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Lord Bassam of Brighton rose to move, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 (Code of Practice) Order 2005 [11th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Lord said: The present order brings into operation a new code of practice under Section 23 of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 on 4 April 2005. The code of practice has been laid before each House in accordance with the statutory requirement. The purpose of the code is to set out the manner in which police officers are to retain, record and reveal to the prosecutor material obtained in a criminal investigation which may be relevant to the investigation.
The present code of practice replaces an earlier version, which was made in 1997, when the disclosure provisions of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 entered into force. The basic structure and much of the contents of the new code of practice are the same as those of its predecessor. The new code of practice is required because Part 5 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 is due to enter into force on 4 April. Part 5 makes significant changes to the present scheme of pre-trial disclosure in criminal proceedings. As a result of those changes, some of the terminology of the original code of practice is no longer apt and needs to be amended.
I am referring specifically to a number of references in the existing code of practice to the primary and secondary prosecution disclosure tests. Part 5 of the Criminal Justice Act creates a single new objective prosecution disclosure test to replace the different
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primary and secondary tests that currently apply respectively before and after the accused has given a defence statement to the court and prosecutor.
In addition, the terminology of the code has been amended to take account of legal developments in the area of sensitive or public interest immunity material. The existing code of practice contains a number of references to material which it is not in the public interest to disclose. These have been revised to take account of the landmark judgment in the case of H and C, which was given in your Lordships' House in February 2004, and in which it was determined that the courts should entertain the possibility of a derogation from the golden rule of full disclosure only where there was a real risk of serious prejudice to an important public interest.
It is now some eight years since the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act and its accompanying code of practice entered into force. In that time, much experience has been gained in the operation of both. It is appropriate, therefore, that the Government should have taken this opportunity not only to make any necessary or desirable technical amendments to the existing code, but also to improve it more generally.
At this point, I should mention that the Government have been engaged in discussions with the practitioners about the new code since before the Criminal Justice Act received Royal Assent in November 2003. Those discussions were followed by the publication of a consultation document in September last year, setting out proposed changes to the existing code of practice and inviting comments from practitioners and the public alike.
The new code contains a number of detailed improvements to the existing version. For example, the definition of sensitive material in paragraph 2.1 of the code relieves the disclosure officer of the inflexible duty to consult the officer in charge of an investigation about sensitive material in every single case. It replaces the obligation to consult with a more sensible discretion to do so.
Paragraph 6.4 of the code makes disclosure officers pay particular attention to the need to schedule sensitive material. It now requires them to complete a schedule of sensitive material even if only to indicate that there is no such material.
Two areas of interest in the revised code were the subject of specific questions in the consultation document. First, the existing code of practice already permits material to be retained in the form of a copy rather than the original where the original is perishable or is to be returned to its owner. There are, however, other situations where the retention of original material may be both unnecessary and indeed resource intensive; for example, where a ship which figured in a drug-trafficking conviction many years ago cannot be disposed of because of the present wording of the code.
Paragraph 5.1, therefore, will enable material to be retained in the form of a copy, where this is reasonable in all the circumstances. The copying and disposal of an original may take place at any time before or after
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conviction. Decisions on who to notify of a disposal, if anybody, will be taken by the police on a case-by-case basis, in the light of the circumstances.
Finally, the consultation document raised the question of the growing burden on the police of retaining investigative material, particularly in complex investigations. It asked if the burden could be reduced by redefining what the police had to retain as relevant to an investigation, without running the risk of discarding relevant material. The consultation exercise stimulated a very useful debate on this issue. The weight of opinion, it is fair to say, was not in favour of change. Whatever the imperfections of the present definition, it is widely understood and in that light we have concluded that it would be right to retain it in the new code.
The present order has, of course, already been debated in another place. I gather that the Opposition both welcomed the Government's approach on this matter and recognised that there were a number of real improvements to the existing version of the code. A great deal of thought has gone into this document, as is appropriate with one that bears on every criminal investigation. I commend it to the Grand Committee.
Moved, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 (Code of Practice) Order 2005 [11th Report from the Joint Committee]—(Lord Bassam of Brighton.)
Viscount Bridgeman: I am grateful for the Minister's explanation of the order, in particular the detail he has given of the operation of the new code. As a result of the 1996 Act and to a lesser extent the 2003 Act, a large body of experience has grown up on the working of the code. It was quite right that this should be amended. I think that the Minister has assured us that a due consultation process was indeed carried out and that he listened to 36 representations made as a result of the consultation document. On that basis, we support the order.
