Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-98)
Thursday 8 July 2004
LORD NEWTON
OF BRAINTREE
AND MR
MICHAEL TODD
Q80 David Winnick: No-one disputes that
in all parts of the country there is an acute danger of terrorism.
I have already quoted what the out-going Commissioner of the Metropolitan
Police has said, which you are familiar with: it is not "if"
it is "when" and that applies as much to Manchester
as to London. I am just wondering if what has happened has made
if far more difficult for you to have that sort of relationship
with the Muslim community in general in order to get the necessary
information and intelligence in order to defend the people of
Greater Manchester.
Mr Todd: I genuinely do not believe
it has. I accept that the whole labelling of the five hundred
arrests nationally, how many arrests resulted in prosecution is
not helpful to that at all. What I would say so far as Greater
Manchester is concerned, is that we have maintained the links
that we have had with our communities and actually the links with
the Kurdish community have improved quite drastically as a result
because we have said that we need to get closer to them, we have
asked them to join our Independent Advisory Group in the area
they are mainly represented around south Manchester. Our involvement
with the Kurdish community has increased and improved as a result
of the operation.
Q81 Chairman: Can I just clarify one
point, Mr Todd—and I may have misunderstood this from the
Press—that it does appear that a particular claim that there
were tickets to an upcoming football match was not true and they
were stub tickets for previous matches that we have enjoyed. The
police seem to have criticised the media in particular for sensationalising
that aspect of the operation or the claims, but any information
of that sort must have come from police sources.
Mr Todd: I am afraid it must have
done. Are you going to go any further into the media because there
are a couple of crucial points about this?
Q82 Chairman: The particular thing I
want to pursue with you, Mr Todd—because it is in your area
of responsibility—is that if that reporting was erroneous
(and it appears it probably was) it was one of the things that
was very damaging to community relations. These were sensational
allegations not then pursued. If the source of wrong or misleading
information to the Press was police officers, the two questions
for you are: do your officers actually understand the sensitivity
of the issues they are dealing with when they get involved in
operations under these powers and have you taken any action to
identify who might have been the source of that information and
taken appropriate action?
Mr Todd: There were erroneous
facts. Some of what you saw reported in the initial reports was
just wrong. Some of it which said that the police had found two
tickets was entirely wrong. We had intelligence that the tickets
had been gained for that particular match; that was true. We never
found any tickets and the only tickets that were found in the
searches were some old ones. There obviously was some talk at
some stage by somebody who did speak to the media about that who
said there was something about Manchester United tickets, but
I think that shows it was not someone crucially involved in the
operation. It did involve hundreds and hundreds of police officers.
Q83 Chairman: But it is hugely damaging,
is it not?
Mr Todd: It was.
Q84 Chairman: If stories like that—which
was very sensational—are then not followed through, the
question is, in a future operation which, as you say involved
hundreds of your officers, how can you ensure that your officers
understand that talking to the media is not about talking about
a spate of burglaries, it is incredibly sensitive and can do huge
damage to community relationships if it turns out not to be justified.
Mr Todd: If I could contrast it,
a few weeks ago we ran a similar type of operation against another
particular group where we conducted 19 searches of houses, we
got back some firearms and there was no press coverage whatsoever.
No-one knew anything about it; it was an intelligence led operation
where we had again to brief a lot of officers. We do make that
point. Incandescent with rage I think describes how I was when
I found out what had got out because it was an operation where
secrecy was crucial. We did not want the publicity at all.
Q85 Chairman: Moving on, have you used
the extended 14 days detention power in Manchester?
Mr Todd: We did use it in that
case. We had to use it because of the amount of time it was taking
to get suitable translators, to get some cooperation, to get solicitors.
I have to say that we found it an immensely frustrating process.
To give an example, I think earlier there was an impression given
that we can just keep people for 14 days. We did not. We had to
take the suspects before a judge to justify and to explain just
how we used that power. I had to write-off a detective superintendent
and four or five members to staff to produce time lines of the
intelligence and the information that we had to justify to the
judge why we had made the arrests and why we needed to keep these
people in detention at various stages. To show you the in-depth
nature of this, one of the decisions that was made by the judge
in respect of two individuals was that he did not think the intelligence
was as strong as others and if we could not justify charging within
a certain time they would be released. It was a very rigourous
examination of the evidence and the intelligence on which we were
making those arrests by someone who is very, very skilled in doing
so.
