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Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, for moving the amendment. I quite understand the delightful reason why the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, is not here, and we send her our congratulations.
Nothing that has been said this evening would cause me to want to change the answers that I gave on the previous occasion. But because of the nature of the
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concerns that have been raised, I think it would be useful if I answered the debate more fully than I would otherwise be minded to do at Report.
The noble Lord, Lord Pearson, asked who was responsible for vetting employees. If a business wins a contract within the critical national infrastructure, the employer is responsible for conducting the vetting, but it must be done in compliance with procedures overseen by the contractor—that is, the Government. I shall outline why it should be done within that structure. The last time we discussed this, I was very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, for outlining what he described as the acid test for the amendment. He said:
"The Committee needs to know whether the existing legislation is adequate to ensure that an opportunity would not be given to a company controlled by someone with terrorist intentions".—[Official Report, 20/12/05; col. 1663.]
That is similar to the very direct question he has asked me this evening. That clarification was useful in a wide-ranging and engaging debate.
I refer back to the topic I briefly alighted upon in Committee. The Government have developed a concept of a critical national infrastructure to introduce a common understanding of key sectors and functions that need to be preserved in the face of any disruptive challenge and protected in the public interest. In broad terms, key elements within the critical national infrastructure are those which are of such importance that any entire or partial loss or compromise could cause large-scale loss of life, a serious impact on the national economy, other grave social consequences for the community or any substantial part of the community or be of immediate concern to the national government. The noble Baroness, Lady Park, and the noble Lord, Lord Elton, have spoken about those matters, in essence, this evening.
Protective security for the critical national infrastructure is developed by partnership between organisations and companies, security specialists from the police and Security Service and the central government department responsible for that service in policy and political terms. The purpose is to provide timely assessments of the threats and vulnerabilities within the critical national infrastructure so that business communities and service providers are able to understand the risks they might face from terrorism and to provide generic security advice and standards including physical, electronic, document and—importantly—personnel security advice so that they are able to install security regimes that are proportionate to the risk.
In terms of assessing suitability when contracts are procured, government departments have a duty to show due diligence to the protection of protectivity-marked material, whether that be information or assets. They are required to have systems of security assurance which ensure that when that material is held by a commercial company carrying out sensitive work as part of a government contract, it is protected to the same degree as it would be within the department. The level of scrutiny and assessment of those companies
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differs according to the protective marking of the material held. This duty of diligence applies as much to the assessment of bidders as it does to the management of a contract once won. When I re-read the Committee debates, I noted that there was also considerable concern, expressed primarily by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, regarding the vetting and assessment of personnel in areas of such key sensitivity. I am not surprised that he has returned to the matter again this evening.
Personnel security aims to mitigate the risks from the so-called threat from insiders, be they employees, contractors, directors or shareholders. The focus of such arrangements is to protect the vital elements of services or facilities including information about those elements. Formal security clearances will apply in many cases where distribution of information will be particularly damaging. It is therefore clear that there are processes in place to ensure that personnel responsible for critical national infrastructure do not intend to use their position inappropriately for terrorist purposes.
7.15 pm
The Government recognise that threats are no longer aimed solely at the conventional organs of central government and the security apparatus, but at a far wider range of relatively soft targets across the critical national infrastructure. The Government will continue to broaden the coverage of personnel security in the national interest, as necessary. We also need to be in a position to ensure compliance with that advice when necessary. We are constantly reviewing procedures to ensure that they are adequate.
What I have outlined deals simply with our current policy and practice on protective security. I have not yet mentioned the adequacy of our legislation. In Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, helpfully asked whether persons attempting to infiltrate our critical national infrastructure would be covered by what she described as the Clause 5 principle. The new offence of "acts preparatory to terrorism", supported by all parties in this House, will catch those engaged in activities described by the noble Baroness in Committee as financial penetration for purposes associated with terrorism. Noble Lords will remember the comments she made on 20 December at column 1653 of Hansard, which I take to mean using ownership, shareholding or other forms of control in a company to unduly affect or gather information for the purposes of terrorism.
Clause 5 is attractive in its simplicity: where a person intends to commit an act of terrorism or to assist another to commit an act of terrorism and engages in any conduct in preparation, he commits the offence. Additionally, offences of solicitation and conspiracy may come into play. Obviously, it is difficult to respond to hypothetical examples, but it is important to look at the facts of the case.
I hope that I have reassured noble Lords on the robustness and integrity of the system we have in place. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, who
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asked whether we accept the potential for a threat of this nature, yes we do. That is why we have tried to take steps to prepare for such an eventuality. Whether it is present or not, it is right that we should prepare in a way that is appropriate. Having looked at the existing legislation, we think that there is nothing further we need in the form of legislative provision. However, we keep this issue under review and will not hesitate to return to Parliament if the situation changes. Neither the police nor the security services are seeking any additional powers at this time.
We are as confident as it is ever proper to be that we have made adequate preparation. Of course, these are very moving and difficult times, and one has to be ever-vigilant. But for now, we believe that we have taken all proper steps to make sure that these issues are covered. I hope that with that much more comprehensive answer I will have given some reassurance to noble Lords who have had a proper anxiety about this issue.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that long and detailed reply, which no doubt my noble friend Lady Cox will want to study. The Minister has gone a long way to meeting our concerns on the relationship between employers, contractors and employees. I understand that she is saying that the Government have all the necessary powers to meet the threat that we think my noble friend has identified. I am surprised that, if all the security arrangements and procedures that she has mentioned are in place, someone with known Islamist links should still own and control 75 per cent of British security and intelligence companies with the reach already mentioned in our debates. However, I am grateful to the Minister for what she has said, which we will study with our usual attention. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Elton moved Amendment No. 82B:
"REVIEW OF CODES OF CONDUCT
(1) Within one month of the coming into force of Part 1 of this Act, the Secretary of State shall convene an advisory panel to consider the statutory codes of conduct in force and applicable to the treatment of all persons questioned, arrested, interviewed or detained under this or any other Act of Parliament by the persons responsible for their questioning, arrest, interviewing or custody.
