those arrested under section 41 but makes specific reference to areas where Schedule 8 takes precedence””." In other words, these people are already under two potentially conflicting codes of conduct, one of which has to be disapplied in areas where the other applies. The next paragraph refers to Schedule 7 to TACT and the,"““code of practice for examining officers issued under paragraph 6 of Schedule 14. A person detained for examination under Schedule 7 to TACT will be subject to both Schedule 8 to TACT and also the code of practice for examining officers. This code governs the exercise of powers under Schedule 7””." That either means a third or fourth code. The next paragraph refers to,"““sections 8 and 9 of PACE Code C””," and we also have codes A, B, D and E of the PACE codes. I heard the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, refer to PACE code G earlier this evening, so we have gone even further. In other words, there are a number of codes already existing, some of them in conflict with each other. In the last paragraph of the letter, the Minister says:"““It has been acknowledged by the Home Secretary that there are grounds for producing a separate code for those detained having been arrested under section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and has affirmed that one will be produced under section 66 of PACE””—" so there will be yet another. That made me anxious about the whole code regime. I was asked in the debate in Committee to be reassured by the assurance that the Police Federation was content with this and had said so; so I rang it up. Federation members said that they had been content with the discussion of PACE code C—which had just been concluded, and had gone through your Lordships’ House the week before our debate—but they were not by any means content with what remained and proposed to write to the Home Secretary about it. I then started looking at what actually happens. I found the report of the independent Police Complaints Authority, which had conducted a survey to establish the basic facts about custody officer training in each force. Every police constable is supposed to know all these codes backwards in case he comes into a situation where they are relevant, but the person in the police station who is actually responsible for seeing that they are observed and that the detainee—guilty or otherwise—is protected by them, is the custody officer, who is normally a sergeant but I gather may now sometimes be a civilian. Let us see what the police are doing about this. The survey revealed that, when asked when they gave training to custody officers, of the 43 police forces, only 20 said that they generally gave it before the custody officer took up his duties. Seven said always—making 27—13 said that they generally gave the training after the custody officer took up his duties and one said that it was always after taking up his duties. That gave me pause for thought. Then I looked at the timing of the training. Of those surveyed, four said that it was five to 12 weeks after taking up training—that is 84 days which is nearly 90 days with a custody officer in charge of the people that we have been debating ourselves sick about for hours who does not know the rules. That cannot be satisfactory. I do not claim that the amendment that I have tabled is in any way perfect, so I ask the Minister to spare herself the labour of pointing out how it would not work. It is designed to suggest the lines on which some remedial action could be taken in the form of a review. I suggested that that review would crucially involve people who had had experience of training policemen in the codes because they will know best what it is difficult to get across. It ought to include lawyers who had met the product of this system in the courts because they will know what the courts need to understand. It ought to include people from the police who had not been training custody officers, but had experience of custody officers; and to get the confidence of the various police quasi trade union organisations, they also ought to be involved. The Secretary of State ought to have the freedom to appoint somebody else, and one member, to stop it being too huge, should be able to satisfy more than one of those qualifications. I give those ideas to the Minister, but the principal thing I would ask her to take on board is that, from outside, the provision is looking rather disquietingly complicated. It is as if the system is not quite equal to coping with complications. Now is a very good time to put a body in to look through the system, report fairly quickly and then look again in a year or two’s time. And while we are at it, since the Secretary of State is going to be devising yet another code of conduct, I have suggested that he might benefit from the advice by submitting it in draft to the committee. I beg to move.