POWERS TO REQUIRE REMOVAL OF DISGUISES: GREAT BRITAIN (Hansard, 26 November 2001)

§ Andrew Bennett (Denton and Reddish)
I beg to move amendment No. 124, in page 53, line 31, leave out lines 31 to 33 and insert— '(a) incidents involving serious violence may take place in any locality in his area, and'. Clause 93 provides powers for the police to demand the removal of items of clothing which officers believe are designed to conceal identity [Interruption.]

The First Deputy Chairman
Order. The hon. Gentleman is moving an amendment.

§ Andrew Bennett
How often does the Minister expect this power to be exercised? What does she expect to be 756 covered by the requirement for someone to remove something that could be considered a disguise and by the power of the police to hang on to that item?
I assume that the provisions cover clothing, but what about fancy dress, for example? Many people involved in demonstrations, wanting to make a political point, put on various disguises. Can the police require those to be removed? What about wigs? Do the provisions cover religious dress?
The amendment would ensure that if the Government want to take these draconian powers, there should be evidence that serious violence, not merely an offence, is likely to occur. There is a good chance that some offence will be committed during a demonstration, but it is unlikely to be sufficiently serious for a police officer to demand the removal of a disguise or fancy dress.
The Minister must explain to the House in what circumstances and to what degree the powers will be used. The safeguard should be that it will be used only in circumstances in which the person authorising the exercise of the power expects serious violence to occur. We must remember that the powers will be exercised on any occasion by an individual police officer, and most people accept that some police officers are not always as sensitive as they might be.

§ Norman Baker
I share some of the concerns which have been raised by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Bennett). I am surprised at the Government pursuing this line, as they already have powers, under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, regarding the removal of disguises or face coverings. A senior officer can authorise the removal of coverings where he or she reasonably believes that incidences involving serious violence may take place in a locality. That seems a reasonable provision, and to extend it as the Bill suggests is somewhat worrying. There are already measures to deal with serious violence, and that is what terrorism and terrorist attacks are. However, as we have already seen, the Bill has been hijacked in order to bring in a whole range of powers that have nothing in particular to do with terrorism. The clause seems to be one of them.
9.15 pm
Face masks can already be removed in cases of serious violence. The Minister seeks to extend that provision to less serious offences, and to enable its authorisation by police officers of a more junior rank.
Although the Minister does not much like the Human Rights Committee, I draw her attention to its comments because they are valid. The Committee notes: The provisions risk being seen as authorizing an unreasonable and disproportionate interference with their dignity, their right to respect for private life under Article 8 of the ECHR. The Committee was drawing attention to people who might have a reason for wearing a face covering, for example, Muslim women.
We are happy for Muslim women voluntarily to remove what the Minister might describe as their "disguises"; indeed, we might celebrate that, but it is a different matter to be required to remove them.

§ Caroline Flint
In my speech on Second Reading, I mentioned that in several countries—Qatar, for 757 example—women are asked to remove their face covering when they want to take part in an election. It is not unusual in cultures where face coverings are worn to ask for the removal of the veil for the specific purpose of identification, as long as that is done sensitively and by a female.

§ Norman Baker
With respect, if we are taking lessons in human rights and civil liberties from states in the middle east, we need to be rather careful. We should base our system on what we believe correct—a tradition of civil liberties established over many hundreds of years. With due respect to Qatar—a country with which I am not familiar—the importation of its powers on human rights and civil liberties should be considered with some trepidation.

§ Ms Abbott
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a difference between the removal of a person's face covering by someone of the same culture, as part of the performance of their civic duty, and its forcible removal in a heated atmosphere, because the wearer is suspected of a crime, by someone who is likely to be from a different culture?

§ Norman Baker
I am extremely grateful for that accurate intervention. In one case, the removal of the face covering is voluntary and in the other it is required. We need to make that point to the Minister.
The Human Rights Committee stated: We consider that the measures relating to the powers of police to remove face coverings should be subjected to the most careful scrutiny on human rights grounds". Again, the Committee expresses some trepidation, but the Minister appears to want to wash it away as irrelevant.
The Minister must be careful when she dismisses comments from both sides of the House, from various Committees and from bodies outside. If there is a problem as regards face coverings, I suggest that it is not a terrorist problem—it relates to police powers. It might have more to do with hunt saboteurs, and we should not be dealing with hunt saboteurs in a Bill such as this.

