Lord Clement-Jones (LD)

My Lords, before I speak to the Motion, I thank the Minister for reminding us of the anniversary of the tragic death of Stephen Lawrence. I join him in his tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence, and join these Benches with his commitment to combating racism in all its forms. While I welcome the fact that the Government have acknowledged the widespread concern over how these powers are enforced, I must express my profound disappointment that they have chosen again to strip out a robust amendment passed by this House only last Thursday that would have implemented a strict statutory ban on fining for profit. The Government’s replacement amendment under Motion A is simply too weak, offering only that the Secretary of State must issue guidance. In recent days, the Minister—I thank him for his engagement—has sought to reassure me that this will be sufficient because the Home Office intends to draw directly on the recently published Defra statutory guidance on litter enforcement to update the anti-social behaviour guidance. Incorporating the language of the Defra guidance will not solve this problem. That Defra guidance states that “private firms should not be able to receive greater revenue or profits just from increasing the volume of penalties”. As Josie Appleton, the director of the Campaign for Freedom in Everyday Life—which has done so much to highlight the problems with the way in which fines are collected for PSPOs and CPNs—has rightly pointed out to me, relying on this guidance framework is fundamentally flawed. She has highlighted three crucial points that explain why primary legislation is vastly preferable. First, if the Government genuinely intend to do as they say and stop this cowboy practice, they should have absolutely nothing to fear from passing my amendment in primary legislation. Secondly, she rightly asks whether the Government are actually going to ban payment per fine and the use of tacit or explicit targets or whether they will simply fudge the issue with fine words about proportionality. The Defra guidance relies on the permissive word “should”, rather than a legally binding “must”, leaving the door wide open for these lucrative contracts to continue. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, what is the enforcement mechanism for this guidance? As Ms Appleton asks, would somebody be able to appeal an FPN—a fixed penalty notice—on the basis that it was issued under payment-per-fine arrangements? The answer is no. To mean something, the law needs to have teeth. Guidance is not strictly legally binding; local authorities and private agencies simply have a duty to have regard to it. We cannot regulate a multi-million pound industry built on aggressive, incentivised ticketing by politely suggesting what it should do in non-binding guidance. The scale of this issue is immense. The surge in penalties is overwhelmingly driven by the 31 councils that employ private companies, which issued a staggering 75.7% of all PSPO penalties last year. With the Government pushing ahead to increase the maximum fine for these breaches by 400% from £100 to £500, this industry is about to be supercharged. We cannot allow a system that financially incentivises the punishment of our citizens to masquerade as justice. That is why I hope the House will fully support Motion A1 today. Motion A1 puts the necessary teeth into the Government’s proposals. It would ensure that the guidance must explicitly set out how authorised persons “can be disincentivised from issuing fixed penalty notices for the purpose of generating any direct or indirect financial benefit”. Crucially, it would provide a real enforcement mechanism by stating in the Bill: “Any person found to be in breach of this guidance … may have their designation revoked by the relevant local authority”. If we are to rely on guidance-based frameworks, its prohibition on financial incentives must be explicit and there must be statutory consequences for breaching that. I urge the House to support Motion A1. I beg to move.