Tag: 2023

PRESS RELEASE : Anti-social behaviour action plan to help communities take back control of high streets [March 2023]
The press release issued by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on 27 March 2023.

New measures to revitalise high streets including tougher enforcement powers for councils and unlimited fines for irresponsible landlords.

Local people and businesses will be helped to take control of empty shops blighting high streets, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Michael Gove has announced today, as part of plans to revitalise high streets and tackle anti-social behaviour.

Councils will be armed with new powers through High Street Rental Auctions to take control quickly of empty buildings, giving communities and local businesses the opportunity to bid for the chance to rent shops.

High Street Rental Auctions will breathe new life into boarded-up shops and ensure high streets do not fall into disrepair, whilst giving more opportunities for local businesses to expand and thrive.

The Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan, published today, will make £2 million available to help communities and local businesses take control of these properties by covering the cost of refurbishing properties, the auction and council fees. Bringing pride of place back to areas is not only key to tackling anti-social behaviour but is also a key part of the government’s plan to level up across the country.

Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove said:

Too many high streets which were once the beating hearts of our communities have fallen into disrepair and are now blighted by boarded-up shops, broken windows and anti-social behaviour.

We are putting this right through our Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan which will give communities the power to breathe new life into their high street, ensuring that empty shops can be rented out to local people and community groups.

This is all part of the government’s mission to level up across the country and restore pride in our communities.

Research shows that anti-social behaviour is the main reason people do not feel safe in their local area and seeing empty shops and buildings adds further to the sense of community decline.

But a review of current complex leasing laws – led by the Law Commission – will further remove barriers to accessing property and help small businesses to occupy properties quicker and reduce the number of empty shops on high streets, boost the local economy and bring more jobs to areas.

Up to 172,000 commercial properties are empty across the UK and 8 in 10 of these have been vacant for more than two years. The North East and West Midlands have the most shuttered shops, with over 15% properties empty, resulting in hollowed out town centres.

Other measures include:
- Cracking down on those that exploit vulnerable people by taking control of their property for criminal activity, or ‘cuckooing’, by consulting on making it a criminal offence
- Unlimited fines for irresponsible landlords and building owners who allow their properties to fall into disrepair and for anti-social behaviour to thrive
- Giving councils more powers to move in quickly when houses are left vacant – cutting the timeframe from when they can act from two years of a building being empty to six months
A new £2.5 million High Street Accelerator programme will empower and incentivise local people to work in partnership to develop a long-term vision for revitalising high streets so they are fit for purpose. Accelerators will bring together residents, businesses, and community organisations to develop and deliver a long-term vision to tackle the causes of persistent vacancy on the high street. This will initially run in up to 10 pilot areas with more details set out in due course

Making sure high streets are designed with safety and deterring anti-social behaviour in mind is key – a consultation will explore whether the National Planning Policy Framework should consider measures such as CCTV and extra lighting.

This builds on the work that is already being done to level up, revitalise communities, refresh town centres and support local jobs and businesses by investing: £2.35 billion across 101 Towns Deals, £830m across 72 successful Future High Streets Fund bids, and £3.8 billion via the Levelling Up Fund to regenerate town centres and high streets.

Work already being done to revitalise high streets includes:
- Bringing empty properties back into use in Goole Town Centre through the £4 million Towns Deal
- Transforming Leyland Town Centre with £16 million from the Towns Deal to regenerate buildings and bring empty shops back into use
- Creating space for up to 50 new businesses at the Merseyway Shopping Centre in Stockport with £14 million through the Future High Streets Fund
- Future proofing Whitechapel Road, at the heart of Tower Hamlets with £9 million from the Levelling Up Fund to support the economy
- Creating new shop fronts, pavements and benches with £5 million from the Levelling Up Fund to regenerate the Glengormley and Antrim town centres
March 27, 2023
PRESS RELEASE : Universal Periodic Review of the United Kingdom – Opening Statement [March 2023]

The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 27 March 2023.

UK Ambassador Simon Manley’s opening statement during 4th Universal Periodic Review of the UK’s human rights record – Adoption of the Working Group’s Report.

Thank you Madam Vice-President,

Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, I am pleased to present the formal response of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, to the 302 recommendations the UK Government received from 115 States during its Fourth Universal Periodic Review, which took place on 10 November last year.

Let me begin by reiterating the UK’s strong commitment to the UPR process. Then let me move on to explain in more detail how we have responded to the recommendations that we have received.

Madam Vice-President,

The United Kingdom is committed to the promotion and the protection of human rights, of democracy and of the rule of law, and to acting as a force for good in the world. We believe that these principles are the indispensable foundations on which open, stable and prosperous societies thrive and are essential to the functioning of our democracies and to upholding and enforcing the rights of our citizens.

Furthermore, the UK Government remains fully committed to upholding human rights and fundamental freedoms as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other relevant international human rights treaties. We have ratified seven of the nine core UN human rights treaties and have put in place a combination of policies and legislation to give effect to the rights contained within them.

Moreover, we are, of course, honoured to serve once again as an elected member of the Human Rights Council for the 2021-2023 period. We remain a strong supporter of the Council, and the mechanisms at its disposal to strengthen human rights protections globally.

And indeed, the UPR is one of these mechanisms. It is a constructive process through which States can learn from and help each other in protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms. It is as important to clearly acknowledge where progress has been made, as it is to highlight areas that can be improved upon. It is important therefore, that these recommendations are made in good faith, with a genuine view to improving human rights standards globally.

