Tag: Speeches

Zarah Sultana – 2022 Speech on the Public Order Bill

The speech made by Zarah Sultana, the Labour MP for Coventry South, in the House of Commons on 23 May 2022.

When this Tory Government were elected in December 2019, pundits asked about their agenda. They wondered what their central driving force would be. Of course, the Government had their line: they spoke about being a “people’s Government” and about “levelling up”. Today, that shallow façade has been totally discredited, with the Government overseeing the biggest fall in living standards since records began, hitting the poorest hardest through policies such as the scrapping of the universal credit uplift and a real-terms cut to pensions and social security. This Bill demonstrates yet again what the Government are really about, because there has been a clear thread running through their legislation. It is not about “levelling up” or “building back better”, or whatever empty slogan they are using today; it is a growing and unmistakable authoritarianism. That is clearly seen in the Bill that we are debating.

Government Members might complain but look at what they are doing, from the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act 2021 and its attempt to effectively decriminalise torture; to the spy cops Act—the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act 2021—giving state agents the licence to torture and commit sexual violence; and the Elections Act 2022, with its attack on the independence of the Electoral Commission and the attempt to rig elections, with millions of disproportionately poor and marginalised people at risk of losing their vote.

There is also the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022, which human rights lawyers described as an “alarming” attack on our basic rights and which abolishes vital safeguards for our freedoms, and the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, which breaks Britain’s 71-year commitment to the refugee convention, deporting victims of war and torture to Rwanda.

Paul Bristow

Will the hon. Member give way?

Zarah Sultana

No. Many people have told you that, so please just stay sitting down.

The Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill, which is set for its Second Reading in the House tomorrow, has been described by one human rights organisation as an “exercise in denying justice.” [Interruption.] Stop heckling me and just listen—how about that? Thank you very much.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)

Order. It is important that hon. Members do not address one another directly in that way, but I do think that the hon. Lady has said that she is not going to take an intervention at this stage.

Zarah Sultana

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

We also see this in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and today’s Bill. The first bans “noisy” protest and risks criminalising Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities out of existence; and the Government are trying to push the second through before that Act is even put into effect, repackaging measures that have already been rejected by Members in the other place.

The Bill will introduce so-called serious disruption prevention orders, which can be used to ban individuals protesting and can even apply to those who have never, ever committed a crime. As the human rights group Liberty states, it amounts to

“a staggering escalation of the Government’s clampdown on dissent.”

It will massively extend police powers to undertake stop and search at protests, including—as many hon. Members have mentioned—without suspicion of any wrongdoing. Police officers themselves seem quite alarmed about that. As one officer says,

“a little inconvenience is more acceptable than a police state”.

As we know, black people are already 14 times more likely to be stopped and searched without reasonable grounds. We can be sure that this new power will be disproportionately used against black and other ethnic minority citizens, including with the predictable effect of deterring people from raising their voice against injustice.

It does not stop there. The Bill’s vague and ambiguous language means that anyone walking around with a bike lock, a roll of tape or any number of everyday objects could be found guilty of the new offence of an intention to lock on, and could face an unlimited fine. These are just some of the measures in the Bill that are clearly aimed at climate campaigners. No one will be happier than the fossil fuel industry and the companies that fund the Conservative party. The Government are attacking our freedoms in order to criminalise those who stand up for a liveable planet for us all.

Conservative Members like to talk about freedom and liberty and make out that they are the champions of democracy and human rights, but a Government committed to freedom do not try to let their soldiers commit torture. They do not let state agents commit sexual violence. They do not deliberately make it harder for citizens to vote. They do not deport refugees to detention camps 4,000 miles away. They do not try to privatise a broadcaster just because of its rigorous coverage. A Government committed to freedom certainly do not crack down on protest and dissent, but that is exactly what this Government are trying to do. We have a name for a Government who do those kinds of things: an authoritarian Government. That is what this Tory Government are, and we all have a duty to oppose them.

May 25, 2022
Beth Winter – 2022 Speech on the Public Order Bill

The speech made by Beth Winter, the Labour MP for Cynon Valley, in the House of Commons on 23 May 2022.

The Bill is a draconian piece of legislation that undermines our democracy. It is the sort of Bill I would expect from an extreme and authoritarian Administration anticipating opposition, and perhaps even fearing for their continued existence. As Members across the House have said, the provisions are not necessary. Existing laws are sufficient. The provisions would leave the UK in breach of international human rights law, would clearly restrict fundamental human rights, and severely compromise the UK’s ability to promote open societies and respect for human rights internationally. They have rightly been condemned by Members from across the House today.

Paul Bristow

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Beth Winter

No, I will not give way because of time. Causing obstruction at a site of key national infrastructure was something the Prime Minister proposed doing at Heathrow a few years ago, when he threatened to lie down in front of bulldozers. That was, of course, before he became Prime Minister. I wonder what his actions would be now. The offence of locking on, or being equipped for locking on, is far too broadly drafted and far too wide-ranging—purposefully so, I would argue, in order to restrict individuals’ willingness to protest. Those measures must be thrown out.

The “stop and search without suspicion” measures are an over-extension of police powers. Given our knowledge of the racial bias in the application of stop and search, the measures are a green light from the Government to create further racial tensions in policing. Those measures must also be thrown out.

The serious disruption prevention orders risk depriving people of the fundamental human rights of assembly and movement. As commentators and colleagues in the House have said, they are like the protest powers in Russia or Belarus, but even more extreme. They, too, must be thrown out.

