Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-11-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Roger Thomas (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, on the evidence I see great merit in these amendments. Our history of criminal law shows that the state has always gone to considerable lengths to protect those who assist it in the detection of crime. The prosecution service and judiciary have ensured that that works. I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, said a few moments ago—that the system works well. My experience from a different perspective is that is so The question for this House is what is wrong with the current law and why it needs to be changed, because it has worked well. [Inaudible.] Of course, if one is going to a system where the authorisation authorises the commission of a crime, it is very important that we know how precisely that authorisation will be drafted. Precision was unnecessary under the present law, but it will be in future, bearing in mind the civil and criminal immunity that it grants. Therefore, I asked whether I could be shown examples of what it was intended to do. I wanted that in particular in areas of substantial difficulty relating to drugs and youth gangs, and I ran into a difficulty I understand the position of the officers with whom the noble Baroness put me in touch, who take the view, with which I profoundly disagree, that providing examples, even hypothetical ones, might endanger future operations of the police. That presents us with a difficulty, because we can neither look at what is wrong with the current system nor properly examine the future system Of course, we could take matters on trust, but I would be very reluctant to do so. I do not wish in any way to cast any doubt on the good faith, hard work or enormous risks that people take, but errors of judgment and maybe more have been traversed in the past. I need not set out the details of those, although I will if necessary at a later stage in Committee Therefore, I have given some thought to how the House deals with a very difficult problem—being satisfied that changes are needed and that the changes will work better. I ran into that insuperable problem on evidence only yesterday and so have not had the opportunity to discuss this more widely with the Minister. But under Standing Order 8.118, a public Bill can be committed to a committee, either in its entirety or in an issue, so that the committee can examine the Bill. This happens rarely; it happened with the Constitutional Reform Act, which is why I happen to know of this process. I have also inquired whether such a committee could take evidence in private, and it can; it can operate without transcripts being taken and, of course, what it publishes will be private. We can see whether this is necessary in the course of examining the Bill, but we ought not to make changes to the law and impose a new regime without proper evidence—and that is the responsibility of the legislature What we should consider, which I do not want to propose now but want to raise as an idea, is that at the conclusion of the Committee it may well be desirable, because the evidence cannot be given in public, for a small committee of the House, which can look at the matter, representing all the different interests, to take evidence and report. Immediate objection would be made that it is very difficult to report, but I do not agree. There was a case that concerned a real threat to life, with which I was involved, known as WV. We were able to report in detail the circumstances of that case without in any way compromising the life of the person involved. There are techniques for doing that I hope that the Minister will either come to a view that more evidence can be provided openly or, if that is not possible, consider the alternative of having a committee that can look at this and report to the House that, for reasons that cannot be set out, there are deficiencies in the law, and the new system will work well. At the moment, I regret to say that I cannot see this change to the law being necessary, and I foresee tremendous difficulties with going to the new system, particularly bearing in mind the way in which the police have discharged so badly in many cases the crafting of search warrants. That can obviously be put right, but commission of crimes cannot.