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Lord Imbert: My Lords, I shall not keep your Lordships long with my contribution to this most important debate, but I hope that what I do say may have desirable and useful effects and give us pause for thought on the future hierarchical structure of a national Serious Organised Crime Agency and on its methods of working, selection of targets and processing of suspects and persons arrested for crime.
If it is necessary for me to establish my credentials in respect of this subject, I point out to your Lordships that it is now some 16 years since the then Commissioner of the Metropolitan Policea chap called Imbertin the annual police research foundation lecture in London's Guildhall called for the establishment of a countrywide organisation responsible for the investigation and resolution of serious cross-border national and international organised crime. Inevitably, on the following day the press headlined it as:
That was not what had been called for, but neither was a call made for a major law enforcement agency that could effectively be directed by a politicianboth now or at any time in the future.
I still fully support the creation of a national, single co-ordinated investigative agency, which would undoubtedly enhance this country's ability significantly to reduce serious and organised crime. But I will briefly outline the concerns that I hold about some provisions in the Bill. I reiterate my concern that a politician who will appoint both the chairman and the director-general of the agency will, or may have, influenceindeed, amounting almost to directionover the selection of targets and the use of agency personnel.
The first chairman of the agency is to be the former head of the Security Service, MI5. Although I hold this man in very high regard, one can but wonder whether the selection of targets may lean towards those whom that service might wish to investigate by agents, who, under the provisions of the Bill, are invested with the power of constables. Of course, at this time of grave terrorist threat, that may be both sensible and desirable, but such fundamental changes must surely be done with our eyes wide open. It is also worth asking whether this hierarchical structure is in fact the first political chipping
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away of the dictum of Lord Denning, when he spoke of chief constables and, by extension, of the power of constables. I shall not weary noble Lords with the whole dictum because the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, has already touched upon it, but the important part was:
"that he must or must not keep observation on this place or that . . . The responsibility of law enforcement lies on him. He is answerable to the law alone".
The first director general of the agency is to be Mr William Hughes, a senior police officer of wisdom, professional ability, experience and integrity, but we are surely bound to reflect that, under the Bill, a future Home Secretary could select whomever he wishes. That is nothing less than the political appointment of a person who will have the vast resources of the agency at his disposal to be used as he, the chairman of the agency and/or the Home Secretary may decide.
I will conclude on one other point, which has already been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie. It relates to Clauses 116 and 117, which make provision for the post of custody sergeant to be held by a person with no police experience whatever. I note what the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, said in opening the debate: that that is not compulsory on chief constables but a matter for them; the Bill them the opportunity to do that if they so wish. But the reality is that police authorities will seize on that and, erroneously, think that that will save them money or get more supervisors out on the streets.
The noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate, suggested the rank of station sergeant as senior sergeant, and I support the return of that, having held that rank in the Metropolitan Police about 150 years ago. He is the person who has responsibility for those under his command in an operational situation. That should be carefully considered.
If we are to civilianise that post, we must remember that police have a duty of care towards those who have been arrested and it is the custody officer's responsibility to decide whether the arrested person should be detained or releasedin fact, to make decisions affecting an arrested person's human rights. Theoretically, a person with legal training and well-versed in the provisions of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 with full knowledge of the rules and regulations relating to the detention, care of, access to and questioning of detained persons could pass a paper examination to qualify them for that post.
That is not enough. The rank of sergeant was not selected by accident. He or she has passed the necessary exams to show knowledge of police and criminal law and procedures, but the real qualification for such a responsible job is learnt at the college of hard knocks, where officers, in their careers, have dealt with violence, drunken louts, domestic disputes and abuse and vicious criminality. Intellectual ability and academic qualifications are no substitute for experience.
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Should that provision be implemented, the safety and well-being of detainees will be placed in jeopardy if the role of custody sergeant is given to an undoubtedly intelligent but grossly inexperienced member of civil staff. I am aware that those clauses were opportunistically inserted in the Bill following comments by the previous Chief Inspector of Constabulary about the civilianisatian of police posts. Both he and the present chief inspector, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, are fine fellows. But I would wager that if they were still chief constables, they would treat the provision warily and find other, more suitable posts to civilianise.
I am pleased to support the creation of the Serious and Organised Crime Agency. I fully support that, but I hope that the Government will take note of the points made by me and other noble Lords. I only wish that I was young enough and bright enough to compete for one of the senior detective posts in that agency.
