Lord Paddick:

Moved by Lord Paddick

46: Leave out Clause 10

My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 46 in my name and to speak to Amendment 47, to which I have added my name. Amendment 46 would remove Clause 10 from the Bill; I am grateful for the support of the noble Baronesses, Lady Chakrabarti and Lady Meacher, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, who have signed this amendment. Amendment 47 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, to which I have added my name, would remove Clause 11 from the Bill. These clauses give the police new powers to stop and search for an article made, adapted or intended

“for use in the course of, or in connection with” protest-related offences, such as highway obstruction, causing a public nuisance and offences under the Bill —Clause 10 based on suspicion and Clause 11 without suspicion—if a police officer of or above the rank of inspector authorises it in a particular place for a specified period. This can be done if the officer “reasonably believes” that people in the area are carrying prohibited objects.

These are a significant expansion of police powers at a time when confidence in the police is waning and on a day when another police officer has been given multiple life sentences for, among other things, abusing his authority. There is potentially an endless list of objects that could be made, adapted, or intended

“for use in the course of or in connection with” protest offences. Coupled with the power to stop and search without suspicion, this could result in many innocent people being stopped, searched and potentially arrested for being in possession of commonplace objects. If a protest takes place in central London, for example, shoppers in Regent Street and Oxford Street could potentially be stopped, searched and arrested for possessing household objects that they had just bought in John Lewis.

Stop and search is a highly intrusive and potentially damaging tool if misused by the police. The fact that you are seven times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police if you are black than if you are white where the police require reasonable suspicion, and 14 times more likely where the police do not require reasonable suspicion, presents a prima facie case that the police are misusing these powers.

As a commander in the Metropolitan Police Service in July 2000, I presented a paper to my senior colleagues entitled “It is Time to Face the Realities of Stop and Search”. It attempted to demolish established explanations, provide an analysis of why in reality disproportionality was happening and set out steps that needed to be taken to ensure that stop and search was more accurately targeted. That was almost 23 years ago, at a time when disproportionality in stop and search with suspicion was running at eight times; it is now seven times.

A Joint Committee on Human Rights report of November 2020 stated that 25% of black voters in Great Britain were not registered to vote compared with an average of 17% across the population. Even more black people are likely to be excluded as a result of the new requirement to produce photographic identification at polling stations before you can vote. Black people are therefore likely to have less confidence in the electoral process, making protest more important to them as a way of making their voices heard. The same report cites the fact that 85% of black people are not confident that they would be treated the same as a white person by the police.

Put the two things together, and add the seven to 14 times disproportionality in stop and search, and you create a situation where the powers in Clauses 10 and 11 are likely to have a significant chilling effect on black and other visible minority people’s participation in protest. Not only is that reprehensible in itself but it is likely to increase the chance of serious violence as significant numbers conclude that violent protest is the only alternative means that they have of getting their views taken into account.

The only difference between Clauses 10 and 11 is the degree to which black and other visible-minority people will be deterred from participating in legitimate, peaceful protest. As the JCHR highlights, stop and search without suspicion has been available in the past only to combat terrorism—but was subsequently repealed because of police misuse—and serious violence. The JCHR said:

“It is surprising and concerning that the bill would introduce similar powers to deal not with serious offences punishable with very lengthy prison terms, but with the possibility of non-violent offences relating to protest, most of which cover conduct that is not even currently criminal.”

Even the Police Federation has concerns. Commenting on serious violence prevention orders, another expansion of stop and search without suspicion, a representative said:

“I imagine we would be deeply concerned about moving away from a form of stop and search that is not rooted in ‘Reasonable Grounds’. We could easily make a case that this leaves officers vulnerable to complaint, ‘post stop’, in an area which is already supercharged as an issue in many communities. Reasonable Grounds has a firm legal basis, is tried and tested, and therefore affords reassurance to our colleagues engaged in these stops.”

A previous Home Secretary asked HMICFRS to do a report on policing protests, page 109 of which says:

“Arguing against the proposal for a new stop and search power … another officer stated that ‘a little inconvenience is more acceptable than a police state’. We agree with this sentiment.”

Neither of these clauses should be part of the Bill. Depending on the support from other parts of the House, I may wish to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 46.

My Lords, this House is wonderful. Your Lordships have heard from a former police officer exactly what the police think of this and how they will handle, or possibly mishandle, it; we are shortly to hear from a lawyer who has experienced court cases about this sort of thing; and here your Lordships have the inveterate protester who has been arrested at a protest—a peaceful one—and it was extremely unpleasant.

