Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
Thursday 8 July 2004
MR TREVOR
PHILLIPS, SIR
JOHN QUINTON,
MR TIM
REES, MR
SADIQ KHAN
AND MR
KHALID SOFI
Q1 Chairman: Good morning. Can I thank
all the witnesses for coming this morning to this one-off session
about stops and searches and the terrorism powers. I wonder if
each of the witnesses—one person on behalf of the MPA and
the MCB—could just, for the record, say who you are and
what your organisation is and then we will start the questions.
Sir John Quinton: John Quinton;
until last week I was an independent member of the Metropolitan
Police Authority. I retired then and this is my last action on
their behalf.
Q2 Chairman: For the record the Metropolitan
Police Authority is?
Sir John Quinton: It covers the
responsibilities of the whole of the Metropolitan Police Service,
the Metropolitan Police District; the whole of London in fact.
Mr Phillips: I am Trevor Phillips.
I am Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality which I hope
does not need much introduction here.
Mr Khan: My name is Sadiq Khan.
I am Chairman of the Legal Affairs Committee of the Muslim Council
of Britain. To my right is Khalid Sofi who is the Vice Chair the
Legal Affairs Committee. The Muslim Council of Britain may need
some introduction, but hopefully not. It is the Muslim umbrella
organisation which has over 400 Muslim bodies and associations
including mosques as its affiliates.
Q3 Chairman: We are grateful to you all
for the evidence that you have submitted. I think it is fair to
say that all three of your organisations have expressed some concerns
about the power to stop and search under the Terrorism Act, in
particular under Section 44. I wonder if I can ask each of you
in turn whether the position of your organisation is that you
are opposed to the existence of these powers in principle or they
way in which you feel they have been used by the police in practice.
Sir John Quinton: We are not opposed
in principle; it is a question of whether it has been excessively
and properly used, and we will probably come to that. We are certainly
in favour of the power because we believe that it probably has
made London a safer place for Londoners which, after all, was
the objective of the Act.
Mr Phillips: We have some uneasiness
about the actual Act but we think this is not the important issue
at this point; we think the most important thing is the matter
of implementation and within that part of the difficulty is that
we do not quite know enough about what the implementation has
meant either in terms of who is being dealt with under these provisions
or, indeed, how they are being dealt with. I hope that as we discuss
this morning we will talk a little bit more about the issue of
race impact assessment and also the monitoring of numbers because
we think there are some quite substantially misleading ideas about,
about what is actually happening.
Q4 Chairman: We will certainly come to
both those points in due course. Mr Khan?
Mr Khan: So far as the use of
stop and search and fighting ordinary crime is concerned—quote,
unquote—we believe stop and search is an invaluable tool
for the police if properly used. The use of stop and search in
relation to fighting terrorism we believe is not appropriate.
We believe there is no evidence—the stats we have seen so
far do not prove otherwise—that in fact Section 44 has helped
fight terrorism in London or elsewhere. There are serious questions
about its use and Trevor has touched on some of them. For example,
how many authorisations have been given? What have been the results
of those authorisations? What is the analysis of those who have
been stopped and searched versus those who are arrested, versus
those who are charged, versus those who are convicted; and breaking
that down by terrorism related offences and other offences? We
believe its use, as perceived in the community, is an extremely
negative one and it is doing a disservice to the partnership that
we believe there must be in fighting terrorism. Also we believe
there are serious issues about the use of the intelligence with
regard to Section 44 and query how that intelligence is being
analysed. There are one or two explanations: either the intelligence
is extremely flawed which begs serious questions or, frankly,
the exercise of discretion by the police is seriously flawed which
also requires examination.
Q5 Chairman: I am grateful for those
three clear and very concise statements because I do think they
set the agenda for the issues that we will try to work through
in the next hour or so. To follow up one of the points, Mr Phillips,
the CRE's written submission points out—as you have just
done—the lack of a race impact assessment on the Terrorism
Act 2000 and also the 2001 Act. Could you say what actually, in
your view, a race impact assessment on those Acts would have looked
like and how publishing an assessment might have improved the
legislation?
Mr Phillips: First of all, when
the Act came into being a race impact assessment was not required
statutorily as it would be today. However we still think it would
have been—and would now be—worth making such an assessment.