Q86 Chairman: Have you used any of the
other serious detention powers like the power to restrict a suspect's
access to a solicitor to within sight and hearing of a senior
officer?
Mr Todd: No.
Q87 Chairman: Lord Newton, taking on
board again your earlier comments about the coverage of your brief,
you have said that more information should be available about
detentions under the terrorism legislation and their outcomes.
What sort of information do you think the Government should be
publishing and—to pick up an earlier point—do you
think we should have religious as well as ethnic monitoring under
the terrorist legislation?
Lord Newton of Braintree: I think
the question of religious monitoring would raise a large number
of sensitivities. I should perhaps say that one of the areas which
the Privy Counsellor Review Committee had the most difficulty
in achieving a consensus among its members was in relation to
the race hate issues in Part Five of the Act and I think I would
want to be cautious before going down that particular path. Sorry,
what did the first part of your question concern?
Q88 Chairman: Generally you said there
should be more information published.
Lord Newton of Braintree: If I
were to go through this fairly voluminous report again I could
no doubt remind myself of the various areas, but in general where
powers had been the subject of Parliamentary concern when they
were passed and may be the subject of additional Parliamentary
concern in the light of such indications as we have had as to
how and for what purposes they have been used, it appears to me
that in as many cases as possible information about the use of
the powers and the outcome should be placed in the public domain
so that one can make a judgment of a better informed kind about
whether to renew or continue the powers, which is an issue that
Parliament is going to have to address.
Q89 Mrs Dean: Lord Newton, in your report
you said that representations had been received suggesting that
Section 44 had caused problems. Can you give us any more details
on that?
Lord Newton of Braintree: Are
you referring to a part of our report?
Q90 Mrs Dean: Yes, where you said that
representations had been received suggesting that Section 44 had
caused problems.
Lord Newton of Braintree: Can
you direct me to the relevant part of my report? This was a fairly
substantial report that we published.
Q91 Mrs Dean: I will come back to that
point in a moment.
Lord Newton of Braintree: My apologies
but I think again Section 44 of the Act that we were looking at
is concerned with weapons of mass destruction.
Q92 Mrs Dean: We have located it now.
It is on page 24, paragraph 85.
Lord Newton of Braintree: I do
remember this bit because this incident—in case you are
not aware of it, Chief Constable, because they might ask you questions
about it—was the use of Section 44 of the Terrorism Act
2000 to search protestors outside the Arms Fair at the Excel Centre
in Docklands in October 2003. Personally I did have some concerns
about this because if I remember rightly—and if I were to
refresh my memory on this paragraph it might tell me—there
was no clear public knowledge that the set of powers under which
this was done had simply been more or less routinely renewed at
intervals since the Act was passed. I am stretching my memory
here but I think that was the point of issue and it did lead to
some kind of legal challenge if I remember rightly. Do you remember
it, Chief Constable?
Mr Todd: It is after I left the
Metropolitan Police. It slightly surprised me this morning hearing
what Sir John said that the Met was using it on a rolling process
because that is not the way in which we use Section 44.
Lord Newton of Braintree: Now
that I have been helpfully directed to the relevant paragraph
of the report, it may be sensible if I just place on record that,
for example, it only emerged during the court hearing on the application
of Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2002 Docklands Arms Fair protestors
that the powers had been renewed every 28 days since the Act came
into force in February 2001 and are still in force across London.
Then I skip a sentence and quote, "Had Parliament envisaged
such extensive and routine use of these powers it might well have
provided for different safeguards over their use". We went
on to say that we were drawing this to the attention of Alex Carlile
whose remit is the review of the 2000 Act which was not, as I
said earlier, our remit.
Q93 Mrs Dean: Turning to Mr Todd, you
have just mentioned the rolling authorisation used by the Met,
could you say how many authorisations you have given under Section
44 and did the Home Secretary confirm all of them?
Mr Todd: I could not tell you
exactly how many because the way I have prepared for this is actually
to say when we have used it. I have examples of the authorisations
we have actually given. We have not done rolling authorisations
for the whole of the Greater Manchester area. The way in which
we have used the powers has been on an intelligence led basis.
There is the example of the Commonwealth Games. The risk assessment
for the Commonwealth Games was that this is a huge potential terrorist
threat so a defined area was decided on so for the duration of
the Commonwealth Games there was an authority in place and again
it would have been confirmed after 28 days by a Home Office minister.
