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Queen's Speech

My Lords, it is a privilege to reply to the Motion on the humble Address. Earlier this year, the noble Lord, Lord West, made a comment that characterises this Government. When in your Lordships’ House there was a response to the updated national security strategy and the cybersecurity strategy, which were published in March, he said that he was impressed by the speed with which I and colleagues in this House had managed to read and absorb those documents. What does that tell us? Sadly, I fear that it does not say anything about our capacity for speed reading. Short Session or no, it is the paucity of the Government’s policy in important areas that allows us to absorb the Government’s proposals and legislation so quickly. Related to that, in some areas the Government are taking their cue from these Benches. That is very flattering, but they are not doing a very good job of it. Why do I say that? Before I go on to talk about the Crime and Security Bill in particular, I should like to say that my noble friend Lord Henley will cover the justice and constitutional issues later. The Crime and Security Bill is an example of the Government following our lead, but not doing it very well, and tidying up problems that they have caused in previous years. Take, for example, the proposals to reduce police bureaucracy. In January last year, we on these Benches said that we would scrap the stop and search forms in their entirety. The Government are trying to follow suit but, as ever, are not quite meeting the target that we set them. In July 2008, the Prime Minister pledged the following: ""We are clearing the decks, cutting the red tape, cutting back on bureaucracy, making it possible for policemen and women to spend far more time on the beat answering people’s inquiries, in touch with local communities—a visible presence on the beat so that more and more people will see a policeman or woman there and able to help them"." How very desirable; no one disputes the desirability and importance of this. However, the Government’s own figures show that just 14 per cent of all police officers’ time is spent on patrol compared with 22 per cent of their time spent on paperwork. It was recently revealed that more than a third of all offences reported to the police are not investigated; they are dismissed as unsolvable in a process of screening out, which decides what crimes are worthy of attendance and action. One has the impression that form-filling to screen out an investigation is a higher priority than getting on with solving a crime. In September, the Home Secretary told the Police Superintendents’ Association that the Crime and Security Bill, ""will take the first steps towards radically slimming down the form"," for stop and search incidents. He said that the information that officers are forced to record when they stop and search a suspect could be reduced from 10 points to just two or three. He added that the changes could save up to 200,000 hours of police work every day. But in fact this Bill will reduce reporting requirements only at the margin; seven rather than 10 items of information will still have to be recorded, a reduction of three only. This means that the number of hours saved will be evidently much fewer than the Home Secretary’s projected 200,000. Why are the Government introducing a half measure rather than abolishing the forms completely? The Home Secretary’s calls for the police to visit every victim of crime sound hollow. I do not dispute that the public may indeed welcome the police visiting them, but what they really want is a proper and successful investigation. There is a more fundamental problem with the Government’s programme. Over what will have been 13 years in power, Labour has allowed a society to develop that is characterised by national and personal insecurity. It has tried, and continues to try, to tackle this insecurity by developing an intrusive state and focusing on technical fixes. It does this rather than dealing with the root causes of insecurity: societal breakdown and a lack of national cohesion. The lack of national cohesion brings me on to the terrorist threat. It is a threat that is still real. Although there was a reduction in the threat level earlier this year, for the first time since the appalling attacks of 7/7, this was a reflection primarily of the work to address the physical vulnerability of areas such as crowded places and the successes of our intelligence and security agencies, which I congratulate, in disrupting plots and networks; it was not because of a reduction in the drivers of terrorism. The real problem was, and remains, radicalisation. One of the reasons why people are vulnerable to radicalisation and extremism is that the Government have failed to promote shared values and to make it clear that citizens have responsibilities alongside their rights. This is exemplified year on year by the increase in anti-social behaviour, domestic violence and other crime. In his opening remarks, the Minister mentioned some crime statistics, but he did not mention the figures relating to violent crime, which is still on the rise. There has, for instance, been a 68 per cent increase in recorded drug offences, which relate to and often involve violence. Domestic violence accounts for 14 per cent—I repeat, 14 per cent—of violent incidents. It also involves more repeat victims than any other crime. One can hardly imagine what goes on in