| Courts Bill [Lords]
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Gareth Thomas: I am interested in the hon. Gentleman's point about blackmail. Would not importing the proposed requirement into the Bill be rather counter-productive? Would not the mischief to which he refers be more likely to happen in those circumstances? Mr. Hawkins: I thought about that point quite a lot when drafting the amendments. I wondered which scenario was better, and came down on the side of the argument that says that no one who has had a criminal conviction should be employed as a security guard. If that were clear in the Bill, the situation described should simply not arise. It is a judgment call, and that is the judgment that I came to. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will accept either amendment No. 29 or a variant of it whose wording may be more appropriate. Mr. Leslie: This important part of the Bill merits significant attention. The high level of responsibility attached to the role of court security officer makes recruitment of the right people and effective training essential. The employer, court users and the wider public must have confidence that an officer will use his or her powers and carry out his or her duties in a fair, efficient and responsible way. Effective training and appropriate personal qualities are essential in inspiring such trust. That is an element of the rationale of part 4 of the Bill. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath has spoken to a series of amendments. Clause 51 gives the Lord Chancellor the power to make provision, by regulations, as to training courses to be completed and conditions to be met before a person may be designated as a court security officer. Amendment No. 63 would change that power to a duty, and amendment No. 64 would require that any regulations included conditions as to good character. Amendment No. 29 would introduce a total prohibition on persons with any sort of criminal record being considered for appointment as court security officers. In many ways, amendment No. 63 seems quite similar to amendment No. 65 to clause 56. We shall reach that amendment at some point, but it could easily have been grouped with this one. The importance of publicly demonstrating that we are recruiting appropriate people to be court security officers is recognised. It is vital that we can reassure Column Number: 127 court users, the judiciary and staff that court security officers are suitably and sufficiently trained to enable them to use their powers lawfully and effectively. The Department intends to make appropriate provision by regulations in due course. Those will set out the areas covered by court security officer training and ensure that the conditions of service are considered suitable.I am concerned about the phrasing of the amendment that would turn the power to make regulations into a duty. It would replace the word ''may'' with ''shall''. Although we fully expect to make regulations on these matters, it would not be appropriate for the Bill to require us to do so. If we changed the word ''may'' to ''shall'', the Lord Chancellor would be required to make regulations covering everything in clause 51, but in reality there may be no need to make regulations on every one of those factors. For example, earlier today we debated clause 17(5), and I pointed out that no rules had been made under the equivalent of subsection (5)(c). If that power had been a duty, the Lord Chancellor would have been required to make regulations on that point. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome asked about the experience that justices of the peace would have to have had to entitle them to vote in elections. If the word ''shall'' had been used instead of the word ''may'' in clause 17(5), we would have been required to make regulations to that effect. That is one of the reasons why we have used the term ''may'' instead of ''shall'', because it gives us some discretion. Gareth Thomas: Is it not the case that, as a matter of good practice and good governance, the Government should not necessarily have a duty to make regulations? Does the Minister agree with me that it seems rather contradictory for the Conservatives, who so often complain about over-regulation, to require regulations to be made? It is not the first time during the Committee that they have made that sort of point. Mr. Leslie: My hon. Friend makes a legitimate point. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath was the first to acknowledge that this was what one might call a ''standard'' amendment to be tabled for the Committee stage of a Bill. Mr. Hawkins: I entirely take the Minister's point, and that of the hon. Member for Clwyd, West (Gareth Thomas). However, I made the point that, unlike the subsection of clause 17 to which the Minister referred, with this provision I could not envisage a situation in which a Lord Chancellor would not be making the regulations. We are discussing important issues, such as the conditions to be met before a person may be designated as a court security officer, and training courses for security officers, and so I assume that there will be regulations. That is why in this case, it would be more appropriate than in some other circumstances to use ''shall'' rather than ''may.'' Mr. Leslie: We have discussed that point, but I still err on the side of good drafting and of ensuring that Column Number: 128 our approach throughout the Bill is consistent—and I believe that the current drafting of the Bill is correct.Amendment No. 64 seeks to introduce the requirement that court security officers be of ''good character'', and to include that qualifier in the Bill. The role of a court security officer carries a high level of responsibility, and people would expect such officers to be of good character. We believe that it is inherent and implicit in the position that the person who is appointed will be of good character. We agree that when regulations are made setting out the conditions to be met before a person can be designated as a court security officer, conditions involving good character will rank as a high priority. It would therefore be superfluous to mention that particular condition in the Bill, when there might be many other equally important conditions concerning what would make a good court security officer, which could be contained in subsequent regulations. I believe that, given the difficulties of defining good character in the Bill, the amendment should be withdrawn. We believe amendment No. 29 to be undesirable from both a practical and a policy perspective. The reference to