These are the only times that we have used it. The Labour Party
Conference recently was another occasion because of the threat
from international terrorism but again not the whole of the Greater
Manchester area; a pre-defined area around the city centre in
Manchester we defined for Section 44 purposes. Not this Christmas
just gone but the previous Christmas there was another huge threat:
post-Commonwealth Games, high profile in relation to Manchester,
so again we used Section 44 powers then for a period on the lead-up
to when we had a heightened period of tension. We have used it
in Bolton but again for a specific issue. You may or may not be
aware that we have C Company of the UDA that were expelled. Their
colleagues from Northern Ireland decided to set up home in Bolton.
We had a car bomb which attempted to murder some of the families
there and because of that increased tension and that increased
threat again, on an intelligence led basis, we set up an area
around Bolton where we said we would use Section 44 powers. The
only other time we have used it is in relation to the airport
and I have to say that 95% of our searches have actually been
in relation to Manchester Airport where we have tended to keep
in for some time a rolling authority, but it is still reviewed
every 28 days by the Assistant Chief Constable for Crime personally,
authorised and then it will go to the Home Office. We do use it,
but we use it on an intelligence led basis for a specified period
for a specified objective and there is laid out—certainly
within the forms that we use within GMP—the rationale for
using this power, the limitations of it and we gain assurances
that all the people involved in this particular operation are
trained to use it, told about using it sensitively, understand
the target and intelligence profile that we have in relation to
this particular operation and what is the community impact assessment.
We go into all of those things to say that we are using the power
but I believe we are using the power responsibly.
Lord Newton of Braintree: I must
say that I find that very interesting because it clearly does
indicate that a different policy has been pursued in Manchester
than that pursued in the Metropolitan area. In the report we did
make the point that it had not been made public whether they had
been continuously renewed outside the capital. When we wrote there
was a deficiency of information about this variation in application,
but I think the Chief Constable has underlined the point that
I drew from the report that Parliament might well have wished
to have safeguards of the kind that are being applied in Manchester
formally applied via the legislation in some way had they realised
what was going to happen.
Q94 Chairman: I think it should go on
the record at least that I was the minister for a considerable
period of time who, on behalf of the Home Secretary, signed Section
44 orders including the rolling authorisation in London, so I
find these exchanges of great interest.
Lord Newton of Braintree: I do
not know whether to apologise to you or not.
Q95 Chairman: Mr Todd, the argument was
although Manchester has some identifiable things like Labour Party
Conferences or the Commonwealth Games, London has something like
that every day of the week. All the people who would be at a Labour
Party Conference and you might wish to assassinate are in London
during the week and therefore that is the basis for the rolling
authorisation. It is fairly clear that from the court proceedings
that in the case of the Arms Fair the Metropolitan Police did
not use the power they had been given appropriately. In a complex
city like London it seems to me that you either have the choice
of a blanket rolling authorisation or an operation by operation
approach which you find suitable in Manchester. Would there be
a different way of dealing with Section 44 which would enable
the Metropolitan Police to have the flexibility to continuously
use terrorism powers without requiring such a broad brush approval
as, to be honest, I gave the Metropolitan Police when I was a
minister?
Mr Todd: I would not want to criticise
my ex-colleagues within the Met but I have to say that I was surprised
this morning when I heard it was a rolling authority. If you are
going to put in the safeguards which we certainly think are important—because
it is a power which does not require reasonable suspicion, it
is actually an invasion of people's liberty—I think you
need some constraints to ensure that it is being used properly
and I think within the way in which we have done it you are saying
that you are going to use this power today for these purposes
and people get specific intelligence. I think one of the problems
comes when it is so global, almost. How you actually provide any
restrictions, guidance, intelligence profile for the day I personally
think it is probably healthier to have it on an operation basis,
but the Met need to speak for themselves.
Lord Newton of Braintree: Can
I just add something here because I had not registered that you
would have been the minister who signed these rules. I would not
wish my remarks to be thought to be a deliberate attack on the
Chairman. Many of the obvious high profile targets are here in
London—people and installations and the like—and you
could well be right in your defensive line. However, you yourself
said that it emerged that inappropriate use had been made of the
powers which does take us straight back into the point that I
did make from our report which is that if these powers are going
to be there and had Parliament known they were going to be used
in this relatively blanket way, they would have wanted safeguards
built in. I think it is in that safeguards area that you could
sensibly direct the Committee's attention.