Lord Dholakia: I also support the order. I have two brief questions. First, it is right that the code should be amended in the light of the experience gained. I understand from the Minister that consultation has taken place. Do I take it that the Bar Council and the Law Society were involved, as was the case with the police and the prosecutors who were part of the exercise? The Minister also said that the discussions were taken into account and the code was accordingly amended. What amendment was made to the code following that discussion and consultation?
My second question is on materials such as DNA obtained as evidence which has not been used. Is that being retained or destroyed?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: The Bar Council and the Law Society were consulted; as the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, said, we had some 36 responses. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, that the Law
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Society certainly responded but that the Bar Council did not. The Criminal Bar Association did respond, however; it was an effective responder.
I am grateful to noble Lords for their support for the measure. I should like to write to noble Lords on the DNA question, as I cannot provide that amount of detail now. I shall be happy to provide copies of that response to the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, and the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman.
5.1 p.m.
Baroness Gould of Potternewton asked Her Majesty's Government what progress has been made on the plan of action agreed at the United Nations World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995.
The noble Baroness said: First, I thank the noble Baronesses who are participating in this debate—and once again, only noble Baronesses are participating. It may well be because noble Lords believe, as one of my noble friends said to me, that this is a women's debate, not a debate about women's issues. We need to do a little educating to get that right.
I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, has had to withdraw from the debate today. I am particularly sorry because the noble Baronesses, Lady Whitaker and Lady Prosser, and myself, were all at the Beijing conference in 1995.
I chose the title for our discussion around the plan of action agreed at the UN Women's Conference in Beijing in 1995, for two reasons. First, I did so because it provides the most comprehensive analysis of women's rights and so gives the opportunity for the widest possible number of issues to be raised. Secondly, I did so because the Beijing Plus 10 Conference has recently been held in New York. Again, my noble friend Lady Prosser was in attendance.
Thirty years ago, the first UN conference on women's issues was held in Mexico City. That was followed by a number of milestone events which were the building bricks for the Beijing conference. Perhaps the most important event was in 1979 when the General Council of the UN adopted the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women—or CEDAW. By accepting that convention, those states that signed up—now three-quarters of all states, including the UK—committed themselves to undertake a series of measures to end discrimination against women in all its forms, in their legal system and by realising equality and equal opportunities between women and men. CEDAW is the sole human rights treaty to focus entirely and exclusively on women.
There then followed a series of conferences, starting in Nairobi in 1985. There was a conference in Vienna in 1993, which reaffirmed the importance of universality of human rights for women. The Copenhagen conference focused on the importance of
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gender equality for children as well as adults and formed the basis for the action plan on the girl child. Finally, perhaps the most controversial of the conferences was held in Cairo, where three key themes were considered: that reproductive rights are women's rights; that a woman has the right to control her own fertility; and the elimination of all forms of violence against women.
Based on those decisions, the plan of action in Beijing had six chapters, identifying 12 critical areas of concern as the main obstacles to women's advancement.
I intend to refer briefly to three areas—poverty, education and health—and, in a little more detail, to violence and human rights and progress made by the UK in response. I know that other speakers will refer to other aspects of the plan. The plan of action for the eradication of poverty called for governments to review their benefits, pensions and taxation systems, especially in respect of women part-time workers and the elimination of poverty wages. The introduction of the minimum wage, now set at £5 an hour, has benefited more than 1 million women, and the provision of the same rights, pro rata, to part-time workers as to full-time staff has brought enormous benefits to women, who form the majority of part-time workers.
However, for them, the pay gap remains at 40 per cent, having improved little in the past 25 years. It is also estimated that part-time workers are 40 per cent less likely to receive work-related training than full-time workers.
Childcare was a key focus of the education plan, together with the removal of stereotyping and calls for improvement of sex education in schools. Childcare has been a central and important plank of the Government's agenda, with the creation of more than three-quarters of a million new childcare places benefiting more than 1.3 million children, providing both choice and opportunity to women to make full use of their potential by assisting them better to balance work and family responsibilities.