Lord Desai: My Lords, my all-too-brief career as a government loyalist is about to come to an end. Although I shall come to that, let me first say that, along with my noble friend Lord Turnberg and the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior, I support the animal rights clauses in the Bill.
I very much dislike Clauses 129 to 135, which will restrict protest in Parliament Square. I am by nature a protester and I do not like my right to protest being circumscribed. Also, the fact that some people have been demonstrating against the Iraq warI supported itmay give people offence, but so what? If people feel deeply about something, they have every right to demonstrate. One problem with the Bill is that people have to give notice about how long a demonstration will last. It may last for ever. What is wrong with that? It is extremely dangerous for parliamentarians to say, "You can protest elsewhere, but not in my neighbourhood, thank you very much". Free speech is circumscribed in the neighbourhood of Parliament.
I want to get on to my pet hate, which is Clause 124 and Schedule 10. All that can be said on the legal side has been said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and various other noble Lords. I shall echo what my noble friend Lord Alli said. He said that he wanted more; I want less. I shall of course support his amendment about gay and lesbian harassment. I have no problem with that whatever. I do not how many of his fellow Peers will follow him, but I will follow him.
Why has the anomaly arisen whereby Jews and Sikhs are considered both mono-ethnic religions and a race? The Jewish case is gilding the lily. There is perfectly good protection for Jews as a race, because, for most Jews, race and religion coincide. The two exceptions are Karl Marx and Liz Taylor. Karl Marx was born a Jew. His father got him baptised, but for all of his life he was considered a Jew. If you are born a Jew, you are for ever a Jew. Miss Elizabeth Taylor became a Jew when she married Mike Todd. But absolutely no one thinks that she is a Jew, whatever her
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religion may be. It is really gilding the lily to say that Jews are both a race and a religionthere is not much to be got out of that.
As to Sikhs being a mono-ethnic group, I am absolutely astonished. Footnote 12 on page 8 of the Select Committee report cites the case of Mandla v Dowell Lee, which is about wearing turbans. Only Sikh men wear turbans; Sikh women do not. So I presume that Sikh women do not have protection under this law and that only Sikh men will. Sikh men also have a right to wear a dagger. Is that allowed? I doubt it very much.
But Sikhs are not a mono-ethnic group. The noble Baroness, Lady Flather, already has said something about that. But worse than that, a number of Canadians have converted to Sikhism. Are theygood, strong, white, tall, blonde peoplecovered by this? Sikhism is a religion: it is not a race.
Perhaps I may even accuse the Law Lords of being ignorantmaybe I will get it for contempt of court. People get intimidated when judging other races and religion. They say, "Oh dear, my God, if I don't say this I will be looked on as racist" or something like that. Only profound ignorance, in the face of another religion and another culture, could have allowed this to get into our law books. If I was smart enough, I would like to move an amendment to remove the protection for Sikhs and Jews on the grounds of religion.
That is an anomaly in our law. It is not that all the other faiths in the country need a protection under this law. If those two things were removed, life would become so much simpler. Faith communities would not be regarded as deserving special protection. As many noble Lords have already said, protection is available against harassment, against violence and even against a lot of incitement. But by putting religion in the Act, we will do two things. First, quite a few faith communities will get uppity about their being insulted. If that is done, I guarantee that the complications of the south Asian subcontinentthe tension between Hindus and Muslimswill be revisited with much greater violence. I am telling noble Lords that.
Secondlythe noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, referred to this pointI do not intend to cause offence, but someone may take offence. That has happened to me. About four years ago, just after the Act of 2001 had removed the religious hatred clause, I was invited to a festival of comedy. There was one serious session about comedy and religious hatred, or something like that. Unfortunately, the comedians did not turn up and those that turned up were very serious. So I thought that I could say something mildly amusing. I said, "I know lots of jokes about Christians, a number of jokes about Jesus Christ, and quite a lot of rabbi and priest jokes. I do not know a single joke about Islam. There must be something funny in the Koran, after all. Why has nobody found it?"
I was accused of having said that the Koran is a funny book. There was a lot of agitation in Muslim newspapers in this country. My noble friend Lord Ahmed told me
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that I would have to apologise for saying what I said. I said, "I will not apologise. I will cite exactly what I said. There ought to be something funny in the Koran". The fact that there is not is my loss. But if that was that serious then, now, I could be taken to be inciting religious hatred.
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