Q96 Mrs Dean: Given that the figures
released by the Home Office last week indicated that out of 21,577
searches carried out last year under Section 44, there were only
18 terrorism related arrests, with 359 arrests for other reasons.
Does that suggest that Section 44 is ineffective, increasing community
tensions without combating terrorism?
Lord Newton of Braintree: I personally
do not think that you could use those statistics to prove that
proposition; I think it would be much more a matter of judgment.
The Chief Constable probably knows the figures, but I do not have
the faintest notion what the ratio between arrests and prosecutions
is but an awful lot of people will be, if not arrested, at least
stopped and questioned by the police for perfectly reasonably
reasons but nothing then emerges from it. Equally, there must
be quite a lot of people who have been stopped, shall we say,
for a motoring offence and the policeman opens the boot and some
other offence emerges. You would need to look very carefully at
the details of this before drawing that conclusion. However, there
is—as has been acknowledged both in the previous session
this morning and to some extent in what the Chief Constable is
saying now—inescapably a risk that the use of these powers
on whatever scale is perceived—and may be perceived—by
a particular community in Britain as primarily directed at them.
That is one of the problems that we face bearing in mind that
the nature of the threat and the specific provisions of Part 4
of the 2001 Act are directed at Al-Qaeda terrorism.
Mr Todd: I have said that 95%
of the use of these Section 44 powers has been at Manchester Airport.
That is part of a whole package of measures to increase security
and make it a more hostile environment to terrorism. I think it
works out that 20 million people visit the Airport during the
course of the year and we stopped 828 people of that 20 million
who go through the Airport at some stage and they have not all
been Asian; 20% of people we have stopped have been of Asian origin.
I would say that in the same way as with the airport scanners
how many bombs have we actually detected through the use of these
scanners? I cannot recall any, but it is part of making it a more
hostile environment to terrorism. We have been incredibly overt
about using the powers; we have actually put up signs together
with the Airport to say that we are currently using Section 44,
you can be stopped and searched as a result. What we are saying
is that it is not just about catching people; it is about making
it a hostile environment and actually saying that if you are thinking
of bringing some sort of device into Manchester Airport, think
again because you stand the chance of getting stopped and searched
and you stand a chance of getting caught. In the way we have used
the power we have been very, very careful targeting and briefing
the officers at the Airport who are—even more so than the
others—specifically trained in their use and are constantly
being given intelligence briefs on how to use it. It is all about
people acting suspiciously, taking photographs, standing in the
sites where you think a mortar could be set up, taking a particular
interest in the security. Overtly people see people being stopped
and searched in relation to that and it is made very clear and
I hope also it is done sensitively and it is done openly so that
people know they are not being pre-judged and this is a preventative
power.
Lord Newton of Braintree: Going
back to the original question, the 21,000 and then the 18 arrests—whatever
the exact details of the figures were—was the 21,000 broken
down by ethnic categorisation? That would also seem to me to be
relevant to the inference that you invited us to draw from it.
Q97 Mrs Dean: Yes, there are figures
available. They are broken down: whites in 2002 are 14,000 so
there is a much greater number of whites.
Lord Newton of Braintree: Yes,
it is proportionately greater but what I was really following
up was the Chief Constable's point that of 800 or so people—the
figure at Manchester Airport—80% were not of Asian origin.
I am seeking to reveal that this is a much more complicated question
than it looks. Politicians—even reformed politicians like
me—do sometimes like to draw quick inferences from statistics
but I think we have had an interesting illustration there of some
of the difficulties.
Mr Todd: I think also that one
of the problems that we have is that we are talking—as we
have done very publicly in the last week where there has been
a 500% increase in this—at pretty small numbers. We actually
worked out that we had a 1,200% increase in the stop checking
under Section 44 of white people. When you are talking about very
small numbers for a piece of legislation which has, relatively
speaking, only recently been introduced, you are bound to see
a change.
Q98 Chairman: I think that really covers
all the issues we wanted to raise. You have anticipated some of
our questions, so thank you very much. Can I thank both Lord Newton
and Mr Todd for your evidence this afternoon? The whole session
has been very useful in airing some important issues.
Lord Newton of Braintree: Thank
you very much, Chairman. I have to say for my part I have learned
rather more than I have contributed but I have been very pleased
to be here.
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