Childcare is also an important business sector in its own right, having grown by more than 20 per cent in the past three years. That is good news but, unfortunately, it is still stereotyped as a woman-only occupation. Employment remains strongly delineated by gender, determined by a real lack of subject choice at school and the lack of work experience placements for young women in non-traditional women's jobs.
The Government admit that sex education in schools is patchy, but one hopes that it will improve with the expansion of school nurses envisaged in the programme, Choosing Health. Finally, I have a brief word about the programme for improving women's health, with a demand to prevent and provide better treatment for diseases such as cervical and breast cancer, osteoporosis and chlamydia. I am sure that, with her experience on health matters, my noble friend Lady Morgan will discuss that further. I place on record as chair of the Independent Advisory Group for Sexual Health and HIV my appreciation for the £60
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million that the Government are specifically providing for chlamydia prevention and screening. Not only will that help to reduce the spread of the infection, it will as a consequence produce a reduction in infertility in women.
But of all the decisions taken in Beijing, the most important was the acceptance that women's rights are human rights. That forms the framework for and underpins all other decisions. I was a participant in the working group that ultimately arrived at that decision before ratification by the whole conference. It was a very exciting experience, but there was fierce opposition; it was not accepted automatically; debates continued for several days and through several nights. That in spite of the fact that, in theory, women have never been excluded from the UN's concept of human rights, the 1945 UN charter recognising the equal rights of men and women.
Human rights and equality are two sides of a single coin, by promoting the dignity and value of each individual and by tackling inequalities between groups of people. That is why the Government are so right to have included human rights in their plan for an equality and human rights commission, a single body that can provide an effective and flexible framework to support our quality legislation and that can provide institutional support for human rights for the first time.
I firmly believe that adding the human rights obligation means that public bodies will have to understand their obligations under the Human Rights Act and that the delivery of public services will have to be more responsive to individual needs. Of course, there are still questions to be answered about the commission, such as whether the £70 million annual budget will be sufficient; whether all powers contained in the existing legislation will be transferred to the new commission; and to what extent such a body will be able to include action to close the pay gap as a condition of contract with a private sector contractor. Finally, will the elimination of sexual harassment be included in the gender duty of the commission?
Perhaps most important is the question of violence against women, which is a key factor that undermines women's ability to participate fully in society. It occurs in many forms: domestic violence—that is, violence by current or former partners—abuse of the elderly by a carer or member of the family; honour crimes; female genital mutilation; or forced marriage.
This week, Sugar magazine showed that one-fifth of girls reported that their boyfriends had been violent towards them. All of those were identified as violence in the home, but not necessarily as domestic violence. If we accept that domestic violence accounts for one quarter of all violent crime, a realistic definition would increase that figure even more. But we have to add to those figures rape, sexual assault, trafficking, prostitution and stalking. It is, therefore, difficult to calculate the real level of violence against women.
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Of course, the Government have introduced three important reforms in the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004—the biggest overhaul of domestic violence legislation for 30 years—the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 and the Sexual Offences Act 2003 to counter rape and trafficking. Home Office figures show that 1,750 women from eastern Europe were trafficked into Briton in 2003, but last week saw the first prosecution under the Sexual Offences Act, when three men were found guilty of trafficking by selling a 15 year-old girl eight times to work in brothels.
The FGM Act closed the legal loophole that allowed parents and carers to take their daughters outside the UK for the purpose of FGM. As the patron of FORWARD I welcome the support we received from the Government, but more must be done to ensure that FGM-practising communities are aware of the legislation and that there is adequate support and positive protection services for women and girls who have undergone, or are at risk from, FGM.
I appreciate the importance and successful work of the inter-ministerial group in implementing the Government's strategy on domestic violence. But, because the Government have passed the three Acts to which I referred, there is now the opportunity to move towards an overall strategy that incorporates all forms of violence against women, be it in the home, rape or trafficking. I appreciate that one cannot underestimate the serious challenges that such an approach represents, but it would draw out the connections across differing forms of violence, provide better knowledge-transfer across the sectors involved and ultimately provide a more effective use of limited financial resources.
Regarding domestic violence, I close with a quote from Kofi Annan. He stated:
"Violence against women is the most shameful human rights violation, and it is perhaps the most pervasive. It knows no boundaries of geography, culture or wealth. As long as it continues, we cannot claim to be making real progress towards equality, development and peace".
That, I am sure, is the aim of us all.
5.12 p.m.
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