Basically, Clauses 10 and 11 could fundamentally change the relationship between police and protesters. At the moment, you can take my word for it, that relationship is usually quite good until the police are told to move in and arrest us or whatever. Most of the time it consists of natural talking, with us explaining what we are there for and them saying what they had for breakfast and that sort of thing. It is not as disastrous a relationship at the moment as it will be if these clauses pass.

Clauses 10 and 11 will definitely be able to change that relationship for the worse. The police will be able to physically stop and search protesters with or without suspicion. I do not know how awful that sounds to noble Lords, but we feel that we are in a democracy. We are not in Iran or Russia; we are meant to be in a democracy where the police are not allowed to do things like that.

The Greens will vote against these as unjust Laws, and I very much hope that the Majority of noble Lords will follow suit. We all have a very vaunted idea of what Britain, our freedoms and democracy are all about. Here we are seeing a retraction of that and a diminution of our freedoms. I do not see how anyone can vote for that, even the Government front bench over there. I very much hope that this measure comes to a vote, and I will definitely vote against.

My Lords, I rise in support of my noble friend Lord Coaker and of my friend the distinguished former police officer and consistent advocate for rights and freedoms, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. Stop and search is always a vexed question; even stop and search with reasonable suspicion is a vexed question. Of course, we must sometimes have it in a democracy, when people are reasonably suspected of various crimes, but even that becomes difficult because the threshold of reasonable suspicion is so low. Stop and search with reasonable suspicion in this Bill is problematic because certain offences in it, for example locking on, are so vague. Therefore, the range of items for which you could be stopped and searched on reasonable suspicion include, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, pointed out, things that you might pick up in John Lewis. They could include, for example, your mobile phone if that might be used in connection with the offence of locking on, and so on.

However, my priority is of course stop and search without suspicion. As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has rightly pointed out, this has classically been for things such as terrorism and carrying weapons, rather than carrying things such as bicycle chains or mobile phones. Noble Lords will see the problem, which is particularly vexed in the context of the statistics, year on year, on the disproportionate numbers of black and brown people who will be subject to stop and search. Too many young people, boys in particular, have had their first experience of the state and the police service via a racially discriminatory stop and search, because that, unfortunately, has been the culture of policing for too long. We now add a new layer: that there will be lots of young women, not least today, who are particularly concerned about being stopped and searched by the police. That is not a happy thing to have to report, but I am afraid it is the reality.

When I was a young director of Liberty, the National Council for Civil Liberties, almost exactly 20 years ago, what was then Section 44 of the Terrorism Act allowed suspicionless stop and search where it was considered expedient to preventing acts of terrorism. When an arms fair took place in Docklands, large numbers of protesters, not terror suspects but protesters, were prevented from getting anywhere near that fair. They were hassled and detained, sometimes under Section 44 of that Act. Initially, the Metropolitan Police denied that they would ever use such powers in such a way, until questions were asked in Parliament, including in your Lordships’ House.

I sent a young lawyer from Liberty down to Docklands; he came back with large numbers of notices that had been issued to protesters and journalists, and predominantly to black and brown people, under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act. That was stop and search without suspicion. It took many years to take that case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, where of course it was found that that power was just too broad. Suspicionless stop and search is very ripe for abuse, so I urge—

I have great sympathy for the noble Baroness’s argument and that advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, but could she explain whether her objection to Clause 11 would be removed if subsection (7) were removed? It is in Clause 11(7) that what seems to be highly objectionable language occurs. It says that the constable

“may … make any search the constable thinks fit whether or not the constable has any grounds for suspecting that the person … is carrying a prohibited object”.

Supposing that that provision were not in the Bill—is the rest of Clause 11 objectionable?

This being not Committee but Report, the simplest and speediest answer that I can give to the noble Lord’s question is that Clause 11 is about suspicionless stop and search. He has picked out a particular subsection in the scheme, which would have been interesting in Committee. But the crucial thing is that Clause 11 is on stop and search without suspicion, not in the context even of terrorism, where it can come with greater justification—for example, when everybody is stopped and searched on their way into the Peers’ Entrance if they are not a Peer, or at the airport, where everybody is treated the same. But, by definition, that will not be the case in this scheme. This broad power will be used against young people all over London on the day of a protest. It will cause such strife and will poison relationships between the police service and the people it serves. For that reason, I urge all noble Lords to reject in particular this power to stop and search without suspicion even of the protest offences to which I object in the Bill.

I too speak in support of the amendments to remove Clauses 10 and 11, to which I have added my name. I declare my registered interests as the co-chair of the national police ethics committee and the chair of the Greater Manchester Police ethics advisory committee.

