My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 57 to 64. It is important to consider the backdrop here. Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 is a highly intrusive police stopping power and it operates outside the normal regulatory framework that covers other police powers of stop and search.
Under Schedule 7, individuals are stopped and they are not under arrest but they are examined for up to nine hours, under the current arrangements, where they can be questioned, searched and have their belongings searched; they can be strip-searched; and they can have samples of their biometric data, including their DNA and fingerprints, taken from them, regardless of the outcome of the encounter and in the absence of a lawyer. People are stopped under it and are obliged to
co-operate or face arrest, a period of imprisonment or a fine for any refusal. In addition, there is no right to compensation or assistance in rearranging any flights or other transportation that they might have missed as a result of this examination or detention. It is important to see just how extraordinary these powers are.
Recent research has shown that in 2011-12—the examination of this material has only just been encapsulated in a report—63,902 stops were carried out under Schedule 7. Of these, 2,240 lasted more than an hour and 680, which is less than 1%, resulted in a detention. Although no information has been provided on the number of people convicted, and on what charges, there were just 10 terrorism-related convictions between 2009 and 2012. I have been involved in most of the cases and can tell you that none was as a result of a stop at an airport or any port. We have no convictions based on these stops.
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Black and minority ethnic groups make up the majority of those subject to the stops—some 56%—even though they account for approximately 14% of the national population. Asians accounted for 27% of Schedule 7 stops but are only 7.5% of the national population. Blacks accounted for 8% of stops but they are only 3.3% of the population. People from mixed backgrounds accounted for 3% of stops but are only 2.2% of the population. People from other ethnic groups, including Chinese and other, accounted for 18% of stops, although they are only 1% of the population.
The targeting of black and minority ethnic groups continues to be even more marked when we consider the most intensive Schedule 7 stops. It appears that shorter stops are made, basically, of white people. The people who are detained for any length of time almost invariably are from ethnic minority groups. Of those stops that lasted for more than an hour, 36% were of Asians, 14% were of blacks, 3% were of people from mixed backgrounds and 24% were of people from other backgrounds. Fewer than 12% of stops that lasted more than an hour were of white people. Therefore, when a police officer says, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, mentioned, that this is interfering with the fostering of good relations, we can understand why.
Politicians in this House and in the other place have raised concerns, as have civic groups and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Indeed, the United Nations Human Rights Committee has expressed grave concerns over the use of counterterrorism measures in this country and was particularly concerned over what it judged to be religious and ethnic profiling in the use of these powers. It should concern us as a House that this is the perception.
David Anderson QC—the terrorism watchdog if you like—said:
“I have not been able to identify from the police any case of a Schedule 7 examination leading directly to arrest followed by conviction in which the initial stop was not prompted by intelligence of some kind”.
He is basically saying that when the police make stops that go on to lead to further investigation it is invariably because there has been a reasonable suspicion. Yet,
reasonable suspicion is not what is required. The police can stop people without any reasonable suspicion at all. Despite this, official statistics on the use of this power illustrate that it has not been used in an intelligence-led approach and that people from ethnic minority backgrounds are more likely to be subjected to the more extreme aspects of the power, particularly people from Asian backgrounds. That is the basis on which I bring these amendments to this legislation.
I know, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, that a number of groups are calling for a reduction of the maximum period of detention to one hour. However, I am not taking it down as low as that. In my amendments I am suggesting that going down to six hours, as the Government have promoted in this Bill, is an advance and to be welcomed, but it should be much lower than that. I am suggesting that we should take the moderate course and reduce it to three hours, at which point the person should either be released or arrested. It is worth noting that 97.2% of examinations take less than an hour, so if we give the police, or those who are involved in exercising these powers, the additional couple of hours that I suggest in my amendments, we will give the authorities as much practical power as they need.
I turn to the issue of the power to take non-intimate biometric data, including DNA and fingerprints. I suggest that that should be repealed in the light of the huge concern about its impact. The Government have already said that they will repeal intimate samples being taken, but I am asking that that be extended to non-intimate samples.
Most of the community, legal, academic and equality groups are calling for a much greater awareness among officers of the way in which special powers should be used and that there should be better training. Advice and assistance should be provided to people who miss their flights, and so on. The kernel of the amendments is that the minimum threshold of suspicion should be reasonable suspicion. It should be on that basis that any individual is stopped. Otherwise, it is impossible to have any independent scrutiny of the exercise of those intrusive powers. We cannot test the use of the powers if someone says, “It was my sense of smell. It was my policeman’s nose that told me that I should stop this person”. That is not good enough.
The independent reviewer suggested that there might be some test of subjective suspicion, but that cannot be a test that could be scrutinised in any acceptable or sensible way. The PACE code, which governs other stop powers, should be extended to cover stop and searches conducted under Schedule 7, and Schedule 7 stops should be monitored under the same framework as all the stop and search powers that we currently have, and data should be shared with community and monitoring groups.
That is the basis on which I have put forward my amendments, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to those recommendations to the House.