§ Jeremy Corbyn
I shall be brief as, unfortunately, we have much to discuss this evening.
When the Minister replies to the debate, will she tell us exactly how she defines the disguise that has to be removed? The word "disguise" can mean many things: for example, do beards and facial hair constitute a form of disguise? In the current anti-Taliban atmosphere, would my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Bennett) and I be hauled into a police station for someone to set about us with a razor—[HON. MEMBERS: "Yes!"] Now we see the Committee's love of liberty.

§ David Winnick
My hon. Friend's beard is not long enough.

§ Jeremy Corbyn
Indeed; I should not be accused of being Taliban. However, we obviously need some definition. A situation might arise in which an unimaginative police officer—perish the thought that such a person should exist—decided that all bearded men were 758 in disguise and should thus have their beards shaved off so that they could be checked. My hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish put the following point to me earlier: what if a person was wearing a bandage for genuine medical reasons, but the arresting officer decided that it was in fact a disguise?
I could go on and on, giving examples in which the fevered atmosphere of people being stopped and told to remove their disguises could set off an extremely unpleasant chain of events. Many hon. Members, certainly those of us on the Government Benches, will have taken part in demonstrations of various sorts over the years, and know that a carnival atmosphere sometimes surrounds them. What happens then if someone says, "Hang on, you're wearing a disguise"?
On one occasion, during a demonstration outside the British Aerospace annual meeting, a gentleman who looked for all the world like General Pinochet was standing with the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, but then crossed the road to take part in the annual meeting. The officials who were organising the meeting thought that he was an important military gentleman and promptly opened the doors, ushered him in and offered him a seat on the front row, assuming that someone like General Pinochet would probably spend a lot of money at British Aerospace. In fact, he was a valuable part of the demonstration: he got it on the front page of a lot of newspapers. Is that the sort of person who would be arrested and told to remove that disguise?
Under existing legislation, the police can require the removal of a disguise only if they think that violence has been committed. The proposal will give far too much unfettered power to the police, and the Human Rights Committee has suggested that it should be reconsidered. Because of the results of the last Division, which I regret, the power to take fingerprints will be widely available to the police, so why on earth will they need to go to the lengths of arguing about the removal of disguises with people who would become hostile to what the police are trying to achieve?

§ Ms Abbott
I am listening with rapt attention to my hon. Friend's usual lucid and incisive contribution. Does he agree that the proposal is yet another that gives this rag bag of a Bill every appearance of being the outcome of Home Office officials having cleared their in-trays of every draconian and authoritarian measure that they can think of and ramming them through the House under the pretext of a national emergency?

§ Jeremy Corbyn
I agree with most of what my hon. Friend says, but this is not just a matter of Home Office officials' in-trays; rather, it is as if a storeroom of Bills has been festering for a long time and someone has had the bright idea of pushing them through, given the opportunity—and this is the opportunity. After the declaration of some sort of state of national emergency, the Bill has been drafted to introduce very draconian legislation—

The First Deputy Chairman
Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will now return to addressing his remarks to the amendment.

§ Jeremy Corbyn
In disguise, the Government were trying to introduce such legislation. I ask the Minister to 759 remove the disguise from the Bill by removing the clause and thinking about it a bit more. She should think about how it might work on the ground and about the problems that it might cause if people refuse to co-operate with the police because they feel that their requests are totally unreasonable. During some sort of carnival atmosphere, a policeman might come along and say, "Take that mask off" for whatever reason, and we might end up with a worse situation, rather than a better one.

§ Annabelle Ewing
These provisions will not apply to Scotland if Government amendments Nos. 63, 64 and 67 are agreed tonight. I sincerely hope that those amendments are passed because, as a Scottish National party Westminster MP, I believe that the best place to consider legislative changes to Scots law is in the Scots Parliament. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I thank hon. Members on both sides of the House for their support. I was somewhat surprised that those amendments seem to have been tabled at the eleventh hour, so I wonder what consultations have taken place with the appropriate Scottish Ministers in preparing the Bill.

§ Mr. Dalyell
Am I wrong in thinking that there has been an agreement by the Scottish Executive, endorsed by the Scottish Parliament, that they would go along with what Westminster decided in these matters?

