House of Commons Hansard Debates for 13 Feb 1996 (pt 22)

Private Security Industry

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Before I call the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) to move the motion on the private security industry, I must inform the House that Madam Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

7.15 pm

Mr. Jack Straw (Blackburn): I beg to move,

That this House requires Her Majesty's Government to implement the recommendations of the Home Affairs Committee contained in its First Report of Session 1994-95 (House of Commons Paper No. 17) on the private security industry.

More people now work in the private security industry than in the police. The phenomenal growth in the industry is a direct result of one world record that the Government could fairly claim: the doubling of recorded crime in England and Wales since 1979.

As crime and the fear of crime have increased, so there has been a huge expansion in the number of firms and employees in the private security sector and, more critically, a major change in the character of the work that the industry undertakes. Once, the industry was principally concerned with the relatively passive guarding of property, where in practice there was little contact with law-abiding members of the public. Today, the work of the industry brings it into far greater and more active contact with the public. In shopping centres, housing estates and parks, the public are more likely to see a private security guard than they are to see a police officer on the beat. Increasingly, private security guards are used where police officers would previously have been deployed. Today, security guards are used in sensitive public order situations, for example, to help to police protests against the building of major road schemes. Indeed, such is the extension in the role of the industry that in Her Majesty's criminal courts private security guards are now replacing police officers.

In consequence, as the Home Affairs Committee indicated in its report, the dividing line between the activities undertaken by the private security industry and by the police is shifting and becoming "increasingly blurred".

While the police are subject to the most detailed statutory regulation and accountability, the private security industry is subject to none. When a police officer is dishonest, uses unreasonable force or is just uncivil, he or she will run the gauntlet of a tough disciplinary process. But if a security guard is employed by a firm that is not a member of one of the national associations, he or she may be dishonest, violent and uncivil, but there need be no sanction whatever against the employing firm, and only the sanction of the criminal law against the individual. We are left with the extraordinary irony that an industry that exists to enforce certain minimum standards of behaviour of the public has no enforceable standards set for itself, that an industry that is there to catch thieves employs thieves, that an industry that is there to prevent drug dealing, employs drug dealers, and that an industry that is there to reduce the threat of violence to the public may use such violence in an unlawful way.

13 Feb 1996 : Column 870

In its evidence to the Select Committee, the Association of Chief Police Officers said that it believed that the case for the continued self-regulation of the industry is untenable, and called for the regulation of the industry by statute.

Mr. Walter Sweeney (Vale of Glamorgan): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the vast majority of people employed in the security industry are respectable, law-abiding, upstanding members of the community? Will he accept that perhaps his words on drug abusers and criminals in the security industry might be taken as an insult by the vast majority who are honourable members of society?

Mr. Straw: I agree with the first part of thehon. Gentleman's remarks. It is those responsible, decent people in the industry, and their decent, respectable firms, who are the first to call for effective external statutory regulation of the industry.

The evidence of the Association of Chief Police Officers about the current unregulated state of the industry was damning. The association presented nine case studies. As the Select Committee commented, the studies need only to be recited

"to indicate how serious the issue is."

I shall take only three of ACPO's studies. The first is headed "Escapee Murder". It reads:

"A manned guarding system was subject to a routine police enquiry. During the course of this enquiry it became apparent that one of the employees used a false name. When his correct identity became known, it transpired that not only was the man an escapee from HM Prison, but that the offence for which he had been sentenced to his term of imprisonment was one of murder."

Case study 8 is headed "Application for Shotgun Certificate". It reads:

"An employee of a security company recently applied for a shotgun certificate. This application was endorsed by his managing director, who said of the applicant: 'I have known X for one year . . . He has worked for X (private security company) this length of time. X has a sociable nature and a good even temperament. I recommend him as an honest and a very reliable person who can be trusted.' The police enquiries into X revealed"--

this was to the contrary--

"that he had at least fifteen previous convictions for dishonesty and violence. One of these was for a burglary of a non-dwelling involving the use of explosives, even more disturbingly, the employee had a conviction for the manslaughter of his wife."

