My Lords, in moving this amendment I must first declare interests as a former chair of the Security Industry Authority, and as a current adviser to the British Security Industry Association and a Scottish private security company.
At this stage these are probing amendments to try to find out to what extent the Government are retreating from their commitments to the private security industry, first made three years ago by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, in this House, and again last autumn by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, at a Security Industry Authority conference, when he pledged that the Government would introduce business licensing of companies in the private security sector along with individual registration by the end of this calendar year—which is to say, in the next three weeks. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, also promised appropriate enforcement powers to back up the new arrangements.
We are in quite a novel situation. An industry is begging the Government to regulate its businesses with a range of proportionate penalties for non-compliance, and despite the promises and the Home Office consultation, which shows that the great majority of representative bodies and companies support that, nothing is happening. How strange, then, that in other arenas the Government are rushing to regulate: trade union activity, to give one example.
In the context of these amendments I must spell out why business licensing of private security companies that work alongside the police and of those that carry out extradition escort duties is so necessary and so important. It is because we need to continue to drive up standards across the industry. That started with individual licensing, which was introduced 10 years ago but which must continue, to protect the public and to win both their confidence and that of the strategic partners with whom private security companies work, such as the Government and the police.
We also need to tackle the continuing influence of organised crime gangs in this important sector and to focus regulation on companies while reducing the burden on individuals. The public need to be able to hold companies to account for failures and wrongdoing, not just individuals. Thus far, the Government have proposed only secondary legislation to introduce a form of mandatory approvals for businesses under existing legislation. They have not, they told industry representatives, identified the opportunity for the necessary primary legislation. Given the wide-ranging nature of this Bill, I am surprised that it has not proved possible to insert into it somewhere along the line business licensing for private security companies.
The need for primary legislation is urgent; the benefits that the change would bring are significant for legitimate businesses and for public safety. Furthermore, the uncertainty created by the failure to bring forward this legislation is having an adverse impact on businesses and industry leaders, because they have to cope with continuing lack of information as to how their industry will be regulated, if and when changes will be made, and how much it will cost. My amendments at this stage seek to ensure that companies working alongside the police, and those involved in extradition escorting must be regulated by the Security Industry Authority. My objective is to ensure that all businesses providing security services in the areas covered by the Private Security Industry Act are licensed and that there are powers available to the regulator to allow effective and proportionate enforcement of the regime.
The question that I want to put to the Minister and the coalition Government is this. Are you still intending to carry through the changes you promised in 2011 and said were so urgent that they had to be implemented by the end of this year, or have you decided to abandon them? If the latter is the case, can you please tell the industry and the regulator, so that we can decide how to respond? If you are still going ahead, please could you come back at Report with some appropriate amendments? If you are not able to do that, I and colleagues will be happy to draft some new clauses for you to adopt. But please make up your minds on this issue, which is very important, not just for the industry but for public protection. I beg to move.