Stop and search can be an extremely useful tool in the police kit box, but, like many tools, it works far less well if it is overused or used for the wrong task. Eventually, it loses its efficacy entirely. I have several broken screwdrivers at home that bear witness to my own excesses in that regard, as well as to my very limited DIY skills. That is the danger we run when we extend stop and search powers in what, at times, feels like a knee-jerk reaction. They are simply the most obvious tool at the top of the box, whether they are appropriate or not. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, indicated, stop and search becomes, as it has in the past, so discredited that it reaches a point where, like my screwdrivers, it is counterproductive to use it, even in circumstances where it would be right and appropriate to do so.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, reminded us, with some chilling figures, of its disproportionate use against certain sectors of society—young black men in particular —which damages confidence in policing not just with regard to stop and search but more generally. It is because I am passionate to support our police that I have such worries about anything that tends to diminish that public confidence. I have the greatest concerns where stop and search is undertaken without suspicion; such powers are even more at risk of simply being used against people who look wrong or are in the wrong place. They become especially prone to the unconscious bias that we might try to shake off but all to some extent carry within us. Should these amendments be pressed to a Division, they will have my full support and I hope that of your Lordships’ House.

I conclude by offering a modest proposal that goes beyond these clauses and the Bill. Could the Minister seek to gain a commitment from His Majesty’s Government to refrain from any extension of stop and search powers until such time as it is clear that the existing powers are being used properly and proportionately? Such a self-denying ordinance might lead to us have an intelligent conversation about how better to focus the use of stop and search. We could then look at whether there are circumstances in which those powers should be radically extended—but not before then.

My Lords, I have a question. I am imagining the circumstances with which the police are faced. In what circumstances would they proceed to stop and search if they had no suspicion? This seems a rather curious concept: to stop and search without suspicion means that you do not like the look of somebody—but, even then, you might have a suspicion. I just cannot conceive of the circumstances in which it would be proper to stop and search without suspicion.

I am also particularly concerned about the effect of this as far as the police are concerned. If people can be stopped and searched without suspicion, they themselves will probably not have a suspicion that they should be stopped and searched. Given the present circumstances, in which the police will have to work very hard to recover confidence, a woman stopped and searched without suspicion, and who has no suspicion of why she should be stopped and searched, will have a very considerable concern.

I am very grateful to my noble friend for giving way, but I am afraid that he is wrong about the absence of suspicion. When I was a special constable 40 years ago—I do not have the experience of the noble Lord opposite—I would stand in Trafalgar Square and get messages on the police radio such as, “Race code 3 or race code 9 coming down in a beaten-up Vauxhall: worth a stop.” That is not suspicion; that is arbitrary stopping.

My Lords, we are not focusing right now—nor should we be, in my view—on the issue of the lack of suspicion, although that is fundamental to Clause 11. Let us focus for a minute on Clause 10, which is about stops and searches without suspicion. Those stop and search powers were introduced for police, necessarily and very importantly, to enable them to stop people who they believe may be carrying a knife or another potentially dangerous weapon. I fully support those stop and search powers, but there is not a strong evidence base that the stop and search powers in that context are actually effective in preventing violent crime. So the idea of extending those powers to stop and search people in case they have a placard—a piece of paper—is completely and utterly disproportionate.

In a democratic society, it is utterly wrong to give disproportionate powers to our police to interfere with the fundamental right in our democracy to protest and to go out on the streets to express our opinions. If we forget the issue of suspicion, Clause 10 is utterly disproportionate, anti-democratic and unacceptable, and it will lead to further discordance between the police and lots of communities where we need to build community support for our police. It will have very detrimental effects on all sorts of people across our society. It is for these reasons that I, among others—I hope the whole House—would support withdrawing Clause 10 from the Bill.

What a good Intervention that was; I much agree with it. Returning to the previous intervention, my noble friend can say what he likes; indeed, as a former special constable, he has no doubt told many how they should behave, but I am very ordinary and follow the law. It seems to me that “without suspicion” means that you do not have a suspicion, and, if you do not have a suspicion, I do not understand how you will decide that you will stop and search somebody.

Also, we should not underestimate the lack of confidence in the police among young people in particular —and, frankly, not only young black people. I have four law-abiding children who are now grown-up; all of them, as teenagers, had very good reason to be extremely suspicious of the way in which the Metropolitan Police behaved, even though all of them were law-abiding to a degree which some would find rather embarrassing. The truth is that the Metropolitan Police, in particular, has a very long way to go to recover confidence. I beg Members of this House to say that this is not the moment to introduce something for which I do not think there would ever be a moment to introduce it. In this moment, of all moments, it is the wrong thing to do; it is bad for the police, democracy and the rule of law.

