The
Minister for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing
(Mr. Vernon Coaker): Welcome, Mr.
Bayley, to the Committee’s final sitting, and the conclusion of
our deliberations on the Bill. The debate on gangs has been interesting
and good, and I make no apology for repeating a couple of points before
turning to the specific issues that have been raised. In these
provisions, we are wrestling with what to do about a small number of
individuals who are extremely violent and dangerous, and I know that
every member of the Committee accepts that that is the case. Not only
are those individuals violent and dangerous, but they terrorise
communities. As I have said on numerous occasions, the criminal route,
where possible, is the preferred option. Leaving aside the age issue,
we would of course prefer it if criminal evidence was gathered so that
those people could be brought before the criminal courts and
prosecuted.
However, the
hon. Members for Chesterfield and for Hornchurch know as well as I do
that gathering that evidence in some parts of some communities is
virtually impossible. What should we do about that? Should we shrug our
shoulders and say, “There is nothing that we can do about that,
so we will just let those people act with impunity.”? I know
that that is not what the hon. Member for Chesterfield is suggesting we
do, but we cannot even prove that they threaten and terrorise people,
because they intimidate the witnesses, who are so frightened that they
will not come forward. That is why we have seen changes in the criminal
justice system to take witness protection measures and use video links
or screens around a witness box, which are also serious
matters.
The
alternative to taking such measures is that we would just let people
get away with it, which is not acceptable, so the criminal justice
system has adapted witness protection measures and various other
measures. We are trying to deal with all the things that the hon.
Members for Chesterfield and for Hornchurch have raised. Established
organised gangs operate on territory with the use of colours to
terrorise and threaten people, and they operate in a way that makes it
impossible to gather evidence to do anything about it.
Birmingham
used those injunctions to try to tackle the problem and the figures
showed a drop—incidentally, the hon. Member for Chesterfield
will know that the relevant cabinet member in Birmingham is a Liberal
Democrat. I know that there are issues relating to
human rights and the proper use of powers, but I would have thought that
residents in Birmingham and across the country would look at that and
say, “That is fantastic.” It may have infringed the
privacy and human rights of the individual subject to the injunction,
but the human rights of countless numbers of individuals are enhanced
by the fact that someone who had terrorised the community was no longer
able to do so. The hon.
Member for Chesterfield asked why the existing powers were not
adequate, which I will come to in a moment, but all those powers
existed in Birmingham and across the country, and it was still not
possible to tackle effectively some of the most violent individuals. We
looked at what happened in Birmingham, we saw that there was a public
policy response which made a difference, and we thought we should adapt
it, particularly following the court
judgment. 1.15
pm
Paul
Holmes: The Court of Appeal
said: “In
reaching these conclusions we do not wish to minimise in any way the
problems identified by the council. However, we are confident that the
courts have ample powers to deal with
them.” The
Minister says he will return to that. If the Minister convinces us that
the current powers are not satisfactory—which is why this is
needed—is he saying that on the basis of council and police
supposition or belief, and without the evidence to prove it, there
should be the ultimate power under these injunctions to put three
requirements on an individual? The individual would spend eight hours
at a place of work or education; eight hours of leisure at a particular
place and eight hours of sleep at a particular place. The whole 24
hours and seven days a week of someone’s existence would be
controlled without evidence presented to justify it. Is that what the
Minister is
saying?
Mr.
Coaker: No, I am not saying that. Let me give some
evidence of what Birmingham was able to do with the use of injunctions
that it was not able to do with its existing powers. Birmingham
obtained about 30 injunctions between August and the end of December
2007, with a co-ordinated approach, intensive policing, deployment of a
mediation service and so on. I accept that cause and effect may not
have been the sole reason—it may not have been just the use of
injunctions that brought these changes about. There may have been other
factors but it is still pretty stark. In the Handsworth, Lozells, and
Newtown area of the city, the number of robberies in the four months
prior to the injunctions averaged 55 per month, compared
with 33 per month while injunctions were in place. After injunctions
were removed, the figure rose again to 48. In the Aston and Nechells
area, there was an average of 11 firearms incidents in the four months
preceding the orders, compared with four for the period in which the
orders were in place. After the court judgment, the figure rose to nine
in March. In the city centre, firearms usage dropped from eight
incidents in July 2007 to one in September 2007. After injunctions were
removed, there was a rise to a peak of nine incidents in May
2008. Chief
Superintendent Paul Scarrott, who is in charge of the basic command
unit where most of the gang-related activity is focused, went on record
to attest to the value of
injunctions: The
influence injunctions have on an individual gang member’s
behaviour and the gang as a whole is substantial. Many have expressed
their fear of having prohibitions placed on their activities
and the degree of disruption to their established methods of operation.