And that is how we approach the Review meetings of other States, and I note that the UK has received positive feedback in previous UPR cycles for our leadership on specific topics – including our commitment to making recommendations on tackling Modern Slavery during the Third Cycle of the UPR – and on our commitment to the UPR more broadly, and we urge all states to remain fully committed to the process.

The UPR is indeed a unique and crucial mechanism for sharing best practice and promoting continual improvement of human rights on the ground, and it is only through the cooperation of like-minded states that this can indeed be realised.

The UK therefore remains fully committed to the UPR mechanism, to the UN treaty monitoring system, and to the Human Rights Council itself, as well as to the promotion and realisation of the full enjoyment of all human rights by all people around the world.

Madam Vice-President, following this introduction, I would like to explain in more detail the way in which the UK has approached its own review.

So, during our 4th Cycle Review meeting on 10 November last year, you will recall that our delegation to the Universal Periodic Review was led by the UK’s Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Justice, Minister Mike Freer MP, who made every effort to respond both to the questions submitted in advance, and to the recommendations and comments made by delegations, here in this room, on the day.

Other members of our delegation included representatives from the UK’s devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales, as well as representatives of the UK’s Northern Ireland Office, in addition to myself, our Global Ambassador for Human Rights, Rita French, and other UK Government officials. We found the session to be extremely engaging and we listened with interest to the views expressed by other Member States during the session.

After the Review meeting, the UK Government reserved its position on the 302 recommendations we received in order to ensure we could give each and every one of them the full and proper consideration they deserve. As part of that consideration, we carried out substantial consultation with the Scottish and Welsh Governments.

Unfortunately, due to the current lack of an Executive in Northern Ireland, it was not possible to engage with, and therefore provide as comprehensive a response for, Northern Ireland as for other parts of the United Kingdom.

We also ensured National Human Rights Institutions and civil society organisations had the opportunity to provide their thoughts to the UK Government as part of this process.

This engagement led to the UK’s responses to the 302 recommendations received. Our response is comprised of two documents. The first is the standard addendum to the Report of the Working Group, which refers to the recommendations by number only, and outlines the UK’s position on each of those recommendations. You will note that we have provided a rationale for those the UK has chosen to support ‘in part’.

The second document is also a longer ‘Annex’ to the Working Group Report, which provides further explanation on the UK’s response to some of the recommendations that we received.

Madam Vice-President,

In total, of the 302 recommendations we received, the UK has “supported” 135 recommendations, and “noted” 112. We have also indicated our “partial support” for the remaining 55 recommendations. In these cases, the UK may be supportive of one or more of the actions being recommended, but cannot fully support the entire recommendation because either:

1.         It does not agree with part of the recommendation, or

2.         It does not agree with the specific wording or intention used by the State which made the recommendation, or

3.         Legal or constitutional obstacles prevent the UK Government fully implementing (or committing to fully implement) the recommendation, for example when the issue in question relates to a reserved competency of one or more of the UK’s Devolved Administrations, British Overseas Territories, or Crown Dependencies.

The rationale for our position on each of these 55 recommendations can be found in both the Addendum and Annex, which the Secretariat have published on the UK’s UPR webpage. However, Mr President, we of course recognise that, as we have been advised by the Secretariat, you will be obliged to record these 55 recommendations as ‘noted’ in the final Report of the Working Group.

Madam Vice-President.

The UK is clear that the UPR is an ongoing process with which Member States should engage throughout the entire five-year cycle. In 2017 the UK Government made a voluntary commitment to providing the Working Group with a Mid-Term Report, so as to update them on our position with respect to all the 227 recommendations received during our third Review meeting. We submitted this Report in 2020. For this cycle, we once again commit to submitting a Mid Term Report in 2025, to follow up on our response to all the 302 recommendations received in this fourth Review meeting.

Mr President,

We welcome this opportunity to speak to our continued commitment to the UN, to the Universal Periodic Review mechanism, to our position in relation to the 302 recommendations received in November, and to our plans for future reporting.

And, as ever, we look forward to hearing the views of fellow Member States, civil society organisations and National Human Rights Institutions during this adoption meeting.

Let me conclude my opening remarks at this point.

Thank you, Madam Vice-President.

March 27, 2023
PRESS RELEASE : Hundreds of youth facilities in deprived areas to be transformed with new investment [March 2023]
The press release issued by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport on 27 March 2023.

First major tranche from the Government’s Youth Investment Fund allocated to beneficiaries for rebuilding and renovating youth centres in some of the country’s most disadvantaged areas.
- 43 youth centres to receive a slice of over £90 million to build or renovate facilities as part of life-changing Youth Investment Fund
- Through the Youth Investment Fund, 45,000 more young people will have access to facilities, the positive activities they provide and the opportunities they open up
- One million extra hours of youth services to be provided in anti-social behaviour hotspots across the country, through £11 million investment as part of Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan announced today
- 20,000 new places to be created at youth groups including The Scouts and Girl Guides through allocation of £16.9 million Uniformed Youth fund
Young people are to benefit from the rebuilding and renovation of youth centres in some of the country’s most disadvantaged areas, as beneficiaries of the first major tranche from the Government’s Youth Investment Fund have been announced today.

Over £90 million has been allocated to 43 organisations from the Fund’s overall total of over £300 million. This will pave the way for 300 youth facilities to be built or refurbished over the next three years in areas where need is high and existing youth provision is low.

Facilities set to benefit include community youth spaces and youth centres large and small, aiming to help 45,000 more young people access regular, positive activities every year. This will support their wellbeing, give them opportunities to develop vital skills for life and empower them to be active members of their local community.

Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer said:

I want every young person to have the opportunity to access the kinds of life-changing activities which expand their horizons and allow them to develop vital life skills.

The National Youth Guarantee will provide these opportunities and support young people with access to regular club activities, adventures away from home and volunteering opportunities.

We are supporting this today with an investment to create or renovate spaces for youth clubs and activities to support opportunities for thousands of young people across the country who would otherwise miss out.

Examples of those receiving grants in this tranche of funding include:
- Edinburgh House – This organisation in Stoke-on-Trent will use its grant of nearly £2 million for a renovation and extension project to support an additional 150 young people per week. Working closely with young people to develop the project plans, funding will allow the project to extend their offering of workshops, which range from art sessions, photography, drama, music and dance, to mindfulness, cooking, nutritional education, sports and outdoor activities.
- Lambton Street – A youth project based in Sunderland that aims to help young people develop the skills to transition into adulthood in a safe and caring environment. Allocated a £785,000 grant, it will undergo a redesign and upgrade to extend its reach to an additional 120 young people a week, make the building accessible to disabled young people and to radically improve its sustainability.
- Brighton Youth Centre – Allocated a £4.3 million grant, this project will be transformed into a state-of-the-art facility accessible for all young people across Brighton, aiming to reach 3,000 young people a week. All activities are free to young people, offering a range of activities from arts and music to safe spaces for counselling.
- The Alt Valley Skills Centre – A hub for all young people, they provide social care, life skills, education, training, social and wellbeing activities for people with special needs. The Youth Investment Fund grant of £2.5 million will transform the building, enabling it to support over 200 more young people per week with additional activities, including horticulture, cooking, games nights, disco nights, fitness, drama and movie nights.
- Nottingham Mencap – A charity that gives people living with learning disabilities or autism choice and independence. Through a grant of £445,400 the project will be refurbished to offer a music and drama room, an IT suite and a gymnasium, as well as allowing a lift to be installed to improve accessibility. Once complete, the site will cater up to 100 young people at a time.
This funding follows an initial £12 million being fast-tracked to more than 400 local youth services between January and March 2022 to expand the reach and range of services they offer and to cover small-scale capital improvements. This included providing new laptops to youth groups, small redevelopments of buildings and facilities, and improving access to transport.

As the lead delivery partner, this phase of the fund will be coordinated and managed by Social Investment Business, who support charities and social enterprises to build stronger and fairer communities.

Nick Temple, CEO of Social Investment Business said:

Every young person deserves access to high quality activities and facilities, providing the opportunities to help them thrive. The Youth Investment Fund is helping make that vision a reality, supporting organisations and projects in the areas of England that need it most.

It’s been amazing to see the wide range of projects applying to the Fund, and especially how young people have played a meaningful role in shaping those plans. There is a real appetite to develop inclusive, accessible and sustainable facilities that will be there for future generations – and that is reflected in the first set of grants announced today.

Alongside the latest beneficiaries of the Youth Investment Fund, the Government has announced it will support an additional one million hours of youth services over the coming two years, through an initial £11 million investment, enabling the equivalent of 200 youth clubs to open their doors for an extra night a week.

The funding will be targeted at youth clubs in areas with the highest rates of anti-social behaviour to get young people on the right track through positive activities and role models. This forms part of the government’s Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan announced today, aiming to eradicate antisocial behaviour from our communities.

In a further move, the Government has also approved £16.9 million of funding to expand access to uniformed youth groups, aiming to create 20,000 new places for young people aged between 10-18 across the country.

The groups to benefit are:
- The Scout Association
- Girlguiding
- Jewish Lads’ and Girls’ Brigade
- Girls’ Brigade
- Boys’ Brigade
- Marine Society & Sea Cadets
- Volunteer Police Cadets
- St John Ambulance
To date £1.5 million has been allocated to eight uniformed youth groups via the fund, with over 1,200 of a total 2,000 places already created in areas with no existing provision.

Matt Hyde, Chief Executive of Scouts said:

Every week, Scouts gives almost half a million young people the skills they need for the job interview, the important speech, the tricky challenge and the big dreams: the skills they need for life. We are really grateful to the Government for committing this new funding so that we can help even more young people learn these through Scouts. It means we can work to make sure more young people in areas of deprivation have adventures away from home, learn outside school and get the chance to volunteer.

Today’s announcements form the latest part of the Government’s ‘National Youth Guarantee’, that will ensure every young person aged 11-18 in England has access to regular clubs and activities, adventures away from home, and volunteering opportunities by 2025, backed by an investment of over £500 million investment.

The National Youth Guarantee will provide greater access to activities such as The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme and the National Citizen Service, and uniformed youth groups such as Scouts, Girlguiding, and Cadets.
March 27, 2023
Kieran Mullan – 2023 Speech on the Ballot Secrecy Bill

The speech made by Kieran Mullan, the Conservative MP for Crewe and Nantwich, in the House of Commons on 24 March 2023.

I, too, thank my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) for introducing this Bill, as it is vital that we protect the secret ballot as part of our democracy.

As is often the case with private Members’ Bills, I have come to understand an area of our law and history that I previously did not understand so well. We take the secret ballot for granted, but we have not always had it. Previously, people had to declare for whom they had voted, and they were subjected to all kinds of harassment, intimidation and bullying by, for example, their landowner or employer to vote a particular way. The first attempt to introduce a secret ballot was made in 1853 by Thomas Thompson, the Radical MP. The issue gained more traction in the 1860s, with the secret ballot being established in the 1870s. It has been a fundamental part of our electoral process ever since.