My Lords, when my younger son was 18 or 19, he went around with black friends, and he was stopped three or four times a day with his black friends—but when he went out with his white friends, he was not stopped at all.

I am particularly concerned about Clause 11, and not only for what the noble Lord, Lord Deben, has said. With Clause 11, you start with

“a police officer of or above the rank of inspector”.

You then go to

“a police officer of or above the rank of superintendent”.

But in Clauses 6 to 8, it is a constable. So a constable can—without authority from anyone above, as far as I can see under the clause—stop and search someone without suspicion. We should be very cautious about that.

My Lords, I broadly support the position of having stop and search with cause, although I know that some would not agree with that, but the Government have to think carefully about without-cause stop and search.

First, the point that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, made is intuitively a good one. Why would somebody stop? There is already a Section 60 power to stop and search without cause. It is a power to be used, for example, in a public park where a large amount of violence has already occurred, and an officer declares that there should be without-cause stop and search. The idea is to deter people from congregating in that place so that therefore they do not carry weapons or attend that place. It was put there for a limited time and for a limited geography. I will come back to why I think it still has problems, but there can be a justification for it. We used to have Section 44 of the Terrorism Act to protect places—particularly places such as this place —against people who might go there to attack them. That was why we had it—and Parliament has agreed to both those powers, and one is still extant.

The next point that I wanted to pick up was, on the definition, which the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, mentioned, about whether something may be intended or adapted, that power also exists already in the definition of an offensive weapon. He made a good challenge, that therefore any ordinary object could be declared by an officer as helping with a protest—but I do not support that. We have had offensive weapon legislation since the 1950s, when people used to fight in the street with weapons, and the police have managed to make that definition work. If you carry a lock knife, it is clearly an offensive weapon; it is something that has been adapted to hurt people and that is the intention, that is something used to injure. But you can also have something with you that is intended for that purpose, even if it has an innocent explanation. So it is possible to make that work.

It is logical that you have a power with cause. If you decide that it is illegal to lock on or to tunnel, surely it has to be sensible to give the police a power to search for items that might do that. You could argue that, if it is going to be a big thing such as a spade to tunnel, you probably would not need to search too much—but you might need to search a vehicle or a place. The power to search is probably a logical consequence of deciding that some acts are going to be illegal.

However, I think that stop and search without cause has caused real problems. We still have it to some extent—and I speak as someone who has supported stop and search. When I was commissioner of the Met, when I took over in 2011—and people have acknowledged this—we drastically reduced stop and search, yet we reduced crime and arrested more people. The Section 60 stop and search, which I have already mentioned, we reduced by 90%, because it was causing more problems than it solved, in my view. Yet we still managed to arrest more people. The problem was that the Met had implemented throughout London, almost, so there were almost contiguous areas of Section 60, which is exactly what has been done around Section 44. The Section 44 counterterrorism legislation was intended to protect certain places, such as Parliament, but the Met put it in place throughout London.

The final thing that I wanted to come back to is that, particularly in London, stop and search without cause has such a bad reputation that it is probably not wise to extend it. One reason for that is that you now have many grandfathers and grandmothers who were affected by it in the 1960s, when it was called “sus”. In the 1980s and 1990s it was called Section 44, and now it is called Section 60. So I worry that the history of it in London may cause problems.

I go back to my first point: with with-cause stop and search, a logical consequence of causing certain things to be illegal is that it leads to a search for the items that might prove that that person either has that intent or intends to carry out certain acts. I speak as someone who has drastically reduced, not increased, stop and search. Particularly in the context of London, I caution the Government about extending without-cause stop and search.

My Lords, the Constitution Committee looked at the Bill with some care and was concerned about two provisions in Clause 11, not just one. The first was Clause 11(7), reference to which has already been made, but it was also concerned about the width of Clause 11(1)(b), which refers to persons who happen to be carrying prohibited objects in an area where the police suspect that these offences may be concerned. The point is that somebody may be carrying something within the area for a completely unrelated reason: they might just happen to be carrying a tool which could be thought to be adapted for tunnelling but was not intended for that purpose at all. The problem with this part of the clause is that it makes no reference at all to the reason why the person was carrying the object. The Constitution Committee thought that that was really stretching the matter too far. I have no problems with Clause 10, but there are these two problems with Clause 11.

