Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, it is a privilege, as always, to follow the noble Lord. I respect his point of view and the experiences he has had. I am sure he will appreciate we are concerned with the rule of law and preserving the reputation this country has for justice done in the proper way. Terrorist activity is an aggravating factor in sentencing. Section 30 of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 enables courts...
Lord Thomas of Gresford: The Prime Minister said that he was breaking free from a vicious circle. He said that “we ordered ever decreasing numbers of ever more expensive items of military hardware, squandering billions along the way”.—[ Official Report, Commons, 19/11/20; col. 488.] He now wants to spend an extra £16.5 billion in the “teeth of the pandemic”, as he put it. Given that the Conservative Party...
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, and to assure him that we will stand with him in his opposition to the Bill. It is a hot and sticky night in Iraq; in a small prefabricated, concrete guard hut, 20 men are detained by British soldiers. Their heads are hooded and their arms bound behind their backs. There is no battlefield stress—this is the secure British...
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, I recall being involved in a case in Southwark Crown Court where DNA convicted a man of rape 35 years after the offence. There was no other evidence. Statistically, there were would be only four people in the UK with the same DNA. What database exists for the recording of all DNA and other forensic scientific evidence where a crime is unsolved but the possibility of detection in the...
Lord Thomas of Gresford: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what reciprocal extradition arrangements are in place for the surrender of nationals between the United Kingdom and the European Union member states where the surrender of such nationals to a third country is forbidden or restricted by law.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: I thank the Minister for her Answer. We all know about the difficulties with the United States in the tragic Harry Dunn case; despite the pleas of the Foreign Secretary, it refuses to extradite an American lady for serious offences committed on British soil. Is it now the same with Europe? What differences are there between our arrangements today with the 27 EU states in our new status as a...
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, I have little to add to what has gone before. I often wonder whether the Government are concerned about judicial review when they resist placing the test of a decision on a reasonable basis in any legislation. If the test in any case is simply the subjective belief of the official—the government agent involved—it might be hoped that a trip to the divisional court and an...
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, it is always a delight to follow my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws. There are three sides to this argument. What makes this debate so interesting is that they cross party boundaries. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, argues the powerful JCHR case for prior authorisation by a judge, while on the other hand the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, is of the view that a judge or...
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, it is always stimulating to follow the noble Lord, Lord Rooker—although I disagree with him, which is unusual. I add my support to the amendments in this group which seek to ensure that immunity from criminal and civil liability for criminal acts cannot be given by the authoriser or controller of covert agents—including “police spies”, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones,...
Lord Thomas of Gresford: I will make three points on the surrender of suspects or convicted persons, previously dealt with under the European arrest warrant. First, according to article 136, under part 3, title XII of the agreement, in the event of the United Kingdom or the European Union denouncing the European Convention on Human Rights, the whole of part 3, all the security provisions, will “cease to be in...
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, Title XII in Part 3 of the UK’s new deal with the EU provides that if the UK has “denounced”—that is the word used—the European Convention on Human Rights, the whole of Part 3 and all the security provisions cease to have force. Will the Government make representations to the European Commission not to approve the EU-China trade deal now before it unless there is a similar...
Lord Thomas of Gresford: [Inaudible.] Can the Minister confirm that, as discussed in the recent GR judicial review case, where a wife subjected to domestic abuse has been assessed as having capital in a jointly owned matrimonial home but is otherwise penniless, and where she can demonstrate that she is unable to access that capital because the violent husband refuses to sell or mortgage the property, the director of...
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, the Supreme Court did not give the go-ahead for a third runway, as was reported in some parts of the press. All it decided was that the Minister under a previous Government, Chris Grayling, did not act unlawfully in failing to take into account expressly the international obligations of the Paris Agreement, which were not declared as domestic policy at that time. Will this...
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, I support Amendment 56A in particular. In the earlier debate on the issue of prior judicial authorisation, I made the point that notification of an authorisation of criminal conduct to the IPC, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and other noble Lords, lacked teeth. In response, the Minister argued that the oversight role of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner has...
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, the first issue to consider is the identity of the person who grants the prior authorisation. The starting point is Section 30 of RIPA, now to be amended by Clause 2 of the Bill. It is for the Secretary of State, by regulation, to specify the persons holding such offices, ranks or position within the relevant public authority as to who will exercise the power to authorise. In...
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, I have previously today made a case against permitting the authorisation of criminal conduct by an organ of the state without any independent check or oversight. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, in introducing his amendment, referred to the Finucane case and the strong comments made by Desmond de Silva QC in his inquiry, calling for a strong framework of control. This group of amendments...
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, obviously, a government agency cannot grant to an individual immunity from prosecution by a foreign power for offences committed on its soil—a point made strongly a moment ago by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, who referred to the comments of a Minister in the Dáil. One understands the particular sensitivities in Ireland. We are dealing with offences for which this country has...
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, and I share her abhorrence of the idea of absolute immunity, to which she spoke so eloquently. Over 800 years, we have evolved a system of dealing with crime in this country where the guilt or innocence of an individual is established by a tribunal of ordinary citizens. In serious crime we rely on a jury, and in...
Lord Thomas of Gresford: Following on from the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, in 2016, Nottinghamshire Police introduced its misogyny hate crime policy, which enables women and girls to report cases of abuse and harassment as misogyny and for them to be recorded as such. Four other police forces have followed its excellent example. Will the Minister ensure that a similar policy is adopted nationwide,...
Lord Thomas of Gresford: “Uncontroversial” and “niche”, the Minister said. I do not think so—more like unclear and opaque. Like my noble friend Lord Addington, I confess that having studied the Explanatory Memorandum for these regulations I am not very much the wiser. I thought the control of firearms and explosives was a devolved matter but since the European firearms directive and the precursors...