Both the exclusion and non-association clauses of the injunctions were
instrumental in limiting and controlling their criminal
activity.” Those
figures are astonishing. If they could be replicated through the use of
injunctions across the rest of the country, I do not think there would
be a community that would object, saying the injunctions are an
infringement of civil liberties and the judicial practice of this
country. People would see reductions in harm, firearms, threats and
intimidation while their human rights would be enhanced, such as their
ability to go out at night and wander about their community without
being threatened or terrorised. They would not be saying this is a
difficult debate about injunctions; they would be saying to Parliament,
“Get on with
it!” Paul
Holmes: I see the point the Minister is making. I could
give an example from about 10 years ago, before I was an MP, when there
was a series of car break-ins on the street where I live in
Chesterfield. In the course of a week, there were about seven, and my
car was broken into on Monday and on Friday. The police knew who was
doing it—he had just come out of prison and was living in a
hostel about two streets away. They could, in theory, have locked him
up and thrown away the key, but they have to have evidence before they
take action. In many cases, the police could intern the usual
suspects—we would get some innocent ones, but we would also get
some guilty ones and depress the criminal figures. Surely, though, the
police have to have some evidence.
Internment in
Northern Ireland was a disaster, because many extraneous and innocent
people were interned. The logic of the Minister’s argument is
that if the police suspect that 20, 30 or 40 people are at the core of
it, they will slap injunctions on them. If the police are saying,
“24 hours later this is where you must be”, that is
almost a form of internment. Surely, there has to be some level of
acceptable evidence before they can do that. What is that
level?
Mr.
Coaker: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman has made a
comparison with internment. I am sure that, on reflection, he will
think that that is not quite the case. I understand the point he is
making—and I will answer the point about evidence in a
moment—but with internment, people were rounded up and put in
places such as Long Kesh just on the basis of intelligence with no
judicial oversight. With respect to the hon. Gentleman, he might, on
reflection, think that that is not the best
analogy.
Paul
Holmes: I gave two examples. Internment was one example
where, on no evidence other than police suspicion or very flimsy
evidence—sometimes 30 years out of date—they rounded up
the usual suspects. I gave the example of the police in Chesterfield
and a spate of car thefts 10 years ago in my street. The police said
that they knew who was doing it, but they did not have the evidence.
However, the principle is the level of evidence required, and the
Minister has just said that there would have to be some evidence for an
injunction. What is the acceptable level of evidence? The whole point
of the provisions is to drop that level dramatically from a criminal
standard to a civil standard and that is a very serious point. What is
the level of evidence, other than the suspicion of the council or the
police, to say that these are the guilty
people?
Mr.
Coaker: As the hon. Gentleman knows, with respect to the
two conditions, the evidence is the balance of probability, which is
the civil standard. Since we are now quoting case law, I will quote
another case back at him, but there are two conditions, one of which is
the balance of probability. It is not just a case of police officers
saying that—the judgment has to be made by a court. Once it is
granted by the court, there is an opportunity of appeal to the High
Court, as there always is. If the order is granted, the ability to vary
the order, or to have it discharged, remains available both to the
respondent and to the applicant.
It is
important to look at the ASBO-civil order comparison. If someone
receives an ASBO and it is breached, it is a criminal offence. It is
not a criminal offence to breach a civil order—it is still a
civil offence tried in a civil court and, significantly, there is no
criminal record, because it is a civil offence. There is therefore a
significant difference. As for the standard of proof, the breach has to
be to the criminal standard—beyond reasonable doubt. There are
two conditions: a preventive civil order—I know the hon. Member
for Chesterfield does not agree with that, but that is the argument
that we make—and the balance of probability. However, we
recognise the seriousness the situation if there is a breach, even
though that is not a criminal offence, by moving to the standard of
proof, which is “beyond reasonable
doubt”.
Mr.
Coaker: If the hon. Gentleman is going to quote McCann at
me, I will come back to that in a little
bit.
Paul
Holmes: Is there a contradiction in what the Minister has
just said? On the one hand, he says that those are more serious
offences than ASBOs would normally be used for—ASBOs are used
for relatively low-level disorder on the streets and street
corners—because we are talking about serious gangs, crimes and
knifings. The Minister says that the same standards applied to ASBOs
apply here, but to a much more serious situation. If we are making the
comparison with ASBOs, the Minister should explain why we need these
new clauses and injunctions, with a different set of evidence criteria.