My Lords, I support Amendments 46 and 47. I say a very loud, “Hear, hear” to the impassioned Intervention of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, which was spot on. I want to answer the question of the noble Lord, Lord Deben—on behalf of the Government, noble Lords will all be surprised to know. I thought I would quote what the Home Office Minister said the last time we dealt with this. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, explained why these new powers were necessary:

“it is not always possible for the police to form suspicions that certain individuals have particular items with them.”—[Official Report, 24/11/22; col. 978.]

That is true, but if that is the basis on which we are legislating—that it is not always possible to know if someone has suspicious items on them—then even though you do not know what the suspicions are, it will be all right to stop and search them. This seems to me to bring arbitrariness into the law in a way that can only be dangerous and will not make any logical sense to anybody outside this House.

Think of the consequences of some of this. The Government keep telling us that this is not about stopping the right to protest, and I will take them at face value on that. But let us consider someone who is not doing anything suspicious or carrying anything suspicious, but who is going on a demonstration. The police have the right to stop them, which means that what is suspicious is that they are going on a demonstration: it implies that. Going on a demonstration is pre-emptively seen as something dodgy, and I therefore become sceptical when the Government assure me that this will not have a chilling effect on people going on demonstrations.

I draw attention to a Clause that has not been mentioned in these amendments but is related: Clause 14, which we will not need if we vote down Clauses 10 and 11. It contains a new offence of obstructing a police officer in a police-related suspicionless stop and search—for which, by the way, you can go to prison for 51 weeks or get a substantial fine. This clause indicates why Clause 10 and even Clause 11 are so dangerous: they will destroy any feasible community relations with the police.

The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, referred to the fact that many women might well be nervous if they are approached for a suspicionless stop and search. In all the briefings we have received, people have drawn attention to what happened, tragically, to Sarah Everard. If the police say they have no suspicions but they are stopping and searching you, you might say, as a woman, “Excuse me, I am not having that; I don’t want that to happen.” In fact, a lot of advice was given to young women that they should not just take it on face value if a police officer approaches them and says he wants to interfere with them in some way. But I want to use a more everyday example.

During lockdown, two care workers I know were walking home from work and sat down on a bench in a park to have a coffee. They worked together in a bubble, giving intimate care to people in the care home they worked in throughout the pandemic. They were approached by a number of police officers, who asked them if they lived in the same home. When they said no, the police officers said they were breaking their bubble—if noble Lords can remember those mad days, that is what it was like. They said, rather jokingly, “We’re taking people to the toilet and working intimately with them day in, day out.” The police officers became quite aggressive, threatening to arrest them and all sorts of things. We know those stories from lockdown. The reason I share this story is that the woman who told it to me had never been in trouble with the police before. She had never been approached by the police in that way; she is a law-abiding citizen who would, generally speaking, support the kind of law and order measures being brought in by this Government. However, because this police officer treated her as though she was behaving suspiciously for having her coffee on a bench, having done a long 12-hour shift in a care home, she said that she will never trust the police again. She argued back and they threatened to arrest her.

I fear that, if we give arbitrary powers to the police to use suspicionless stop and search, this Government might unintentionally and inadvertently build a new movement of people who do not trust the police and are not suspicionless but suspicious, with good reason in this instance, that the police are stopping them arbitrarily and that we are no longer a free society. We should all vote against Clauses 10 and 11 and, through that, destroy Clause 14 as well.

My Lords, I will carry through a bit further the citation from my noble friend Lady Fox of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, a much-respected Minister at the Home Office. More fully, she said that these powers were necessary:

“To ensure that the police have the ability to proactively prevent protesters causing harm … it is not always possible for the police to form suspicions that certain individuals have particular items with them.” —[Official Report, 24/11/21; cols. 977-78.]

That leaves me with a sense of nervousness, for the same reason as the noble Lord, Lord Debden, who unfortunately seems to have left the Chamber—

He is called the noble Lord, Lord Deben.

I have never been very good on the rivers of Essex.

A noble Lord:

It is in Suffolk.

For the reasons that the noble Lord gave in his short speech, these statements by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, who is greatly respected in this House, make me nervous.

My Lords, as we are on Report and not in Committee, I will make three short points.

First, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, is quite right to refer to our freedoms. I am sure that she intentionally used the plural and not the singular, because there are two freedoms here that we need to have regard to: the undoubted freedom to protest and demonstrate, and the freedom to go about your business unhindered and not be harassed. Ultimately, in a democratic society we seek to balance those two freedoms. We need to have regard to both sides of that coin.