§ Annabelle Ewing
The hon. Gentleman is correct to say that the Scottish Parliament passed a so-called Sewel motion, introduced by the Scottish Executive on 15 November. Under hat motion, most of the responsibility for considering huge swathes of important changes to Scots law, including Scots criminal law, was passed to Westminster, but, in fact, on this matter, an eleventh-hour agreement seems to have been reached with the United Kingdom Government to proceed in the way that I have described.
On the substance of the issue, it seems from reading the report of the debate in the Scots Parliament that the Scottish Executive were swayed by the lukewarm reaction of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland. If, because of the practical difficulties, the association managed to convince the Scottish Executive to reclaim jurisdiction over the matter in the Scots Parliament, what was the reaction of equivalent bodies elsewhere in the UK?

§ Beverley Hughes
From the comments of hon. Members and the way the views of the Human Rights Committee were cited, there seems to be some confusion about what clause 93 will do.
I realise that some hon. Members understand this point, but the clause will not introduce the powers; it will simply alter the threshold in the existing law as to the circumstances in which the police can invoke them. At the moment, under section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, as amended by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, an inspector can authorise officers to stop and search in a particular defined locality when officers reasonably believe that incidents involving serious violence might take place or that people are carrying dangerous instruments or offensive weapons. That initial authorisation will last for 24 hours, with an extension possible for a further 24 hours.
760 Section 60(4A) of the 1994 Act gives the police powers to require the removal of face coverings that an officer reasonably believes are worn for the purpose of concealing identity. The officer can also seize any of the items involved.
Clause 93 will amend the face-coverings powers only so that authorisation can be given when an inspector reasonably believes that activities may take place in a particular area that are likely to involve the commission of offences. It will not introduce the powers that some hon. Members are concerned about; it will lower the threshold for situations in which the police can invoke the powers.

§ Norman Baker
I accept that the clause will lower the threshold, and I hope that I made that clear in my comments. However, why will it lower the threshold to take in what will be lesser crimes?

§ Beverley Hughes
It will lower the threshold because the police believe that the tactic of wearing face coverings has become increasingly widespread during all kinds of events that could lead to public disorder. The circumstances in which the police believe that they may be able to predict serious violence are also much wider than that. Furthermore, the circumstances in which people use the tactic of wearing face coverings to hide their identity and want to use the camouflage that a big public event might give them as a vehicle for terrorist activities are much wider than was hitherto thought to be the case.

§ Ms Abbott
rose—

§ Beverley Hughes
I shall give way in a moment, but I want to pursue the point.
A police officer must believe that a person is wearing face coverings of one kind or another to disguise his or her identity before the item that is covering the face can be removed. After I have taken the intervention, I shall come to some of the concerns expressed by hon. Members about religious dress.

§ Ms Abbott
My hon. Friend read carefully from her brief that face coverings were becoming more prevalent. In Hackney we are on the cutting edge of such matters. We have marches—for example, by the PKK, the Socialist Workers party and Jewish ex-service men—that could turn to public disorder on any day of the week. I have not seen an increased prevalence of face coverings on demonstrations on the streets of Hackney. Perhaps the Minister could raise her head from the brief and cite examples of the greater prevalence of face coverings on marches and demonstrations.

§ Beverley Hughes
My hon. Friend is the master of the patronising remark, but it is no substitute for a good debating point. I am afraid she lost it there. As a matter of interest, I was not reading from my brief; those were my own words—not that she will be interested in that.
I understand the concern expressed by hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Bennett) who tabled the amendment, about the items that can be removed. The clause makes it 761 clear that the item has to be removable. Someone's hair, including facial hair, is clearly not something that the police can ask to be removed.
On a more serious note, concerns about religious dress are covered in depth in the extracts from the guidance for PACE that determine how officers will execute the power.

§ Ms Abbott
On a point of order, Mrs. Heal. I asked the Minister to give concrete examples of the increased use of face coverings, but she moved on without replying. Is that in order?

The First Deputy Chairman
That is not a point of order; it is a matter for debate.