There are two major reasons. First of all, we think it improves
both the drafting and also the execution of legislation if you
have some idea of what effect it is likely to have. There are
some simple questions that you can ask yourself: will this impact
differently on different kinds of communities? In another sphere
I was interested to see in the House of Lords the other day in
the debate on smacking a rather interesting point was made that
if your criterion is reddening of the skin it might be worth having
a little bit of an impact assessment here on the grounds that
the reddening of the skin will not mean the same thing for me
as it might do for you. A little bit of scrutiny—which is
essentially what a race impact assessment is—would not go
amiss. Another important aspect of the race impact assessment
is, as we recommend it, is consultation with groups or communities
that are likely to be affected. A race impact assessment which
would have encompassed such a consultation would actually have
helped those communities most likely to be affected to accept
the impact of the legislation more readily. If you talk to people
about what you are going to do they are more likely (a) to understand
it and (b) to accept it than if you simply pass the legislation
and then visit it on them.
Q6 Chairman: Are you saying that if a
race impact assessment had said, "Look, frankly, some of
the terrorism we face at the moment claims Islamic roots"—even
though that would be disputed by the great majority of Muslims—"therefore
the practical effect of this legislation is that a lot more Muslims
are going to be stopped and searched than other groups of people"
that that would not necessarily have been a reason to oppose the
legislation; it might actually have provoked a better debate with
the Muslim community about how the legislation will work in practice.
Mr Phillips: Colleagues from the
MCB will be more authoritative on that precise legislation but
our general feeling is that if you talk to people about your intention
and the Government talks to people about their intention, two
things happen. Even if they oppose the Government's intention
the spirit in which they receive the legislation which has been
passed through this House—because Muslims, like everybody
else, do believe in democracy—is likely to be more accepted
than it would be if it simply arrives without any consideration
of their feelings and their ideas. Secondly, in this particular
case, the race impact assessment would advise consultation with
a series of communities and one of the things that a race impact
assessment on this particular piece of legislation might have
thrown up is that it would not just be Muslims who would be affected
directly because one of the things you do in an impact assessment
is you look at parallel pieces of legislation and the way that
they have operated, and one of the things it might have shown
is that it would not just be Muslims who would be affected because
police officers who think they are targeting Muslims might be
stopping people whom they think look like Muslims who actually
happen to be Hindus or Goan Christians so there would be some
collateral impact—if I can put it that way—on other
communities. I think that would have been shown up and there might
have been some provision in the legislation to try to ameliorate
that. One other small thing is that even if the Government had
decided they had to do this, they might have inserted in the legislation
a more effective way to allow people to seek remedies when they
felt that they were being badly treated under this legislation,
because that is one of the problems of legislation: there is not
really a very effective way to complain if you think you have
been maltreated.
Q7 Chairman: Mr Khan, without getting
into the question of justification which we will come to in a
moment, would a race impact assessment have been useful from your
point of view?
Mr Khan: With some value added
to it. There are issues about religion and faith that clearly
a race impact assessment would not cover. There can be little
doubt that if one is to use the definition of indirect discrimination
then this clearly has had a disparate effect on certain races.
The problem with looking at a race impact assessment in a vacuum
is that there are quite a number of white people who have converted
to Islam who are being stopped and searched who may not be covered
by the race impact assessment. An anecdotal example is that when
the ring of steel went round the City of London four or five years
ago to do with the threat of Irish terrorism, we found a huge
number of young Bengali lads being stopped and searched by the
police routinely. I have never come across a Bengali Irish terrorist
but you can see the concern we have about how legislation impinges
upon people on the ground.
Q8 Chairman: Sir John, the MPA's recent
report said "the lack of need for reasonable suspicion"
is a concern to the scrutiny panel in which you are involved.
Is the MPA saying that the law should have required reasonable
suspicion under the Act or are you pointing to a way in which
the Act is used in practice by the police?
Sir John Quinton: I think there
were different views in the authority on that, Chairman. I think
the wording of the Act where it is considered expedient for prevention
of acts of terrorism is something which most of us would in fact
support. I have to say that we entirely endorse and agree with
what Mr Phillips said about involving the community, letting the
community know the reasons and letting the individual people who
are being searched know why it is happening and explaining to
the community that it is absolutely essential. It is also something
that I believe the Metropolitan Police Service is trying to avoid,
that those who are conducting the stop and search act in any way
arrogantly or in a way that is not courteous. That is the essential
reason why complaints come up. I have to say that the number of
complaints on stop and search across London is only about 250
a year as against 250,000 stops and searches altogether; it is
a tiny proportion. That may be—as Mr Phillips has indicated—to
an extent that the process for complaining is not as good as it
ought to be and that is something that the Metropolitan Police
have in hand to improve. I would like to talk about the effect
of the Act so far as Asians, blacks and whites are concerned,
the statistics.