Secondly, on the objects that could be caught by these clauses as drafted, a number of references have been made to John Lewis—I do not know whether its publicity department is grateful for that. It would be a misconception to proceed on the basis that, merely because an object has been or could be bought in John Lewis, it is therefore inoffensive and should not be caught by the criminal law. The last time I was in John Lewis, which I accept was some time ago, it sold very large knives, hammers, ropes and other implements. Let us put the John Lewis point to one side; it is a good old-fashioned red herring.

Thirdly, I turn to what the Clause provides. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, focused on the powers of the constable in Clause 11(7). The important thing about Clause 11(7), I would suggest, is that you have to read the clause as a whole. Clause 11(1) starts with an officer at

“or above the rank of inspector” believing, first, that some offences are going to be committed and, secondly, that people will be carrying prohibited objects, which are defined in the clause. Next, that officer has to reach three conclusions under subsection (4). I invite noble Lords to look at subsection (4), because “necessary” appears there three times. He has to believe reasonably, first, that

“the authorisation is necessary to prevent the commission of offences”; that the “specified locality”—it has to be a specified locality—

“is no greater than is necessary to prevent such activity”; and that the period of time, which cannot be more than 24 hours, is no more than is necessary. What can the superintendent do under subsection (5)? All they can do is to continue that authorisation—not start it, but continue it. For how long? No more than a further 24 hours. It is in that context that the constable can apprehend and do a stop and search.

So let us be clear about what these clauses actually do. There is no general power for a constable to stop and search without reasonable suspicion, or to do it anywhere, anytime, in any circumstances. It starts with an inspector, and it can be continued by a superintendent for no more than 24 hours. If we are going to vote, whether it is on suspicionless stop and search or John Lewis, let us at least be clear as to what we are voting on and not be diverted by some good old-fashioned red herrings.

My Lords, I want to make one point about Clause 11, which in my view should not be in the Bill. I appreciate that the previous Speaker has just given a very lawyerly defence of the Government’s view. I am not a lawyer, but I want to say this: I wonder why the Government want to be on the wrong side of history by including Clause 11 in the Bill. I look at Members around the Chamber and think to myself, “What on earth would you feel like if you were ever arrested, stopped and searched without suspicion by a police officer?” I would like noble Lords to bear that in mind when they come to vote, if we are going to vote on this. A lot has been made of the younger generation, and I personally believe that Clause 11 would damage relations in the way that has been outlined by many people making very able speeches. But your Lordships should ask yourselves: how would you feel if you were stopped and searched without any reasonable suspicion by a police officer?

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 47 in my name, for which I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. Just in case I forget, I say now that I want to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 47.

Before I do so, I want to say how much I sympathise and agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and others have said about Amendment 46 and stop and search with suspicion. It is worth reflecting that many of us are grappling with a Bill with much of which we disagree, but we are at Report stage and difficult decisions and choices are before us about how we might improve the Bill—if the votes are won in your Lordships’ House—and send it back to the other place with the best possible chance of it not being overturned, thereby impacting on the legislation in a way which will protect, as many of us want to, the rights and freedoms that the people of this country have enjoyed for generations and which parts of the Bill seriously threaten to undermine. That is the choice that lies before us. That is the difficult choice I have in saying from the Labour front bench that we are focused on Clause 11 in particular. That does not mean that we agree with other aspects of the stop and search powers, but it means that we think that Clause 11 in particular is an affront to the democratic traditions of our country.

We have heard what it actually does. We have had a former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, a former senior police officer of the Metropolitan Police, and others, telling us about stop and search without suspicion and the impact that it has on black and ethnic minority communities, particularly on the young. Will your Lordships seriously pass into law something that will make that fragile relationship between the police and those local communities even worse? Is that what we want to do? And what is it for: terrorism, serious gun crime, serious knife crime, or the threat of murder and riots on our streets? No, it is because some protests may take place somewhere, and we will have stop and search without suspicion to deal with it. Is that in any sense proportionate or a reasonable response to public disorder? Clearly, it is not.

I cannot believe that His Majesty’s Government are seeking to introduce into law stop and search without suspicion for protest-related offences. I do not believe the Government themselves would have believed it—they certainly would not have believed it in the time of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, with the Conservative ideology as it existed then. Margaret Thatcher would not have introduced it. She would have regarded it as an affront, even in the face of the poll tax riots and the miners’ strikes—although there were certain things that went on there. In the face of all that, she did not introduce that sort of legislation. I will be corrected by any member of that Government—there are a few here—as to whether that was the case. She understood that the right to protest was fundamental, however difficult that was for Governments. Yet the Conservatives of today believe it is perfectly reasonable to introduce this not for murder, terrorism or knife or gun crime, as I said, but for protest. Is that the Tory tradition that this Conservative Government want to lay out before the country? It cannot be. It is a totally disproportionate reaction to what is happening, but the consequences are serious and dramatic, and potentially catastrophic. As so many noble Lords have said, at a time when there is a fragility of confidence between the police and certain communities, it is like pouring petrol on the flames. It is just unbelievable.