Members have spoken about the importance of the secret ballot in preventing people from being intimidated or pressed to vote in a particular way but, of course, it is also important because it reduces the chance of a voter being bribed. Our vote cannot be bought if we cannot show how we voted. There are two facets to the secret vote.

We have covered some of the other changes made to our voting system since the introduction of the secret ballot. There are other things on which we need to work, but I welcome this Bill because the secret ballot is such a fundamental part of our democracy. My hon. Friend spoke about the fantastic work done by Democracy Volunteers. As MPs, we see how, in all sorts of ways, our communities and civic life are improved by volunteers, and voting is no different. I have learned today that voting is another area in which volunteers play an important role.

My hon. Friend mentioned that more than 200 people across the nation volunteered to take part in the research, which gives us a powerful insight and shows that this is not a small or one-off issue but is widespread. Twenty-five per cent. of the observations found this practice was taking place, which demonstrates how important it is that we do everything we can to ensure privacy in the polling booth. It cannot be easy for the people who work at the polling station, and we are very sensitive to the fact that people in the polling booth should feel comfortable and respected. It would feel uncomfortable to be approached, or to be interacted with in any way, in the polling booth, and this Bill will give staff the confidence and legal clarity they need to tackle these issues. This is not about blaming them, as it is not their fault, but they will need a lot of support to be able to intervene in what is a very sensitive area.

I welcome the exceptions in this Bill. We all have constituents who would physically struggle to make that journey to the polling booth. Yes, we can encourage them to take up the offer of a postal vote, but we also know that some people absolutely want to make that journey, no matter how difficult that might be physically for them. This is important, so I welcome the exception that has been made. If even a single person is having their vote influenced in this way, we should do everything that we can to stop it. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) for introducing the Bill and to my friend, Lord Hayward, who is in the Gallery, for taking it through in the Lords. I am glad that we have made progress today, and I look forward to the Bill being passed.

March 27, 2023
Selaine Saxby – 2023 Speech on the Ballot Secrecy Bill

The speech made by Selaine Saxby, the Conservative MP for North Devon, in the House of Commons on 24 March 2023.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) on introducing this important Bill, because a private vote is at the heart of our democracy. Every citizen over the age of 18 is eligible to have their say, from electing a local councillor to national referendums. Without this basic principle, voters are exposed to the risk of bribery, blackmail and other forms of peer pressure and unfair influencing.

The current situation allows someone to enter the voting booth with another person. In some cases, this can lead to a voter being unduly influenced and coerced in how they vote. This practice may be used by a husband to instruct their wife on which way to vote, which is clearly unacceptable and flies in the face of what the suffragettes fought for more than 100 years ago. Women, and men, from every background have the right to vote for the candidate who best reflects their interest and, I dare say, this sometimes might not align with their husband’s interest.

I welcome the exception for children who enter a polling booth, as teaching our youngsters about the democratic process in such a hands-on way is vital to ensuring that they engage with democracy as they grow up. Similarly, there will always be those who require physical assistance with the voting process but, in making sure that we maintain the strength of our democracy and represent all our constituents and their needs, I warmly welcome this Bill and the support it will provide in ensuring the right to a free and private vote.

March 27, 2023
Scott Benton – 2023 Speech on the Ballot Secrecy Bill

The speech made by Scott Benton, the Conservative MP for Blackpool South, in the House of Commons on 24 March 2023.

I thank my hon. Friend and very sound colleague the Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) for promoting the Bill and Lord Hayward for his sterling work in the other place and his work on electoral reform issues over many, many years.

It is absolutely fundamental for democracy that elections are free and fair. Fraudulent voter intimidation or any other form of undue influence on our democracy is simply unacceptable. It is more important than ever that we foster trust in our political system and that the electoral process is above suspicion. Secret voting has been in place since the Ballot Act 1872. Our society rightly believes that it is up to individuals to decide how they will vote; it is not a decision for their family, for local leaders or for any other group to make.

Unfortunately, over recent years we have seen several high-profile cases of unscrupulous behaviour corrupting election results. This has damaged public confidence in the system. Although Tower Hamlets provides the clearest example in recent memory, the problem is by no means limited to any one part of the country. It has been going on for many years.

Having been a local resident in Calderdale at the time, I recall the shocking findings in Halifax during the 2010 general election, when Calderdale Council admitted that 763 postal votes from the Halifax constituency failed to match voter registration records. That prompted the local Conservative party to submit a lengthy dossier to West Yorkshire police, which highlighted a number of mis-practices that were then investigated. They included—but were by no means limited to—voter impersonation, bullying, multiple postal votes dispatched to empty properties, bogus voters and false registration. Much like in Tower Hamlets, I am afraid the police were far too slow to investigate the issues. Frankly, they were reluctant to get involved with what was incorrectly seen as a party political matter.

Lord Pickles rightly identified the practice of family voting as a specific concern in his 2016 review into electoral fraud, in which he recommended the strengthening of guidance and training. As recently as last year, as my hon. Friend pointed out, Democracy Volunteers, an impartial group that observes and reports on UK elections, suggested that family voting continues to be an issue and was witnessed in more than a quarter of the polling stations it visited.

I am particularly concerned that family voting and voter intimidation disproportionately affect women in Asian communities. A 2015 Manchester University paper for the Electoral Commission found evidence among interviewees in Pakistani and Bangladeshi-origin communities that hierarchical family structures often mean that women are expected to follow the lead of the head of the household. This creates additional family voting vulnerability, especially among ethnic minority households. That was also the conclusion of the Democracy Volunteers report on the Tower Hamlets election, which found:

“Those subjected to family voting…were invariably women…from the Asian community and those causing family voting were generally men”.