some homes. There also has been an upsurge in alcohol-related violent crime. In 2005, the then Home Secretary said that his party would "eliminate" anti-social behaviour by 2010—next year. Why does the Government’s own crime adviser say that they have let people down on anti-social behaviour? Why has the current Home Secretary said that the Government have coasted on the problem? Why do fewer than half the adults surveyed for the British Crime Survey believe that the police and local councils are dealing effectively with anti-social behaviour? How can there be community cohesion or inclusivity in such a context? It is an appalling commentary on what Labour has achieved—on the nature of the society that it has allowed to develop, if not encouraged—that many of the measures in the Bill are actually needed. There have been no fewer than 27 policing and crime Bills since this Government came to office. Clearly, Labour did not get it right first time. Since then, delivery, compared with legislation—and there is a very legislative-rich approach—has been far from satisfactory. So much for Tony Blair’s pledge to be, ""tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime"." It is not just the Government’s failure to deliver against previous pledges that makes us question whether what is being proposed will ever be implemented properly. I return to my previous point that there is a more fundamental problem with the Government’s approach, which is that it does not tackle the root causes of insecurity—this business of the "causes of crime". In some ways, the Government recognise this and are trying to backtrack, realising that the existing system of anti-social behaviour orders, for instance, is not up to the task initially set. We on these Benches have pointed out numerous problems with this system. For example, it takes months for an order to come into force, orders are in place only after reoffending and they rely on appropriate parental authority and support for enforcement when, obviously, this authority and support are not always present and forthcoming. We know that unchecked minor crimes and signs of disorder lead to more anti-social behaviour and more serious crime. Small crime tends to lead to big crime. How do we fill the gap in the existing system? Quick action is needed, which is why we on these Benches have proposed that the police be given new powers, such as the ability to put in place curfew or grounding orders, removing young troublemakers from the streets rather than simply dispersing them, or confiscating temporarily a young troublemaker’s possessions, such as their bike or mobile phone. We welcome the fact that the Government are approaching this issue, but it is too little, too late. More should be done on this overall approach. For some time, research has shown that family circumstances can drive people to crime. There is a clear correlation between the propensity to offend when young and the likelihood of committing crime later in life. This is all part of the pattern of smaller crime leading to bigger crime. Why has it taken the Government so long to realise—it is welcome that they realise it—that giving a child an ASBO is likely to indicate a problem with family circumstances and parenting? One has to ask why these assessments have not happened before. It is not just family breakdown that can set young people on the conveyor belt to crime; it is also things such as education failure and welfare dependency. What is missing from the Government’s proposal is a comprehensive partnership approach with all the different groups and organisations that have a role in preventing criminality from arising in the first place. Closely related to the issue of anti-social behaviour is that of gang-related violence. Young people committing anti-social acts of minor criminality may well be those who later become integral members of more serious gangs—another case of small crimes leading to bigger ones. Gang-related violence was discussed extensively during debates on the Policing and Crime Act that we have just passed. The new Bill seeks to extend the existing provisions to cover people under 18. One wonders why it could not have been done all in one. I have two further questions. First, should it not be possible to tackle gang behaviour under, or by applying common sense to, the plethora of existing laws? One wonders why we have to put everything in statute. Secondly, any effective policy aimed at curbing gang activity must take account of the spectrum of gang organisation in the UK, which ranges from peer groups, through relatively durable groupings, to organised crime. I am not sure that the Government’s proposals will tackle the whole spectrum. I would be grateful if the Minister would comment on where the focus of the Bill lies and whether it will cover the whole spectrum that needs attention. There are similar problems with other proposals in the Crime and Security Bill. For example, domestic violence protection orders are long overdue, but they are only temporary. I come back to the point that the extent of domestic violence in this country is very serious. There are real questions about how the orders can be effectively enforced. We will watch the Government’s trials closely to see what happens when the temporary orders expire—what is the next act? More important, how will the Government tackle the causes of domestic violence? I come back to the issue of needing to get under a situation that leads to the commission of