However, it is not just that. In the debate last week I gave an example, and I will give another one, because that brings it home and makes it real. When your Lordships vote on leaving out Clause 11, consider this. If it is in the Bill, there is a fear about what happens when there are protests around Parliament—there will be protests; I do not know what they will be about. Let us say that people lock arms—disgraceful—so they have attached. The police are worried about it and so an inspector declares that, for 24 hours, it is an area that they are concerned about. That gives an additional power to the police to stop and search without suspicion. Your Lordships can be searched. I know you would think that was an affront, but that is the reality that many black and ethnic minority communities face every single day, sometimes—that is an exaggeration, but they face it in certain circumstances.

Surely it is not just a matter of black and ethnic minorities. We do not know who were the two care workers who were stopped, whom the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, mentioned. However, it is clear—I speak as someone who, as a young barrister, had to carry out many sus law prosecutions—that a person stopped in those circumstances may next week appear on a jury and may be hostile to the police as a result of that, taking it out on them as a member of the jury.

I thank my noble friend Lord Anderson for that important point.

My example is that around Parliament Square, we have a designated area. Your Lordships, passing through it, can be stopped. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, has often mentioned that sometimes you have no idea that you are in such an area. I know that all your Lordships would co-operate—we have clarified that it must be an officer in uniform, so we would all stand there. However, if it was tourists who could not speak English, then good luck with that. It may be a young student with no idea that they are being stopped. That would happen. It is in the Bill that it is an offence to resist, and so it goes on. It is a complete overreaction and a disproportionate proposal that the Government are making.

To bring it home, let us think of it on Parliament Square. That is not some obscure place in the back end of London somewhere, or Manchester or wherever. Let us bring it right to our doorstep. When somebody says, “Who made it happen?”, the answer will be that Parliament made it happen, unless it is stripped out of the Bill. Unless it is changed or taken out, it is us.

We have heard from numerous noble Lords today objection after objection to the Bill. I have many objections to it. However, if you hone it down, there cannot be many more pernicious examples than Clause 11. Stopping and searching without suspicion for protests—honestly. Good luck to the Minister in justifying it. I know that his brief will give him all sorts of good arguments but at the bottom, it is a baseless piece of proposed legislation that seriously undermines the right to protest. It will have a chilling effect on many people who are simply protesting in the way that they have always done. I will divide the House when it comes to Amendment 47 and ask your Lordships to stand against Clause 11, to send it back to the other place and say that the Government must think again. It is a disproportionate reaction to a problem which they may perceive and it should be thrown out of the Bill.

My Lords, the Amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, seeks to remove the suspicion-led stop and search measure from the Bill, while that tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, seeks to remove the suspicionless stop and search measure. I understand the strength of feeling expressed by all noble Lords today when speaking to these amendments, but I do not support the removal of these provisions.

Stop and search is a vital tool used to crack down on crime and to protect communities. It is entirely appropriate that these measures are extended to tackle highly disruptive protest offences. The extension of stop and search powers will enable the police to proactively tackle highly disruptive protest offences by searching for and seizing prohibited items which are made, adapted or intended to be used in connection with protest-related offences, such as glue, chains and locks. We know that stop and search has a strong deterrent effect. These measures can prevent offenders from carrying items for protest-related offences in the first place because of the increased chance of getting caught. This was highlighted in the HMICFRS report on the policing of protests, where it was noted that suspicionless search powers can act as a deterrent when circumstances justify use of these powers. I hope that noble Lords will forgive me for repeating this, and there is a difference of opinion with the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, but as I explained in Committee, His Majesty’s Inspector, Matt Parr, from HMICFRS reaffirmed his support for the suspicionless measure at the Bill’s evidence session in June.

It is vital that the police are given the powers that they need to reflect the operational reality of policing. In the fast-paced context of a protest, it can be challenging to assert the appropriate level of suspicion needed for a suspicion-led search, which is why the Bill includes the suspicionless provision. The suspicionless power will be usable only if certain conditions are met and in cases where, as we have heard, a police officer of or above the rank of inspector authorises its use in a specified locality for a specified period. This power uses a similar framework to that found within Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 to ensure consistency in police powers and safeguards.

