Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)

My Lords, Amendment 422 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, has had a detailed introduction, and I would like to abbreviate my remarks as a result. The issue under consideration in that case was whether, in police disciplinary proceedings, a police officer could have a finding of misconduct against them if their use of force was found to be honest and mistaken but unreasonable. Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled that the appropriate test was the civil law test and that an honest but mistaken belief that the use of force is necessary is justification for that use of force only if the belief is objectively reasonable. Amendment 422 would place that judgment into statute. Regardless of the merits or otherwise of the Supreme Court’s ruling on whether the criminal or civil test should be applicable, I am not convinced that it needs to be codified into statute, because there now exists relevant case law at the highest level which can be applied by the IOPC and the courts in the future. It is not clear to me what benefit there would be in placing this into the regulations. I would like to concentrate my remarks on Amendment 423 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere, because I want to express my strong support for it. I believe firmly that we must support our armed police officers who regularly put themselves in danger. This amendment presents an opportunity to do that. It would create a defence to a charge of murder for authorised firearms officers who used lethal force in the honest but mistaken belief that such force was necessary and reasonable and convert a conviction for murder into manslaughter.