Q9 Chairman: I think we will come to
that. You are saying that your Panel at least as a whole—although
there are different views—actually said that you do need
Section 44 which does not require reasonable suspicion as well
as Section 43 which does require reasonable suspicion.
Sir John Quinton: It has been
put to me that if a car is seen with a couple of occupants by
a sub-station at two o'clock in the morning or outside a waterworks
or outside the Houses of Parliament, then the only Act that allows
you to stop and search that is in fact Section 44.
Q10 Chairman: Mr Khan or Mr Sofi, you
said at the beginning that in relation to terrorism you felt that
stop and search was not a necessary or appropriate power (those
are my words, not yours) or something to that effect. How do you
respond to the argument that even if there is only a slight chance
that a stop and search could deter or detect a terrorist activity
that is worth the inconvenience, the intrusion and so on?
Mr Khan: If the police have reasonable
suspicion that you are about to commit a criminal act—and
terrorism is a criminal act—they can stop and search you
and go on to arrest you if there are reasonable grounds. The justification
used by the police is that they often receive intelligence and
based on that intelligence they then decide to designate an area
that Section 44 covers and they then stop and search whoever they
like based on the original intelligence. My point is this: there
must be serious questions being asked about how good that intelligence
is if there had been no arrests to do with terrorism. The concern
that we have is that on the ground police officers are using this
as a fishing expedition because the requirement under PACE is
for reasonable suspicion and we knew when they had discretion
there were serious concerns raised by those of Afro-Caribbean
descent and Muslims in recent years. The short answer is this,
if you are going to fight terrorism you need to have policing
by consent, you need to rely upon intelligence from the Muslim
community as well; we all need to be in this together and you
need the cooperation of all the communities. If today you were
alienating a young Muslim man, you have been discourteous and
rude, you had stopped and searched him for no reason, then next
week you are asking him, his family or his neighbours to report
anything suspicious, to report any activities in the community
that may raise alarm bells, are you honestly saying hand on heart
that that person is going to come forward? Our concern is that
the answer is no. For example, the MCB wrote to a thousand organisations
around the country—mosques, community groups—reminding
everyone of the serious threat terrorism poses, the obligations
upon all of us to report anything suspicious and then weeks later
stats are published which confirm the actual evidence that we
have received that you cannot trust the police, they stop and
search you willy-nilly and then that just undermines us.
Q11 Chairman: If I give you a hypothetical
situation, suppose there was what appeared to be reasonably good
intelligence of a planned attacked somewhere like Canary Wharf—a
very prominent building—and the police decided to use Section
44 to stop and search people in the neighbouring vicinity which
would inevitably include a very large Muslim population who live
quite close to Canary Wharf, your view would be that any possible
benefits from a widespread stop and search exercise would be outweighed
by the damage that would be done?
Mr Khan: My answer is different
today than it would have been three or four years ago. Three or
four years ago I would have said that the risks of a terrorism
threat probably outweigh some of these indications. The problem
is the way it has been exercised over the last two or three years,
if we look at the stats from the MPA the number of Asians stopped
today compared to three years ago is 184 times; the number of
Afro-Caribbean descent is about 80 times and the number of whites
is about 20 times. I will say that the proof is in the pudding;
nothing so far has demonstrated that it is an effective tool.
In fact, all you have done is alienate hundreds and thousands
of young lads and your benefit is lost by the way it has been
implemented over the last two to three years.
Q12 David Winnick: Can we establish common
ground? Mr Sofi and Mr Khan from your answers I assume you accept
that there is an acute threat of terrorism. There is no dispute
about that.
Mr Khan: No, none at all.
Q13 David Winnick: Therefore you broadly
accept what the outgoing Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police
has said more than once: "It is not a question of if, but
when".
Mr Khan: Unfortunately, yes.
Q14 David Winnick: Obviously you accept
that if there is a terrorist attack Muslims would be in the firing
line like everyone else. There is no distinction made when such
bombings occur any more than when the IRA was bombing London and
people of Irish origin were murdered as well.
Mr Khan: In fact in the last major
incident at Canary Wharf the victim was a Muslim so we understand
we are more likely to be victims as well.
Q15 David Winnick: If not more, then
as likely to be.
Mr Khan: Canary Wharf is in Tower
Hamlets with a 35% Muslim population so that is at the fore of
our mind.
Q16 David Winnick: Yes, if it happens
in Canary Wharf. In Madrid of course Muslims were murdered.
Mr Khan: Absolutely. And in New
York and Istanbul as well.