I move on to case study 9, which is headed "Prevalence of Criminality". ACPO reported:

"During a police investigation conducted into a theft believed to involve an employee of a security company, a full check of every employee was conducted. This company is involved in the manned guarding of sites and buildings. Of the 26 employees in the company, eleven had previous convictions. The . . . offences committed by the employees and their scope . . . include a total of 74 offences ranging from convictions for rape, threats to kill and firearms offences, to burglary . . . assault, vehicle theft and damage. The directors of the firm are not aware of their employees' previous convictions."

ACPO's evidence was the most powerful of that calling for proper statutory regulation. The association was joined, however, by almost every group or individual that or who gave evidence, including all the trade associations.

As I said in response to an intervention, there are many firms and individuals in the private security sector that set good standards for themselves and seek to meet them.

13 Feb 1996 : Column 871

They have been in the forefront of calls for effective regulation because they are the first to recognise that in an unregulated market the strongest forces are those that pull operators down to the level of the lowest common denominator--in other words, to the cheapest, to those firms that are most ready to cut corners.

Mr. Piers Merchant (Beckenham): Does thehon. Gentleman agree that the three examples that he quoted involved employees who had previous convictions? Does he accept that the way to deal with that problem is not necessarily regulation but to give employers a much easier right to obtain details about the possible criminal history of would-be employees?

Mr. Straw: I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. The Select Committee examined that issue carefully. There is a need for employers to have more access indirectly to the criminal records of employees. The Committee reported powerfully, however, that if only that is done there will be a perversely dangerous situation, because there will be no check on employers. In other words, there is no check on crooked employers who are pretending that their employees are honest. It is then implied by partial regulation that private security firms have been regulated and have proper probity when in fact they have not and do not.

The Select Committee commented that support for regulation grew as its inquiry progressed, including support from the British Retail Consortium, which changed its position following a survey of its members. By the end of its evidence taking, the Committee reported that backing

"for the introduction of compulsory regulation of the manned guarding sector . . . was almost universal. The trade associations . . . individual companies (large and small), customer and user groups all called for statutory regulation".

The Select Committee spent six months studying the industry and considering whether it needed external regulation. I believe that its report is one of the best examples of a Select Committee report--it is short, well argued and unanimous. Moreover, members of the Committee were obviously at pains to put aside partisan issues on which they were unlikely to agree, and concentrate instead on making recommendations where they believed that there was a clear consensus for doing so.

The Committee's conclusions were categorical. It stated that the growth of the industry, and the expansion of its work into areas previously the domain of the police, gave rise to increasing concerns about the industry's relationship with the public, and about standards within the industry. It stated also that external intervention in the industry would be justified in the public interest if it could be demonstrated that other mechanisms were unable to deliver an acceptable level of performance. It concluded that

"current standards . . . in much of the . . . industry are unsatisfactory and below the level the public need and have a right to expect."

The Committee agreed its report last May and published it in early June. The Chairman, the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence), complained during an Adjournment debate that he initiated that

"normally, we could have expected the Government to reply in about two months. Four months later, they have not yet replied, and I am not over-optimistic that we will have a response today."--[Official Report, 1 November 1995; Vol. 265, c. 215.]

13 Feb 1996 : Column 872

The hon. and learned Gentleman's pessimism was not misplaced. Three months later, there is still no proper, considered response. We have had only a two-page letter from the Home Secretary, which was forced from him last night in anticipation of the debate. It takes the issue scarcely an inch further forward, save in respect of only one of the Committee's 24 recommendations, concerning guidance on best practice on the employment of "door supervisors", who are better known as bouncers.

On the key recommendation of the Select Committee, however, the Home Secretary's letter is vintage Whitehall waffle. I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to savour an especially bizarre passage. The letter reads:

"I know that the industry and police see a need for additional regulatory measures, but I can speak less confidently about the general public, who in my experience rarely buy or complain about guarding services."

First, because the sector is unregulated, no one knows or can know about the level of public complaint. I can tell the Secretary of State and his ministerial colleagues, however, that in my constituency I have received many complaints about a private security firm, Pendle Clamping, that operates what it describes as a wheel-clamping service. Some of my constituents think that it is more akin to an extortion racket. There is nowhere, however, that I can send my constituents' complaints with any chance of action.