would include spent convictions which, under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, cannot generally be taken into account when assessing suitability for employment, except for employment in a limited and specified number of occupations. Court security officers are not currently one of those exempted occupations. Mr. Hawkins: I rather anticipated that the Minister might say that. I therefore ask him to consider seriously, with his officials and his ministerial colleagues, whether that occupation should be one of those exceptions. I said in my initial remarks that we are all in favour of the rehabilitation of offenders. However, we are discussing the security of courts. If the amendment is not accepted or the employment category not changed, I do not want to see, in a few years' time, an escape that turns out to have been organised by a person who has been accepted for employment as a court security officer on the basis that their serious conviction had occurred a long time in the past. Mr. Leslie: One can never predict what will happen in the future, but in framing the legislation we must ensure that we strike the right balance. I believe that, given the strict limitations on the powers of court security officers contained in the Bill, and the vetting procedures that will apply, there is no reason for us to change the attitude that we have taken so far. However, I understand the basis on which the hon. Gentleman proposed the amendment. We appreciate the importance of ensuring that court security officers pass appropriate background security checks prior to appointment, and the hon. Gentleman has raised a significant issue. There are several methods of carrying out those background checks, and in the future the Department will aim to use the basic disclosure service offered by Column Number: 129 the Criminal Records Bureau. Once that is available, it will provide a criminal record check incorporating several levels of disclosure for different types of employment. In the meantime, the Department will carry out checks on all contractors and in-house security guards. All employees and contractors must be subject to the basic check, which will clarify the identity of the person concerned.The counter-terrorist check must be carried out for all first and second tier Crown courts. In practice, it is carried out on everyone. It includes both a criminal records check and verification with the security services. In addition, the two security companies that supply guards throughout the Court Service are affiliated to the British Security Industry Association, and they are required to complete a 10-year employment history for all employees, together with a formal declaration of criminal record. The current checks undertaken by the Department are therefore comprehensive and lawful. That will continue to be the case when the current procedures give way to the Criminal Records Bureau. There are thorough, comprehensive arrangements in place that strike the right balance, but keep within the scope of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. On that basis, I invite the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment. Mr. Hawkins: As I said, I am not at all happy with such an explanation. We shall definitely return to such matters on Report. I shall not take up the Committee's time by pressing the amendment to a Division, but the matter is crucial. We must bear in mind the recent history of problems with the Criminal Records Bureau. In an earlier debate, reference was made to matters that are checked in other countries. A few weeks ago, I was involved in a debate on the Criminal Records Bureau when it became clear that a lot of its work was being done in India by private sector contractors. Concerns were expressed about that. The history of the Criminal Records Bureau is one of the most embarrassing for the Government, and it continues to be so. I am not reassured by the Minister's words. I know that he is well-intentioned, but there is something serious involved and the interests of court security must be put ahead of the rehabilitation of offenders. I accept that he will talk to officials. It is exactly what I would expect of him, as I know him to be extremely diligent. I advise him to discuss the matter with the right hon. Member for Walsall, South and the people at the new Security Industry Authority to see whether he can table Government amendments on Report to toughen up the Bill. I stick to the view of those on the Conservative Benches. A criminal conviction ought to be an absolute bar, and I am not yet happy that we have the checks in place to prevent a potentially dangerous criminal from escaping from a court as a result of the fact that somebody who was not vetted thoroughly enough was employed as a security officer. We shall return to the issue, but I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Column Number: 130
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