violent acts. We may in this Session be dealing with some symptoms of a broken society, but in other areas action is long overdue. I give as an example the new offence of possessing an unauthorised mobile phone in prison, which the Minister mentioned. It must be common sense that this should be an offence. It is already an offence to smuggle a mobile phone into a prison. Some prisons have rules against their possession. Therefore, how can it be that it is not already an offence to possess a mobile phone in a prison? Have the Government made an assessment of what the value of the new offence will be and, particularly as the existing offence has not stopped phones getting into prisons, how they will ensure that this now happens? Would it not be more effective to jam mobile phone signals in prisons, preventing the use of phones entirely, as has been suggested by the chairman of the Wandsworth prison independent monitoring board? It would make phones pointless if they could not get a signal. In other areas we are dealing with a by-product of the Government’s tendency to treat people as guilty until they are proven innocent—the result of Labour’s desire for technical fixes to our insecurity. It is telling that half of all offences go unreported because people believe that nothing can or will be done or—I stress this point—because they believe that they may end up entangled with the police. The DNA database is a good example and one that has been debated extensively in your Lordships’ House. It is well known that the Conservatives would follow the Scottish system, in which samples would continue to be taken from those suspected of a crime and retained throughout the course of any investigation. When an adult is convicted of a recordable offence, DNA should indeed be retained indefinitely. However, no DNA samples or profiles should be retained where criminal proceedings initiated against an adult did not result in a conviction. The only exception to that general rule would be where a person was charged with a serious offence comprising certain crimes of violence or of a sexual nature. In these cases, DNA would be retained up to a maximum of five years. It is not clear why, for example, there is a difference of one year in certain of the Government’s new proposals. I should like to probe the Government’s proposals in one other respect. What is the evidential base for them, and has this been peer-reviewed, as in the case of the Scottish system? I understand that the evidence that informed the proposals is based on an analysis of arrests to arrests, rather than arrests to convictions. It would be helpful to know whether that is the case and why the result comes out as it does with a difference between the Government’s proposals and the Scottish system. I also understand that there is some uncertainty about the retention time of six years proposed by the Government and, indeed, whether that proposal will be compliant with the S and Marper judgment of the European Court. Finally on the DNA database, I take issue with the Government’s suggestion that the proposals will mean that the system is more transparent and more open to appeal. It would be helpful if the Minister could confirm that my understanding on this is correct, but, if an application for removal is subject to a £200 fee, it seems to me that many individuals will be prevented from making any appeal or getting their names off the database. As I said, perhaps the Government are using the right of individuals not to be on the database to help to fill the big public sector deficit. If the DNA database is one area where the principle of innocent until proven guilty is obscured, another is how cowboy wheel-clamping practices have spiralled out of control. I have some doubts about whether the Government’s proposals in this area will work in practice. They rely on the Security Industry Authority, which has failed to fulfil properly even its existing functions. What measures have the Government taken to improve the effectiveness of the SIA before deciding to give this organisation further and somewhat different duties? Based on the Government’s record of delivery to date, how effective any of these proposals will be is open to question. There are also other areas where the Government should be taking more action but are not doing so. These include the policing gap in tackling serious and organised crime, public trust in policing, the resilience of critical infrastructure in relation to natural hazards—current proposals are limited only to flooding—the interoperability of the emergency services and tackling the country’s cyber-insecurity. All these are priority areas and they should all be the focus of attention. However, while this has been a legislative-rich Government —indeed, there has been legislation overload—not all priority areas, some of them very important, have been properly addressed. I have two final points. The first is that the Government’s approach has not been to focus on providing security where only they can or should, which is the principle that should guide any Government. The second is that Labour focuses on dealing with the symptoms of wider problems. It has failed to realise that it cannot tackle the country’s insecurity with more technical fixes through legislation. It needs a reform platform to fix a broken society—one that tackles the root causes of insecurity by involving and working with individuals and communities. However, that can come only from a new Government.