The noble Lord, Lord Young, is very persuasive, and he is right. My noble friends Lord Paddick and Lady Doocey and I have Amendment 52 in this group, and I have also put my name to Amendment 60, because if the outcome of the debates is to restrict but not prohibit the authorisation of under-18s and vulnerable people to commit criminal conduct, then Amendment 60 is the amendment that deals with both groups—I do not really like the term “groups”; they are individuals, but noble Lords will understand what I mean.
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Our amendment provides that there should be no authorisation of someone under the age of 18, victims of slavery and other egregious exploitation—we have used the words in the Modern Slavery Act, essentially—someone unable to give informed consent, or someone likely to be adversely affected by the experience. Those categories may overlap.
I emphasise what I have said before: I cannot envisage how acting as a CHIS, let alone being expected to carry out what is, in other circumstances, technically a crime, can be in a child’s best interests—a point well made by the noble Lord. The more I have learned, including about safeguarding, the more this feels like grooming. Your Lordships have had plenty to say about that in another context. Among other things, it is criminal.
Here we are dealing with criminal conduct authorisations when the object of the conduct is not only, for instance, an organised crime member, but also, in a sense, the subject himself or herself. If noble Lords accept, as I do, that a 16 or 17 year-old is a child and still developing, we have to wonder about the effect on the child’s development. What will the effect be on their neurological development—as I understand it, not being an expert—and emotional development in this situation? It concerns more than well-being, but certainly it is about well-being.
Our amendment includes victims of slavery and other extreme, egregious treatment. They are quite likely to suffer further long-term damage on top of what they have already experienced. Someone who has very recently been treated as a slave, or otherwise exploited, is very likely to be further traumatised, and I doubt they would be able to give informed consent.
I am concerned that neither my amendment nor Amendment 60 adequately cover this situation. There must be a positive obligation on the relevant investigating public authority to consider whether the CHIS who, in the context of the Bill, is prospectively given an authorisation may himself be a victim. That should be in RIPA itself, as the noble Lord said, but we cannot do anything about that here.
We know that there have been instances of victims being prosecuted for working, for instance, in cannabis factories—and I mean prosecution of victims, because they are seen as offenders, not victims. The logic of this should be an absolute bar on their use. If it is not absolute, there should be very careful consideration of who is entitled to breach that bar and give authorisation, and what the processes should be.
My noble friend Lady Doocey will speak to proposed new subsection (8B) in our amendment, but in brief, if an authority is in a position to grant an authorisation it should make the assessment of the CHIS with regard to the issues to which I have alluded. If concerned, it must, with the person’s consent—consent is important —refer them to the national referral mechanism.