Terrorism Act 2000 (Video Recording with Sound of Interviews and Associated Code of Practice) (Northern Ireland) Order 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-07-10
Topic: Law and Crime
James Younger (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, this order puts into practice a revised code of practice governing the recording with sound of interviews of persons detained at a police station in Northern Ireland under Section 41 of, or Schedule 7 to, the Terrorism Act 2000. A copy of the draft revised code of practice was laid before Parliament on 8 June 2020 The purpose of this code of practice is to provide protection to both the person being interviewed and the officers conducting the interview. I start by thanking the Police Service of Northern Ireland for the vital work that it carries out on a daily basis to keep communities across Northern Ireland safe. The threat level from Northern Ireland-related terrorism remains "severe". Despite this, ongoing work by police and MI5 means that most people in Northern Ireland are not directly affected by the "severe" terrorist threat However, I assure noble Lords that these proposed revisions will not change the way interviews are conducted in any way and, instead, relate to how interviews are recorded and how the recordings are stored. The changes will allow the Police Service of Northern Ireland to start using digital recording technology in line with the practice commonly adopted in England, Wales and Scotland. The changes to this code of practice will impact how the interviews are recorded and how the recordings are stored. They will apply only to interviews that take place after the updated code of practice has been brought into force. I will now outline the main revisions First, the code has been amended to allow the Police Service of Northern Ireland to use modern digital recording technology. Your Lordships may not believe it, but the current Police Service of Northern Ireland recording capability for Terrorism Act interviews is by cassette tape, a now rather archaic method which emerged back in the 1960s. It is an understatement to say that this equipment is difficult to source due to the rise of digital technology, and that is why it is important to maximise this opportunity to allow updated recording media or a secure digital network to be used instead, thereby bringing Northern Ireland into line with technology used in the rest of the UK. It is worth noting that the Police Service of Northern Ireland already possesses the necessary technology and utilises it for other, non-Terrorism Act, interviews The order had a smooth passage in the other place last week and, to allay any concerns about secure storage, the Minister provided assurance that section 1.8(b) of the updated code confirms that recordings will be stored on a secure file server which is accredited by the national accreditor for police information systems, in accordance with the UK Government security classification policy The safe storage of these interviews is enabled through both a hardware and software-based solution rather than being IT Cloud-based. Through this new technology, interviews could be conducted on either fixed or portable interview recording devices—for example, a laptop—then uploaded and stored in a central system. This central system is protected and managed through a partnership of Police Service Northern Ireland’s internal security team and a specialist third party. The second revision I will outline for your Lordships is that the code of practice has been amended to closely shadow the equivalent code of practice for Great Britain. While this means some changes to language and format, the purpose and key content of the code remain the same. It is worth noting that the draft code does not exactly replicate the code in Great Britain, reflecting the devolution of policing and justice functions in Northern Ireland and consequent differences in approach adopted in different jurisdictions I draw noble Lords’ attention to the fact that the code for Great Britain, for example, contains references to post-charge questioning provisions as set out in the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, but this proposed code does not. This is because the 2008 Act stipulates that, before its provisions on post-charge questioning can be commenced, police and criminal evidence—PACE—codes must be amended to reflect how post-charge questioning should be dealt with and recorded. While the Home Office amended the PACE codes for Great Britain in 2012, in Northern Ireland this function falls to the devolved Northern Ireland Department of Justice. To date, this has not been done and it has therefore not been possible to commence post-charge questioning provisions under the Terrorism Act I reassure noble Lords across the House that the Government ran a 12-week public consultation on the proposed amendments to the code of practice. This consultation engaged local politicians, the judiciary, eminent legal and security bodies and academia. It may be indicative of the non-contentious, minor and technical nature of these amendments that the majority of those engaged in consultation were rather silent. We received six responses, all of which were supportive. Three of those respondents suggested other minor amendments to the code; these were duly considered, and most were accepted. The full details of these suggestions were published in our consultation response document, which some noble Lords may have read One of the respondees was the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which suggested adding remote monitoring to the code. Remote monitoring is routinely used in the Serious Crime Suite in Musgrave Police Station in Northern Ireland. Remote monitoring uses technology to enable the senior investigating officer, interview co-ordinator or any other person who has justification, to monitor the interview process from another room. As remote monitoring is routinely used in Terrorism Act interviews, the PSNI recommended including it in the code of practice I hope that noble Lords will agree that, while these revisions are technical and minor, they are important. They align the code of practice used in Northern Ireland with the code used in the rest of the UK, they allow the Police Service of Northern Ireland to utilise digital recording technology in terrorism interviews, and they future-proof the code. Accordingly, I beg to move.