That absolutely runs contrary to British values. I am concerned that this is just one example of an issue to which cultural sensitivities and misplaced political correctness have frankly caused a blind eye to be turned for far too long.

By introducing a specific new offence, the Bill will clearly demonstrate our commitment to secret voting and will reaffirm an individual’s right to freely choose who they vote for. It will give our brilliant presiding officers more confidence to challenge any suspicious behaviour and, if necessary, involve the police. I believe this is where the Bill will have the most impact, by making it clear that individuals who accompany a voter to a polling booth, or who position themselves nearby with the intention of influencing a voter, will be breaking the law. By making this clear, and by giving presiding officers confidence, we will have the best chance of preventing family voting and ending undue influence at our polling stations. If these practices are not challenged at the polling station, they will simply continue. In passing this Bill, I hope the Electoral Commission will update its guidance to make clear to all concerned the importance of ending these practices once and for all.

March 27, 2023
Bob Blackman – 2023 Speech on the Ballot Secrecy Bill

The speech made by Bob Blackman, the Conservative MP for Harrow East, in the House of Commons on 24 March 2023.

I rise to support the Bill in the name of both my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) and, as he rightly says, Lord Hayward in the other place, who has done a brilliant job over many years on electoral reform and ensuring that our ballots are cast fairly and properly.

It is a fundamental part of democracy that people can go to a polling booth if they are on the electoral register. They give their name, they show their polling card and they are issued with a ballot paper. No one should then influence them over which way they cast their vote. In my long experience serving in the London Boroughs of Brent and Harrow, we have witnessed that at first hand all too frequently: not just the influence of one man over one woman, but often a man over a whole family—and it can be a large family who go in, with the women and young men being told which way to vote.

In certain places, particularly London, we have elections on many different systems: we often have local elections the same day as a general election, and we have the London mayoral and assembly elections, where three ballot papers are issued at one time. There is potential for confusion and a need for clarification. My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough has outlined that it would not be an offence for someone to ask for help and assistance.

In my experience, presiding officers and clerks are always available to offer that help and assistance, particularly to those who have disabilities. They often go out of their way to come to the doors of a polling station if necessary, to assist someone who is disabled to register their vote properly. The problem arises when some people seek to influence others and make sure that they vote in a particular way, especially when it is against their will and they do not really want to do it.

The most important thing is that we safeguard the ballot in a free and fair way through this Bill, which I am sure will receive cross-party support. I know it was supported when I had the pleasure of serving on the Bill Committee—albeit very briefly—and hon. Members want to ensure that it makes progress. In my borough, we pride ourselves on being very diverse. We have someone from every country on the planet, every religion, every race, every background, every language—you name it, we have it. People need to feel free when they go to vote, and to feel that their vote is going to count in the way that they wish it to.

However, I am afraid we have had many experiences of families coming together into polling stations and almost being forced to vote in a particular way. That cannot be right and it needs to change. Many may agree with the candidates they are voting for, but the most important thing is that family voting needs to be outlawed.

In supporting this Bill, I say to my hon. Friend that it clears up one issue of concern. The Government have taken action on preventing personation, and the requirement for identity cards and suchlike to be used at polling stations to prove that someone is the person entitled to cast the vote is an important reform. I look forward to that having a massive impact on stopping people from personating other individuals on the register.

My one concern is that we have seen rapid growth in the use of postal voting. I support this Bill completely, but, where large households register for and are sent postal votes, there is still the risk of those people being coerced into voting in a particular way, or—even worse—not even voting themselves, but just filling in the identity element, with the head of the household filling in the rest of the ballot papers before they are sent back. That is something we must think about if we wish to safeguard our democracy.

I will end there, because I know other colleagues wish to speak and we want other Bills to go through. Despite that note of caution, I warmly welcome this Bill, which will improve the secrecy and sanctity of our ballots.

March 27, 2023
Paul Bristow – 2023 Statement on the Ballot Secrecy Bill

The statement made by Paul Bristow, the Conservative MP for Peterborough, in the House of Commons on 24 March 2023.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

First, I want to thank Lord Haywood for his tremendous work on the Bill and for sponsoring it in the other place. My notes say that it is largely because of him that the Bill is brought before us today for Third Reading. However, the truth is that it is almost entirely because of him that it is under consideration by us today.

I am grateful to the noble Lords of all parties in the other place who have worked together on the Bill. I am also grateful to the Ministers and the officials in the Department who have assisted its swift progress through both Houses.

The Bill is important to the integrity and democracy of our elections. It has cross-party support and it has been a great privilege for me to sponsor it in the House of Commons. I have spoken before about the importance and relevance of the Bill. It seeks to tackle the issue of family voting, when two or more people attempt to vote together in a polling booth, potentially leading to someone being intimidated or their decision being influenced. It is vital that voters cast their votes in secret. Once inside the polling station, no one should feel intimidated or be influenced by someone else on which way to vote, or whether to vote at all.

The Bill will clear up the powers that presiding officers have at polling stations and how they can better deal with the issue of family voting. Currently, those powers are unclear, which is partly why this issue has become so prominent. That is not a criticism of polling station staff members, but there is a grey area of what they can and cannot do if they witness offences such as family voting at polling stations.

This legislation will clear up the powers and responsibilities of presiding officers and polling station staff to prevent family voting from occurring. For those who do not think that this is a prominent issue, I will read out some statistics from a report by Democracy Volunteers on the May 2022 elections, which outlines how widespread family voting is. Some 1,723 polling stations were observed across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Each observation lasted between 30 and 60 minutes, and family voting was witnessed at a staggering 25% of polling stations.

