COMMONS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 21 July 1977)

§ Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH

My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth disagree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 62 but propose Amendments, Nos. 62A, 62B, 62C, and 62D in lieu thereof. It may assist the House if I begin by explaining that there are two matters which have become entangled here. The first is the provision on bomb hoaxes, which was introduced by the Government in another place. The second is the provision on threat to kill or murder which was added later but which now appears as subsection (4) of the new clause proposed by Amendment No. 62. The effect of the Amendments which I am now moving is to separate the two provisions, leaving one new clause dealing solely with bomb hoaxes and then dealing elsewhere in the Bill with threats to kill.

The first Amendment which I am moving provides new offences to deal with bomb hoaxes, and was, as I have explained, incorporated into the Bill during its Committee stage in another place. The new offences reflect the careful consideration given to these matters by the Law Commission, and also, indeed, the views of senior police officers. They are intended as a measure to counter the practical problems faced by the police in dealing with bomb hoaxes, and not as a comprehensive reform of the law. The provisions which can be used against bomb hoaxes at present are, frankly, inadequate, in that they do not apply to all possible hoaxes; and it is difficult to 479 fit some hoaxes into the existing range of offences at all. Moreover, the penalties for the most widely applicable offence are too small, and would not be raised without a disproportionate and distorting effect on other penalties. The new clause should rectify these failings. In brief, it would make it an offence to place or to send a hoax bomb, or to give a false warning of a hoax bomb. In both cases, a full element of intent is included, and there is nothing in this Amendment that will discourage those who genuinely wish to give information and to help the police.

I think the present defect in the law is, frankly, a serious one. Bomb hoaxes can cause a great waste of police time, often when the police are already stretched dealing with genuine bomb attacks. The Metropolitan Police have left me in no doubt about the serious problems the hoax bomber can cause, including great inconvenience to the public, or even danger. I think the Amendment will serve, both to clarify the law and, indeed, to help the police in a practical way.

Just to give an illustration of the scale of this problem, I am told that in 1976 the Metropolitan Police alone received an average of 10 false calls a day saying that there was a bomb on the premises, or something of that sort, and this number rose to 100 a day during the period of the bomb attacks. This gives an indication of the scale of this problem in the capital city of this country alone, and I think it is generally recognised to be a serious one. For the reasons I have indicated, I think it is desirable to deal with this matter adequately, and this new clause achieves that objective.

The other Amendments which I am moving relate to the offence of threatening to kill or murder, covered by subsection (4) of Commons Amendment No. 62. During discussion of the bomb hoax provisions in Committee in another place, it was pointed out that the existing offence in Section 16 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 is limited to written threats; thus, persons making spoken threats, for example over the telephone, cannot be dealt with under that section. That, indeed, is why we have put this Amendment before the House, and I beg to move.

Moved, That this House doth disagree with the Commons in the said Amendment 480 but propose Amendments Nos. 62A to 62D in lieu thereof.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)