When this House considered the suspicionless power during Committee, much discussion focused on the execution of the search, so I thought it might help to set that out in detail here. As I noted above, this power uses a similar framework to that found in Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. An authorisation for a Section 60 suspicionless order may be given only by an officer of the rank of inspector or above and can be in place for a maximum of 24 hours. The Section 60 order can be extended for a further 24 hours, to a maximum of 48 hours, by an officer of or above the rank of superintendent, but it cannot be in place for more than 48 hours. It is for the authorising officer to determine the geographical area of the order, which will depend on the situation that led to the order being authorised.

I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Wolfson for explaining Clause 11 in such great detail, particularly in response to the question from the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I reassure the House that, under existing powers, this power can be deployed only if authorised by an inspector and that an officer can do only a suspicion-led search without authorisation and only if they have grounds, if it has not been authorised in that way.

The officer should ensure that no area is set which is wider than they believe is necessary for the purpose of preventing the commission of offences. Both Code A and the authorised professional practice give clear instructions that a Section 60 order does not give officers free rein to search every individual within the locality covered by that order. A decision to search individuals under Section 60 powers must be related to the purpose of the authorisation. Section 60 powers cannot be used by plain-clothed officers, and the same applies to the suspicionless powers.

The suspicion-led powers use a similar framework to that found within Section 1 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. Suspicion-led powers can be used by plain-clothed officers, but they must show their warrant card to the person who is to be searched. They must also give their name, or warrant or ID number if they reasonably believe giving their name may put them in danger, and the station to which they are attached.

All noble Lords who spoke discussed the potential for misuse of these powers. Officers using Section 1 or Section 60 powers are obliged by Code A to follow GOWISELY—a principle that officers follow in order to meet the legal requirements of a stop and search. This requires them to follow several steps before a search, including explaining the grounds for suspicion and the purpose of the search, showing their warrant card upon request or, if plain-clothed, disclosing their identity and the station that they are attached to, stating the legal power that they are using, and informing the person that they are entitled to a copy of the search record and how it may be obtained. If they do not follow this, the search is deemed unlawful. That will continue to apply here.

Many noble Lords also raised the potential disproportionate use of these powers. As I hope I made clear during Committee, the safeguards on existing stop and search powers will apply to the use of stop and search powers in the Bill, both for suspicion-led and suspicionless stop and search. This includes body-worn video and PACE codes of practice. The Home Office also publishes extensive data on the use of stop and search to drive transparency. To be clear, we expect the police to use their stop and search powers in a focused, legitimate, proportionate and necessary manner, and we encourage forces to continue scrutinising their use.

In a protest context, the use of stop and search powers will be vital when seeking to employ a proactive approach. By removing these powers from the Bill, we would ensure that the police, at best, relied on being reactive to protests. This in turn would leave the general public more vulnerable to serious disruption. I again hope that noble Lords will forgive me for repeating myself, but I believe it is important that they listen to what Chief Constable Chris Noble from the NPCC said when discussing these measures. He stated:

“We can see greater risk of harm to communities and protesters if things are left to run” without additional pre-emptive police powers to handle disruptive protests. He explained that, having spoken to one of the senior commanders of the G7 operation,

“they described a lack of powers around stop and search for people with items that could only have been used for generating a lock-on device. They had to intervene later in the day, with more significant powers, on a wider group of protesters, therefore interfering with more people’s rights”.

I have heard the concerns raised about stop and search more generally, which I hope I have responded to adequately. But the police have supported stop and search measures, and we believe they will be highly effective for preventing the sort of disruption we have seen in recent months. As such, I ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken from all sides of the House and of the debate, from former police officers to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, who was arrested at a protest.

The noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, made a great play on John Lewis. I emphasised in my speech that I was talking about everyday household objects, some of which may be purchased from John Lewis. The red herring was the noble Lord’s emphasis on John Lewis, rather than my emphasis on everyday objects and so forth.

The noble Lord, Lord Deben, asked what stop and search without suspicion was and what an officer would do. I accept that an inspector or above has to authorise officers to go ahead and stop and search without suspicion. The power means that police officers who are so authorised can stop and search whoever they like and do not have to justify what they are doing.

I should not waste noble Lords’ time dividing the House on an Amendment that Labour will not support, and a vote that we therefore cannot win, however passionately I and other noble Lords feel about Clause 10. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 46 withdrawn.

Clause 11: Powers to stop and search without suspicion