The problem is not exclusive to any one area and affects all of the United Kingdom, as is evident when we break the figures down further—21% in England, 42% in Northern Ireland, 19% in Scotland and 34% in Wales. The numbers in Northern Ireland are higher due to the elections for the Northern Irish Assembly requiring voters to elect several representatives rather than just one under the single transferable vote system. That can lead to people becoming confused and needing assistance. It is not a reflection of family voting being more prominent in Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, family voting affects women the most.

The report states that more than 70% of those affected by family voting in the May 2022 elections were women. We must get a grip on this ugly practice. Women should not feel intimidated or have their vote influenced by anyone at a polling station. The report’s findings are truly concerning. It was even reported that staff at polling stations were reluctant to intervene when they saw it occurring—I reiterate that this is not a criticism of the great work that those staff do. Guidance on what they can and cannot do should be—and will now be —clearer.

Democracy Volunteers produced a report of Peterborough during the 2019 by-election, where family voting was witnessed at an astonishing rate of 48%. That impacts confidence in election results—no matter how unfairly, perhaps. It cannot be good for democracy. When I speak to different communities and constituents across Peterborough, I hear widespread support for the Bill. It will rectify the issue and tackle family voting at polling stations. It sets out the amendments to the Representation of the People Act 1983. As a result, a person would commit an offence if they were with or near another person at a polling booth with the intent to influence that person in a particular way of voting or to refrain from voting. The word “intent” is important. It means that people who need help or assistance when voting due to disabilities can still receive it. It also means that parents accompanied by children standing alongside them are not committing a crime.

The people who practise family voting with an intent to intimidate and influence a person’s vote have no respect for the secret ballot. It is wholly inappropriate and is a rising threat to our democratic right to a secret ballot in the UK. We must uphold our values and traditions. Secret voting was introduced just over 150 years ago, in 1872, to tackle many bad practices in elections at that time. The Bill is a continuation of the idea that voting should be done secretly. It will give presiding officers the correct powers to tackle the problem then and there at the polling station. There is only room for one person and one mind at the ballot booth. This Bill will ensure that that is always the case, which makes it a crucial piece in updating and protecting our democracy.

March 27, 2023
Anneliese Dodds – 2023 Speech on the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Bill

The speech made by Anneliese Dodds, the Labour MP for Oxford East, in the House of Commons on 24 March 2023.

First, let me say how pleased I am to see the Bill finally making its way through the House today. I thank all of the campaigners and people who have worked tirelessly on this issue, including, obviously, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) with all of his engagement, the civil servants who have been working with him, my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) and the many other Members who have contributed to discussions on this subject for such a long time.

As we near the end of Women’s History Month 2023, I can say that the Bill is a welcome step in the right direction. I will, if I may, pull us back to the main subject at issue, which is around public sexual harassment. It does remain a major problem in our society. Plan International UK found that three quarters of girls and young women aged 12 to 21 experienced a form of sexual harassment in a public space in their lifetime. Those numbers increase for disabled women and girls, and for women and girls from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background. The impact of this harassment is shocking. Perhaps it is worth reminding the House about that as we discuss the Bill. In 2020, the Girl Guides found out that 80% of girls and young women feel unsafe when they are out on their own, increasing to 96% of young women aged 17 and 18.

Madam Deputy Speaker

Order. Just a reminder that, at this stage, we are discussing the amendment. There will be, I am sure, a very good opportunity on Third Reading for the wider issues, but at this point we are on Report. If the hon. Lady prefers to wait to Third Reading, that is absolutely fine.

Anneliese Dodds

In that case, I will just say that I mentioned those points in relation to new clause 1 and the other amendments. I believe that the right hon. Gentleman has set out very clearly the rationale, as has my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, spelling out why we require guidance—we all hope that it will come speedily—but also why it is important that the legislation is consistent with other Acts in this area. I hope that the House will bear those remarks in mind when deciding how to vote.

The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)

It is a great pleasure to speak to the amendments before the House on Report. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) for his new clause 1 and amendment 1, and I am happy to confirm formally that the Government support those amendments.

As my right hon. Friend has set out, the new clause would require Ministers to publish statutory guidance for all police forces, to which those police forces would have to have regard. In particular, the guidance would need to include material about the reasonable conduct defence that has been the focus of so much discussion. There has been some concern, expressed by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) and others, that a subjective interpretation of the reasonable conduct defence might be adopted by defendants in an attempt to repudiate responsibility for their actions or to avoid conviction.

It is the view of the Government that what constitutes reasonable conduct can be defined objectively with regard to their conduct, without needing to have regard to somebody’s internal thought processes. However, we agree that guidance would be valuable in order to be completely clear about that point and to remove any ambiguity, so we are happy to support new clause 1 and amendment 1 in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells.

It will of course be possible for many other people besides the police to refer to the guidance, including the Crown Prosecution Service, which we would expect to operate on the same basis as the police when prosecuting those offences. To respond to a very reasonable question from my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), we want to get this done as quickly as possible. I certainly would not want or expect it to take anything like so long as a year, which he referred to in his speech in a different context; I hope it can be accomplished in a matter of months.