Q17 David Winnick: Sir John, can I turn
to you. We all accept that the Section 44 powers are very wide
ranging indeed and we have heard from Mr Khan's and Mr Sofi's
arguments about the manner in which it is being used, arguments
which to some extent I certainly share. Do you feel that there
should be greater restrictions on Section 44 powers, the blanket
authorisation for Section 44 powers while rules in effect that
anyone can be stopped unconnected with anything other than terrorism?
Sir John Quinton: It is an interesting
argument. The fact of the matter is that Section 44 is applied
London-wide all the time. It is an authority which is renewed
every fortnight or so and endorsed by the Commissioner at that
time and endorsed at Home Secretary level right across the whole
of London, the point being that terrorists do not just live in
central London; they may want to operate in central London but
the evidence is that they can just as easily live and set off
bombs in Ealing or Enfield or wherever so it is applied across
the whole of London which at first seems a rather wide blanket
authority but is justified on the grounds that they could live
anywhere in London and in fact have to move up to central London
to spy out where they are going to put their bombs. It could be
anywhere in London, anywhere on the tube service or anywhere that
cars and taxis could go. That blanket authority is regarded as
essential by the Metropolitan Police and I think would be endorsed
as such by the Authority.
Mr Khan: On the example the Chairman
gave earlier, this is why the communities lack confidence. We
are sure that the intention of Parliament at the time of drafting
Section 44 could not have been that the whole of London be subject
to a Section 44 area because that means, query, where is the intelligence?
You are saying that the whole of London—including greater
London—is covered by this whim which means that an officer
on the beat in Brixton can use Section 44 powers to stop and search
without reasonable suspicion. That concerns us.
Q18 David Winnick: Sir John, what do
you say to the arguments we have heard today from Mr Sofi and
Mr Khan, namely that the manner in which these stops and searches
are being carried out, far from helping are in fact antagonising
law-abiding Muslim people who feel that they are being penalised
and discriminated against who have as much connection with terrorism
as ourselves. Is there not a danger as there was with black people
with stop and search—and we all know about that—that
it is simply counter-productive?
Sir John Quinton: We accept that
there is this alienation factor but we have to say also that it
appears to us that there is a deterrent effect of Section 44 which
has meant that there has not actually been a terrorist incident
over the last two or three years. It is difficult to justify that
but the question is whether somebody who is a potential suicide
bomber wanting to set off a bomb in Westminster tube station is
deterred from doing so by the fact that when he comes up to spy
out the land several times he is stopped or his friends are stopped
or he knows he is likely to be stopped. It is a difficult one;
you have to have your own personal opinion on this. It certainly
is to some extent a deterrent but it also has that effect of alienation.
It is a very difficult balance.
Q19 David Winnick: Mr Sofi and Mr Khan,
would you accept that just as when the IRA were waging a murderous
attack on Britain for 30 years it was coming from Irish people
or British people in sympathy with the IRA cause, basically the
people living outside Britain and it was not coming from Americans
or Muslims or Hindus or Sikhs; it was coming from the Irish. Would
you therefore accept that the danger we now face is coming from
those who so distort the Islam religion claiming they are acting
in the name of Islam and both of you would argue rightly that
that has nothing to do with Islam as such. Nevertheless they are
Islamic militants whatever you want to call them. They are not
Hindus or Irish or Jewish or anyone else; they are Islamic militants
clearly distorting a very sacred and widely-respected religion.
Would you accept nevertheless that the police, in trying to protect
all of us, have a pretty good idea like the rest of us who they
are looking for?
Mr Khan: That is the logical inference
to draw; nobody could disagree with that. The two caveats to make
are firstly, during the course of the 30 years of Irish terrorism,
there actually were bombs going off in London and all round the
country and in shopping precincts et cetera. The second
point to make is that the statistics are broken down by ethnicity
and not by religion. As to the 300% increase in Asians, Richard
Reed—the shoe bomb person—was not Asian. Those alleged
to be involved in 9/11, Madrid and Istanbul are of Middle-Eastern
appearance, not Asian. Let us be careful about prejudice and stereotype.
I am not suggesting that the police should stop and search those
willy-nilly either; the point I am making is of course one can
make generalisations and that is often useful when it comes to
intelligence but Section 44, if used correctly, is about intelligence
that leads to an area being designated, that leads to the police
having this unique power to stop and search without reasonable
suspicion. We believe it has been abused; we do not believe that
was the intention of Parliament; we believe that police officers
by their nature like more and more power and that is the concern
that we have, how it is being used.
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