Clause 82 - Foreign surveillance operations
Crime (International Co-operation) Bill [Lords]
2:45 pm
Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)
Amendment No. 78 would delete subsection (6), which addresses civil liability. We cannot see any reason for exempting such officers from civil liability. My point on this is slightly different from those that we have debated so far in relation to this clause. A foreign police or Customs officer might get caught up in something, which could be as ''normal'' as a road accident or damage to property, and which could lead to a civil claim under our civil law. Why should a UK citizen who was adversely affected by that be debarred from bringing a civil claim?
What if a foreign officer who was conducting surveillance on this side of the channel suddenly forgot which side of the road they should be driving on and caused an accident? The situation could be as minor as that. I am sure that many UK citizens in France have occasionally got confused at roundabouts, and ended up on the wrong side of the road, and that could happen in our country when a foreign police or Customs officer is concentrating too much on the surveillance, and not enough on their driving.
In practice, the civil liability would not be against the foreign Customs or police officer personally if they were executing their duty. If they were conducting surveillance, the tab would be picked up—if I may put it in that colloquial way—by the relevant Government or authorities in accordance with the rules that apply in the country in which they were operating.
Amendment No. 79 offers the Government an alternative to amendment No. 78, because it would give the exemption, but only for matters that are strictly necessary for the surveillance, rather than incidental to it.
Amendment No. 80 addresses civil liability in relation to the Human Rights Act 1998. Conservative Members have repeatedly drawn attention to what we have always foreseen would be the malign consequences—particularly the huge cost to the British taxpayer—of the Government's incorporation of that Act into our law. This is another potential difficulty.
However, for at least as long as this Government are in power, we will be stuck with the current situation. A lot of my constituents repeatedly write to me to say that the biggest single problem that this Government have created is the introduction of Human Rights Act legislation, because it is leading to many civil claims that cost the taxpayer a fortune. Many of my constituents strongly hold that view. They see all the headlines, particularly in our broadsheet newspapers and our middle-market tabloids, stating that there is a huge cost to our legal aid budget and the British taxpayer that is entirely due to the
compensation culture that has been introduced and the fact that people are now able to bring what are sometimes specious and fatuous claims under the broad heading of human rights. That is not what the human rights legislation was intended to bring about.
Members of all parties support human rights. The argument is whether the Government, by choosing this legislative route, have gone the right way about protecting those rights, or whether by choosing that route they are—as we warned them from the outset—opening the floodgates of huge costs to the British taxpayer, especially in litigation that might not otherwise have been brought, might not have been proper to bring, might be wasting a huge sum of money, and might be specious. The Government must carry the can for that.
However, for as long as the Government are in power, the Human Rights Act 1998 will be in our law, so British citizens should have its protection in relation to civil liability. It is on that basis that, in another place and now in this House, we have moved amendment No. 80.
With regard to the alternatives, my preference is to persuade the Government to accept amendment No. 78, which would delete subsection (6).