My hon. Friend also said that the guidance should be subject to input and scrutiny to ensure that it is constructed in a way that is proportionate and reasonable, and I am sure the hon. Member for Walthamstow would agree. I would therefore expect opportunities to be provided to interested parties to provide that comment and I will give consideration to whether we should have a formal consultation process on the guidance. We should be mindful that that would introduce additional delay, but, given that the point has been raised, we will give it thought and strike the right balance between getting the guidance done quickly, which everyone wants, and making sure that interested parties both in Parliament and outside have an opportunity to input into its construction.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells for tabling the amendments and to other hon. Members, particularly the hon. Member for Walthamstow and my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch for offering their comments.

March 27, 2023
Christopher Chope – 2023 Speech on the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Bill

The speech made by Christopher Chope, the Conservative MP for Christchurch, in the House of Commons on 24 March 2023.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), who I know takes a great interest in this particular subject. I am delighted that she included in her remarks a reference to the fact that this legislation applies equally to men who are victims as it does to women who are victims.

When I looked at the Committee report, one of my concerns was that there was not even a mention of men and boys being victims. I therefore wanted to ensure that emphasis was given to the fact that the Bill applies to men and women equally. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) for emphasising that point and saying that, if needs be, that could be included in the guidance produced for prosecutors.

I want to emphasise the significant extent to which men are being sexually harassed. A report from Diversity Dashboard says:

“Sexual harassment in the workplace is widespread, and women suffer the most…although…a significant percentage of men are also victims of sexual harassment.”

According to the Nursing Times, many people do not report to their employer that they have been harassed and

“only 17% of sexually harassed male nurses actually report it to their employer. Overall, female nurses are more frequent subjects of sexual harassment. However sexual harassment statistics by gender tell us that men aren’t spared either.”

Indeed, 51% of the male respondents to the Nursing Times survey said they had been sexually harassed, which is a very high percentage. Diversity Dashboard goes on to say:

“Research shows that, when a man suffers a sexual assault in the workplace, a woman is a perpetrator in 76% of the cases…Additionally, it’s worrying and insensitive that such behaviour is seen as a joke when it involves male victims.”

That is why although men are overwhelmingly responsible for sexual harassment against women, we need to take into account that men are on the receiving end as well.

The reason this issue is so important at the moment is a growing belief among experts, including those in professions relating to psychiatry and psychology, about the impact of sexual politics, as it is called, on young men. Madam Deputy Speaker, you may have seen the recent article in The Spectator by Gus Carter, in which he says masculinity is now in crisis. He goes on:

“The polling company YouGov found that just 8 per cent of people have positive views of white men in their twenties, by far the lowest of any ethnicity or age group. Males are routinely presented as inherently dangerous, aggressive and animalistic, incapable of controlling their own instincts. You can see it on public transport, where government adverts announce that staring is sexual harassment. Us blokes can’t even be trusted to use our eyes properly.”

This is a very serious aspect of the debate around harassment and, as I prefer to put it, common decency, standards of behaviour and politesse. The sexualisation, in a sense, of harassment is having an adverse effect on young males. Teenage boys are being routinely disciplined by schools in circumstances in which their female counterparts are not. A female former teacher who left the profession last year is quoted in the article:

“Boys are now seen as potential perverts… There was this obsession with the victimisation of women. I thought we had been getting somewhere with sex and relationships, teaching the children to treat people with respect, but that has been totally set back.”

I will not go into all the other points that the article makes, but one that is relevant to this debate is that

“there seems to be an inability to hold two notions in our heads: that sexual assault is bad and that treating men as inherent sex pests is also bad. A reasonable worry about assault appears to have morphed into an institutional misandry. There is a lack of recognition that, as with all crimes, the proportion of perpetrators is vanishingly small. The awful behaviour of a few is leading to the mistreatment of all.”

The consequence of all this in relation to mental health issues for boys and young men, unless we are extremely careful with the language we use, will be that a situation that is already bad gets even worse. Since 2017, the NHS has found that the proportion of boys with probable mental health issues has increased by more than 50% to nearly one in five. The suicide rate for boys aged 15 to 19 has more than doubled over the past decade. The child psychologist Julie Lynn Evans has said that she thinks the pendulum has now swung too far in the other direction:

“The boys came out of lockdown into this slightly hysterical atmosphere of ‘Don’t touch, that’s inappropriate, that’s assault.’ They are being treated as guilty until proven innocent.”

The article, which I think very telling, goes on to ask what we are going to do about this. Are we going to recognise that young men aged 18 to 24 are significantly more likely to be unemployed than women in a similar age group, and that women are outperforming men in university? We have this problem of workless men living with their parents and almost being discouraged or intimidated into not going out on the street—not only not finding jobs, but not finding girlfriends and so on.

A really serious problem is developing for us, which is why I thought it important to table an amendment to put it right. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells for recognising the significance of the issue. Even—I say “even”—the hon. Member for Walthamstow seems to accept it, and I hope that when she makes remarks on the subject in future she will always emphasise that it is about not just one particular group of victims, but people in general, of both sexes.

Other amendments that I have tabled were designed to develop the debate, and I think we are having that debate. Let me deal first with the timescale and the fear that the guidance will be much delayed. I am not sure that the requirement to produce guidance is necessarily a reason that the Bill could not come into law first, with guidance to follow. The offence could still be created without being conditional on the guidance being produced first, so I do not think that an adequate reason for the Government not to accept a specific date of implementation. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells generously says, “I try to keep an eye on some of these things.”

