Member

I reflect that this is my 30th year of engagement in criminal justice policy. In January 1996, I entered the Home Office as a young lawyer. Subsequently, I was at the National Council for Civil Liberties, and for the last nine and a bit years I have been in your Lordships’ House. In every one of those years, there has been at least one criminal justice measure—sometimes more than one—to increase police power, year on year, whether it be stop and search powers, anti-terror powers, public order powers and so on. We continue to debate all those, and the same is true of the Bill before this Committee. Very rarely in those three decades have I seen equivalent measures aimed at constraining police power, or indeed at attempting to renew and rebuild vital public confidence when things go wrong. These probing amendments are here to provide a little balance and to remind the Committee that public confidence in policing is not where it needs to be.