§ Beverley Hughes
I will deal with that point in a moment.
The guidance for PACE sets out the relevant circumstances in detail. It gives the example of a Muslim woman who wears a face covering for religious purposes. It makes it clear that wearing an item as a normal part of religious or cultural dress would not of itself satisfy the requirement that the officer must believe that the person is wearing the item wholly or mainly to conceal his or her identity. It would not be open to a police officer to remove a veil or face covering if someone is concealing their face in the dress that is associated with their culture. To do that, the officer would also have to believe that the person was trying to disguise their identity.

§ Norman Baker
The police officer might conclude that someone is wearing a piece of religious headgear to persuade the police that it is such an item. The officer might then have to offend someone. It is the same point as the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) made about the band that wraps around the head. How will a police officer know the difference in those circumstances and what safeguards are in place to ensure that mistakes do not occur?

§ Beverley Hughes
I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman has so little faith in police officers that he thinks they would exercise the power crudely, without taking into account the issues that they must consider when making a judgment that could be tested in court if it is thought that it has been used wrongly.

§ Jeremy Corbyn
The Minister referred to violence that could be predicted in the future. Under existing legislation, if there has been a violent incident—a bank robbery, a shooting, a bomb or whatever—it is reasonable for the police to want to question anybody and everybody who was near it. That would be acceptable, but my hon. Friend seems to be extending that power a little in that the police have only to say that they think it would be useful, because of any potential incident, to be able to require the removal of any covering.

§ Beverley Hughes
I shall explain to hon. Members, as my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish requested, the circumstances in which the power will be used and how many times the existing power, with its threshold of serious violence, has been used. During the 762 May day demonstrations, central London was designated an area where face masks could be seized. That gives hon. Members an idea of the judgment that the police are using in these circumstances. They are considering an event that will take place in a specific location which could be used not only to indulge in violent behaviour but to commit many other offences. It would clearly be open to people whose motives were associated with terrorism or serious crime to use the camouflage of a large public event to perpetrate certain acts.

§ Caroline Flint
We are very fortunate in this country that people are able to go on public demonstrations and make their views known. In all the campaigns and demonstrations in which I have taken part I have never felt the need to hide my identity. Does my hon. Friend agree, however, that people could use the privilege of being allowed to demonstrate near the House of Commons, the Ministry of Defence and secure institutions in the City of London to undertake surveillance and intelligence gathering using cameras and binoculars? If people are doing so, and using a disguise for their activities, it is reasonable to ask what they are doing and why they think a disguise is so important.

§ Beverley Hughes
My hon. Friend makes an important point, and in lowering the threshold the clause aims to give the police discretion in judging the events, locations and circumstances in which they feel they need to be able to ask people to remove their disguise so that their identity can be known. It is not unreasonable that the police should have that power.

§ Andrew Bennett
My hon. Friend gave us one example—the May day demonstrations in London. On how many other occasions did the police designate areas where masks could be removed? How often was the power used by individual constables during the May day demonstrations?

§ Beverley Hughes
I do not have the information to answer the second question. As far as I am aware, there has been one other circumstance in which the power to remove face masks was applied.
Clearly, the police are not using that power frequently. They are using it when they judge that an event may be used by people with serious intent in relation to terrorist activities. It is important that the police have the power to ask people to remove their disguise when they believe that the covering is specifically to disguise identity. The clause uses the word "item", which means something that is removable, and does not refer to religious codes, to hair or to anything that does not completely obscure the face. For example, a red nose or a funny hat would not come within the purview of the clause. However, when someone covers their face and their identity is not visible, it is reasonable to allow the police to invoke that power.

§ Mr. Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield)
The Minister said that a red nose or a funny hat would not come into that category. Surely, however, under the current wording of the clause, anything that concealed identity, making it difficult for the police officer t identify someone, would have to be removed. Is not the Minister mistaken?

§ Beverley Hughes
Ultimately, that would be for the courts to decide, if there was a challenge. My point is that 763 the police must use their judgment in exercising the power and must be held to account for it. If somebody was wearing something on their nose that obliterated most of their face, clearly they could be said to be concealing their identity. If they had a tiny red nose on the end of their own nose, it would not conceal their identity. We expect the police to be able to exercise their judgment.