One reason why amendment 9 would put a specific date in clause 3 is that I had a similar experience with the Bill brought to this place by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight) on the abuse of parking rules by rogue parking companies. I suggested that the guidance that followed from the Bill should have to be delivered within a specified period; if it was not, the legislation would not take effect. I am afraid to say that as of today—this was, I think, two years ago—the legislation has still not come into effect. My right hon. Friend was sympathetic to my amendment, but the Government persuaded him to encourage me to withdraw it, in order to protect his Bill. I cite that as an example of the problems arising when we leave it to the Government to decide when and if legislation should take effect.

Perhaps my right hon. Friend the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire will, when responding to the debate, deal with the issue around prisoners. One can understand that the Government might be nervous about a consequence of the legislation being that more people may be sent to prison. Certainly, that was one of the objections of a previous Government to the suggestion that we introduce more severe penalties for people convicted of causing death by dangerous driving. The argument was that it would result in extra prison places being taken up. I hope that he will say that the number of people in prison is not relevant to the debate, because surely the law should take its course; punishment should not exclude prison if prison is merited, just because we do not have enough room in prisons. If we do not have enough room in them, we need to remove from them some of the people who are still on indeterminate sentences, which I think are pretty unjust, and/or we need to build more prisons. That is why I think it is important to put a fixed date in the Bill, and I chose, arbitrarily, 1 August 2023. Actually, it is not that arbitrary; I assumed the normal rule would apply, so I gave a date two months after Royal Assent might take place, and assumed that the Bill, all things being equal, would get through the other place before then.

I turn to my other amendments. On whether to use “because of” or “due to”, I concede that it is a “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin” issue. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells for having looked at that point. On amendment 2 about primacy, proposed new section 4B(1) of the Public Order Act 1986, inserted by clause 1, says:

“A person (A) is guilty of an offence under this section if—

(a) A commits an offence under section 4A (intentional harassment, 5 alarm or distress), and

(b) A carried out the conduct referred to in section 4A(1) because of the relevant person’s sex (or presumed sex).”

I assumed that that would be the sole reason for that behaviour. Indeed, in discussing this with my right hon. Friend, I thought that that was his understanding of his Bill and no subsidiary or other reasons would be taken into account. However, I looked at the subsequent provisions and saw that proposed new section 4B(3) of the 1986 Act stated:

“For the purposes of subsection (1)(b)”—

the one to which I have just referred—

“it does not matter whether or not—

(a) A also carried out the conduct referred to…because of any other factor”.

I could not understand why “any other factor” had been introduced, because it seemed redundant and it undermined his contention that when drafting this Bill he wanted it to be clear that this was the primary, if not sole, reason for the conduct being referred to. He has used a slightly different explanation today as to why he is unhappy with my amendments and is citing various precedents from other Acts and claiming “consistency”.

I would be grateful to the Minister if he could spell out whether he accepts that “the relevant person’s sex” must be the main reason for the conduct carried out, otherwise there will not be an offence being committed under the provisions of this Bill. If he is able to spell that out, and perhaps it will be repeated in the guidance, I will go home as a relatively happy bunny. On that note, at this very moment the other place is debating the Third Reading of my Mobile Homes (Pitch Fees) Bill, which is about changing the rules from using the retail price index to using the consumer prices index. I hope that I will be able to go home a happy bunny on the basis of its getting Third Reading in the other place, and I am most grateful to Lord Udny-Lister for taking it through that House. That, however, is an aside.

My amendments 7 and 8 talk about “sex” or “presumed sex”. Let us suppose that someone is in the business of harassing people on the basis of their sex—I hope that not many people are. Let us then suppose that that person thinks that they are harassing a man but it turns out that the person they are harassing is not a man and is in fact a woman——it may be the other way round, and they may think that they are harassing a woman and it then turns out that the person is not a woman but a man. The amount of alarm or distress that will be caused to the person on the receiving end will be significantly reduced if they are not of the sex that was intended by the person who was harassing—

Greg Clark

I do not seek to quarrel with my hon. Friend. But let us consider the analogous situation in which a person with brown skin, relatively dark skin, were the subject of a humiliating torrent of racial abuse in the street but was not a member of a given racial group, I do not think that would diminish the impact and the offence intended by the person. Surely the same would apply in this case, and the person on the receiving end would feel humiliation and the perpetrator would have had exactly the same intention.

Sir Christopher Chope

With the greatest respect to my right hon. Friend, I think he is conflating two dissimilar situations, because the situation he is describing is already an aggravated offence and what we are talking about here are offences that are not aggravated. Indeed, this Bill has been introduced because they are not regarded as aggravated offences and thereby qualifying for greater punishment.

It is a mistake to try to equate a situation where something is already an aggravated offence with the situation described in this Bill. If a person is harassing or making remarks to somebody in the mistaken belief that they are trying to insult a woman, but it turns out that they are a man, that seems to me to be a mistake. Although that will probably still enable the person to be convicted of a public order offence, it will be a public order offence not because of their behaviour, but because of that person’s sex. It is semantics, I am prepared to concede, but that is why I introduced that amendment.

Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)

Before the intervention of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), was my hon. Friend saying that misgendering somebody would cause less offence to them as opposed to greater offence? To my mind, any sexual-based harassment, whether it be misgendered or correctly gendered, will still cause offence.

Sir Christopher Chope

I have tried to avoid—and have done so up to now—getting into the debate about the difference between sex and gender. I will not rise to my hon. Friend’s bait to try to develop arguments around that. The Bill, commendably, is specific to sex, and it leaves out gender. I will leave it at that if that is all right with my hon. Friend.

This brings me to the conclusion of my remarks. I will not say what my intentions are in relation to these amendments until I have heard from the Minister, which I hope, Madam Deputy Speaker, you will think is a reasonable approach to take.

March 27, 2023