Why are we not using the existing legislation, as the Court of Appeal
says that all the existing legislation on ASBOs is more than adequate
to deal with this matter? It said that it was convinced that that
legislation was perfectly adequate.
Mr.
Coaker: I will come on to the issue of the standard of
proof. There is clearly a difference of opinion. I will not read out
the Birmingham statistics again, but all the powers to which the hon.
Gentleman referred, including ASBOs, were available to the police, to
the council in Birmingham and to others. However, when they used the
power of injunction, there was a dramatic change.
I often say
this, and it is not meant as a disrespectful point to the hon. Member
for Hornchurch or anyone else, but if the hon. Gentleman was in my
shoes and he was presented with that evidence on that particular public
policy, he would see that it was an innovative and exciting initiative
by Birmingham city council. It had an effect, and I think that it would
have a pretty good effect on the rest of the country. It would save
lives, and it would prevent people from getting into trouble in the
first place.
We
have tried to include judicial oversight in this measure, which is why
I took exception to the reference to internment. All the way through
the Bill—not just in these provisions but in every
clause—I have tried to ensure that there is judicial oversight.
There is sometimes an argument about what the level of that oversight
should be. However, I am very conscious of the need for judicial
oversight and of the whole human rights debate; I try to include an
awareness of those issues in everything that we do. Nevertheless, the
change in Birmingham was dramatic. There are people walking the streets
of Birmingham now who would either be dead or in prison but for the use
of that injunction.
Ms
Sally Keeble (Northampton, North) (Lab): Does my hon.
Friend agree that, in this instance, what he is doing is identifying
non-criminal behaviour to identify patterns of behaviour that might
lead to serious violence, whereas for the ASBO there is an unacceptable
level of antisocial behaviour already there? It is quite appropriate
that we should have different levels of proof and different processes.
If people engaged in the gang-related violence, they would be
prosecuted for the offence, whether it was a stabbing or
whatever.
Mr.
Coaker: My hon. Friend is right to point out that,
essentially, we use the appropriate tool for the particular action that
we see in the community. The ASBOs that were available simply were not
having the impact in Birmingham that the injunctions were having. It is
a sign of my age, but I think that if people saw that we were not going
to use those injunctions, they would say, “I can’t
believe it”. I shall leave it at
that.
Paul
Holmes: This is my final last intervention, because
otherwise we will start to go round in circles. I cannot give the exact
quote, because I have given it to the Hansard reporter,
but the Court of Appeal said that the evidence that was presented was
too flimsy to justify an injunction, which has serious
implications.
Anybody in
authority, such as a teacher—I have been a teacher
myself—or a policeman on the street can always say, “Oh
well, if I could just act outside the law, I could round up anybody, as
I know who the suspects are”. They would always want to push
that, in order to do the job. The point of making the law in Parliament
is to set the boundaries within which that process operates. That is
what we are asking for. If the Court of Appeal felt that the evidence
was too flimsy for such a serious injunction, how does the Minister
defend changing the law to allow that relatively flimsy evidence to
lead to such serious injunctions?
Mr.
Coaker: I am not trying to allow flimsy evidence to
justify giving somebody an injunction under this provision and under
the new clauses. I am trying to clarify matters and to give to courts
the power to give an injunction to someone where it is demonstrated to
the satisfaction of a court that they have been involved in
gang-related violence.
The hon.
Gentleman will see that the judgment that he quoted from the Court of
Appeal said that the injunction was being used to tackle antisocial
behaviour, rather than violent behaviour. Antisocial behaviour orders
tackle antisocial behaviour, but injunctions can be used to tackle
violent behaviour. Through the new clauses,
we are trying to ensure that it is clear that the courts can impose
injunctions on individuals involved in gang-related violence. If the
hon. Gentleman rereads the court judgment on Shafi and Ellis, he will
see that it says that an injunction was used to tackle antisocial
behaviour, not
violence. 1.30
pm James
Brokenshire (Hornchurch) (Con): In that judgment, the
Master of the Rolls and Lord Justice Rix
said: “Parliament
has recently legislated to restrain anti-social behaviour in a
particular way and subject to particular
safeguards.” They
were suggesting that Parliament had decided that that was the most
appropriate way forward. The question for the Minister and for the
Committee is: are we satisfied that the tools available to local
authorities and the police, subject to appropriate safeguards, are
sufficient and appropriate? I do not think that the Court was deciding
whether it felt that they were sufficient. As that quote indicates, it
is a matter for Parliament to consider whether the tools—ASBOs,
section 222 injunctions or otherwise—are sufficient to deal with
the problems that, sadly, we face.
|