(2) The panel shall also consider the draft of any such code of practice submitted to it by the Secretary of State.
(3) The panel shall comprise a chairman and not less than 12 members of whom—
(a) one shall have at least 6 months' experience as a member of the teaching staff of the Hendon Police College;
(b) one shall have at least 6 months' experience as a member of the teaching staff of the National Police Training Centre, Cwmbran;
(c) one shall be appointed following consultation with the Association of Chief Police Officers;
(d) one shall be appointed following consultation with the Police Superintendents' Association of England and Wales;
(e) one shall be appointed following consultation with the Police Federation of England and Wales;
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(f) two shall have at least 10 years' experience call to the Criminal Bar; and
(g) at least one shall have experience of criminological research.
(4) By appointing a person who qualifies for appointment under two of the paragraphs of subsection (3), the Secretary may satisfy the requirements of both those paragraphs.
(5) The said panel shall consider—
(a) the provisions of each code referred to in subsections (1) and (2);
(b) the effect, if any, of the provisions of each code on those of another;
(c) the readiness with which each code can be understood by those responsible for and affected by its implementation, and by the courts;
(d) the effectiveness and timeliness of instruction given on the codes to police officers and custody officers; and
(e) the effectiveness of the arrangements made for drawing the provisions of each code to the attention of those interviewed or affected by them and their advisers.
(6) The panel shall report to the Secretary of State with recommendations for the increased simplicity, effectiveness and accessibility of the codes.
(7) The panel shall make its first report not later than 12 months after the coming into force of Part 1 of this Act."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in Committee, I expressed some concern about the complexity of the codes of conduct under which people would be held in detention under the Bill. I received a letter of assurance from the Minister—I thank her for it—setting out in what she took to be reassuring terms what the situation was. If I quote little bits of it, noble Lords may be less reassured than she intended. She said:
"are subject to Schedule 8 to TACT . . . The Schedule provides extra provisions which are not provided for by PACE"—
the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984—
"in cases where extended detention may be sought. The wider provisions of PACE Code C on the detention, treatment and questioning by police officers also applies to those arrested under section 41 but makes specific reference to areas where Schedule 8 takes precedence".
In other words, these people are already under two potentially conflicting codes of conduct, one of which has to be disapplied in areas where the other applies.
The next paragraph refers to Schedule 7 to TACT and the,
"code of practice for examining officers issued under paragraph 6 of Schedule 14. A person detained for examination under Schedule 7 to TACT will be subject to both Schedule 8 to TACT and also the code of practice for examining officers. This code governs the exercise of powers under Schedule 7".
That either means a third or fourth code. The next paragraph refers to,
and we also have codes A, B, D and E of the PACE codes. I heard the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, refer to PACE code G earlier this evening, so we have gone even further.
In other words, there are a number of codes already existing, some of them in conflict with each other. In the last paragraph of the letter, the Minister says:
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"It has been acknowledged by the Home Secretary that there are grounds for producing a separate code for those detained having been arrested under section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and has affirmed that one will be produced under section 66 of PACE"—
That made me anxious about the whole code regime. I was asked in the debate in Committee to be reassured by the assurance that the Police Federation was content with this and had said so; so I rang it up. Federation members said that they had been content with the discussion of PACE code C—which had just been concluded, and had gone through your Lordships' House the week before our debate—but they were not by any means content with what remained and proposed to write to the Home Secretary about it. I then started looking at what actually happens. I found the report of the independent Police Complaints Authority, which had conducted a survey to establish the basic facts about custody officer training in each force. Every police constable is supposed to know all these codes backwards in case he comes into a situation where they are relevant, but the person in the police station who is actually responsible for seeing that they are observed and that the detainee—guilty or otherwise—is protected by them, is the custody officer, who is normally a sergeant but I gather may now sometimes be a civilian. Let us see what the police are doing about this.
The survey revealed that, when asked when they gave training to custody officers, of the 43 police forces, only 20 said that they generally gave it before the custody officer took up his duties. Seven said always—making 27—13 said that they generally gave the training after the custody officer took up his duties and one said that it was always after taking up his duties. That gave me pause for thought.
Then I looked at the timing of the training. Of those surveyed, four said that it was five to 12 weeks after taking up training—that is 84 days which is nearly 90 days with a custody officer in charge of the people that we have been debating ourselves sick about for hours who does not know the rules. That cannot be satisfactory.
I do not claim that the amendment that I have tabled is in any way perfect, so I ask the Minister to spare herself the labour of pointing out how it would not work. It is designed to suggest the lines on which some remedial action could be taken in the form of a review. I suggested that that review would crucially involve people who had had experience of training policemen in the codes because they will know best what it is difficult to get across. It ought to include lawyers who had met the product of this system in the courts because they will know what the courts need to understand. It ought to include people from the police who had not been training custody officers, but had experience of custody officers; and to get the confidence of the various police quasi trade union organisations, they also ought to be involved. The Secretary of State ought to have the freedom to appoint somebody else, and one member, to stop it being too huge, should be able to satisfy more than one of those qualifications.
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I give those ideas to the Minister, but the principal thing I would ask her to take on board is that, from outside, the provision is looking rather disquietingly complicated. It is as if the system is not quite equal to coping with complications. Now is a very good time to put a body in to look through the system, report fairly quickly and then look again in a year or two's time. And while we are at it, since the Secretary of State is going to be devising yet another code of conduct, I have suggested that he might benefit from the advice by submitting it in draft to the committee. I beg to move.
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