§ Mr. Gerald Howarth
I was tempted to suggest that the proprietor of Harrods might seek to disguise himself as Father Christmas to avoid deportation. However, I wish to make a serious point in response to the important remarks of the hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint). She gave an example in which the police might have to deal with someone in disguise, possibly religious. Surely, given that example, the police will be inhibited from taking appropriate action under the clause if they think that they will be challenged in court every time that they do so. The powers conferred on the police by the clause will be seldom used because the police will be afraid of being attacked for discriminating against people who are wearing religious disguise or religious garb.

§ Beverley Hughes
The fact that the police have not frequently used the powers is not an argument for their not having them at all. They have used them in circumstances in which they felt they were necessary. When the matter was raised in a Committee debate on what became the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, there was a substantial discussion. It is interesting that the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) argued strongly that the threshold which, in the Government's view, ought to anticipate offences involving serious violence, was too high. He pressed on the Government his own clause which, he said, was preferable and argued: The Government's provisions are too narrow … That is a high test for the police to apply".—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 9 June 1998; c. 795.] The hon. Gentleman said that the police would be able to apply the test less frequently under the Government's clause than under the Opposition's new clause. I apologise to the hon. Gentleman if I have embarrassed him but I want to make the point that, when the issue was previously debated, Opposition Members expressed the serious view that the circumstances in which police could invoke that power needed to be wider for the police to have the necessary judgment to protect people and to ensure that individuals could not use disguise as a vehicle for a range of activities.
I have certainly tried to address most of the points made by hon. Members who have spoken about the clause. I am surprised by the comments of some hon. Members who do not seem to trust the police to exercise those powers sensibly. I understand entirely the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish, but I urge him not to press his amendment to a vote. If he does so, it will be resisted.

§ Ms Abbott
I shall not prolong the debate; there are many important matters to be discussed tonight in this unfortunately curtailed debate. The clause is by no means the most troubling aspect of a troubling portmanteau of legislation. I listened with great care to the Minister's defence of the clause. She said that the clause had been included in response to a rising tide of people taking part 764 in demonstrations wearing disguises. When asked to provide evidence of that rising tide, she could cite only two major London demonstrations.
I do not believe that the Minister has made the case for giving the police increased powers by altering the threshold for the power to take away disguises. There can never be a need to give the police increased powers unnecessarily. As I said in an earlier intervention, this is just the kind of scrappy, ill-thought-out measure that will bring into disrepute the sounder, more solidly based measures in the Bill.

§ Andrew Bennett
I have not been convinced by the Minister, but I do not see that there is a great deal of purpose in pressing the amendment to a Division. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Beverley Hughes
I beg to move amendment No. 63, in page 54, line 29, at end insert— '(11) This section does not extend to Scotland.'.

§ The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Alan Haselhurst)
With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments Nos. 64 and 67.

§ Beverley Hughes
The amendments relate to the situation in Scotland. The clause currently extends to Scotland, but the subject matter of the clause, criminal law and public order, is a devolved matter under the Scotland Act 1998. That means that it is for the Scottish Parliament to legislate on such matters for Scotland, unless it agrees that the UK Parliament should do so.
As the hon. Member for Perth (Annabelle Ewing) mentioned earlier, the Scottish Parliament has agreed, under the relevant Sewel motion which it passed last week, to the inclusion in the Bill of various matters on which it would have competence to legislate. However, it chose not to agree to the inclusion in the Bill of the powers to require the removal of disguises. Clause 93 and new section 60AA which it will insert in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 therefore will not extend to Scotland. The powers of the police in Scotland are being examined under the common law to see the extent to which they would already be available. In any event, Scottish Ministers have not ruled out future consideration of the need for such a measure by the Scottish Parliament.

§ Annabelle Ewing
I shall respond briefly to the Minister. As I said earlier, I fully support the amendments. Whereas the two other matters that form the subject of the retained powers dealt with by the Sewel motion in the Scottish Parliament were clearly not to be covered by the Bill, why was this third issue initially included in the Bill as applying to Scotland but, at the eleventh hour, magically deemed not to apply to Scotland? Perhaps the Minister can shed some light on that.

§ Beverley Hughes
That is a matter for the Scottish Parliament. As I understand it, the Scottish Parliament has been and still is looking closely at the common law in Scotland. The Parliament believes that there may already 765 be common law powers to enable the police to take the relevant action. It was not possible to establish that in time, so the Scottish Parliament has taken the option of considering the matter at greater length and deciding whether further legislation of its own is needed. The matter is quite straightforward.