I take issue with some of the comments and approaches of Conservative Members. The Conservative Benches are empty now, unfortunately, which I think says a lot about the Conservatives’ position. Their comments have been very selective and subjective, and a lot of the language used has been extremely offensive. The measures in the Bill are extremely broad and far reaching. For example, the protest banning orders are extremely broad in scope and allow the police to put restrictions on processions and assemblies beyond those mentioned in recent debates. They can include religious festivals and activities, community gatherings, football matches, vigils, remembrance ceremonies, and trade union disputes and pickets. These are absolutely terrifying proposals.

The powers in the Bill will be extended to Wales, but have the Welsh Government been consulted? I doubt it, given past experience. This is how the Government normally act towards our devolved, democratically elected Governments. They change the laws affecting Wales, but do not ask Wales its views. The Welsh Government were clearly opposed to the measures on protest in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. I believe that they will make clear their opposition to this Bill. Furthermore, there is concrete evidence that the Welsh police are not supportive or likely to make use of such powers, given what was said by four constables at a recent session of the Welsh Affairs Committee.

Paul Bristow

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Beth Winter

No, I will not. I believe that Welsh MPs will reject the Bill tonight. I will wrap up with one final point. This Conservative legislation has been presented as a necessary measure to deal with climate protesters. We are facing a climate catastrophe, and the Government should be addressing its root causes now. The overwhelming majority of climate protesters are using democratic rights that we have fought over for many, many years. Among those protesters, I include myself, my parents and my children, as we have been on many a protest in our lives, locking arms, so we would probably be criminalised and called eco-hooligans, which is how the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) shamefully described protesters earlier.

Paul Bristow

Will the hon. Member give way?

Beth Winter

No, I will not. As I said at the outset, there are sufficient laws in existence to deal with protests.

I believe that there is another reason for the Bill: the current cost of living crisis will drive such poverty and polarisation that the Government are concerned that their economic policies mean that public protest is increasingly likely. Rip-off energy bills—like the poll tax—pushing people into poverty and debt will lead to more protests on our streets. Is the Prime Minister readying himself for his Thatcher moment, confronting those on a low income in Trafalgar Square? How proportional will that be? I hope that we do not see such violence from this Government, but I fear that that is what the Bill is about.

Hundreds of civil organisations, legal academics, cross-party parliamentarians and UN special rapporteurs condemned the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and they will do the same with this Bill. I urge Members to listen to them and to us and to do the right thing today: vote against this absolutely rotten Bill on Second Reading. Throw it out.

May 25, 2022
Marsha De Cordova – 2022 Speech on the Public Order Bill

The speech made by Marsha De Cordova, the Labour MP for Battersea, in the House of Commons on 23 May 2022.

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) and to speak in this Second Reading debate. The provisions in this Bill pose a significant risk to the UK’s adherence to its domestic and international human rights obligations, and the Bill is unlikely to be compliant with the European convention on human rights, particularly article 10 on freedom of expression and article 11 on freedom of assembly and association.

Equivalent measures to the protest-banning orders were previously roundly rejected by the police and Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services on the basis that such measures would neither be compatible with human rights legislation nor create an effective deterrent. Many organisations, including Justice, have said that the Bill would give the police carte blanche to target protestors. Similar laws can be found in Russia and Belarus. Is this the country we have become?

That is why I support the amendment in the name of my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition. It is disturbing that the Government have put forward this Bill as their first piece of legislation in the Queen’s Speech, and when the ink is not even dry on their Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. We have not even been able to assess that Act’s impact on people and communities. It beggars belief that the Government have brought forward this Bill during a cost of living emergency, when they should be focusing on tackling the crisis facing so many of our constituents. Moreover, the Bill’s provisions are more egregious than those in the Government’s amendments to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 that were flatly and rightly rejected in the other place.

My speech will focus on the Bill’s equality impacts, especially in relation to protest. Before entering this House, I spent most of my life as an advocate and campaigner, and I know from first-hand experience the power that protest can have. My freedoms today are directly linked to the organising and protests that happened on our streets, from the suffragettes who chained themselves to Parliament to secure votes for women, to disabled people who locked their wheelchairs to traffic lights to fight the discriminatory cuts to social security, and the Black Lives Matter protests.

Protesting is one of the most effective ways for people from underserved and under-represented groups to organise and deliver change for our communities. Such people often do not have access to the seats of powers. They face significant barriers to democratic and civic participation. Clamping down on protest will not only have an impact on the types of issues that our communities will be able to voice their concerns about but shut down key avenues of mobilising the public to support and preserve our rights.

I urge Government Members, and the Policing Minister in particular, to watch “Then Barbara Met Alan”, which highlights the fight for civil rights for disabled people and the role that protests played in securing the imperfect Disability Discrimination Act 2005. But for those protests and disabled people protesting and making sacrifices, many of the rights that we fight to maintain today would not have been secured.

This Bill will criminalise protest tactics and drag people into the criminal justice system, and we know that people from our communities will suffer the most. Our communities are already over-policed and targeted by the authorities. I am especially worried about the provision on protest-specific stop-and-search powers. Those powers are a form of structural oppression that will continue to hurt and harm our black, Asian and ethnic minority communities. Their expansion will only entrench racial disproportionality in the criminal justice system and further erode trust in public institutions.

Last week, the Home Secretary announced that she was lifting restrictions placed on police stop-and-search powers in areas where police anticipate violent crimes by easing conditions on the use of section 60 orders under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. The Bill will amend section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 to expand the types of offences that allow a police officer to stop and search a person or a vehicle. It will also extend suspicionless stop-and-search powers to the protest context; police officers will be able to stop and search a person or a vehicle without suspicion if they reasonably believe that certain protest-related offences will be committed in that area.

Despite ongoing revelations regarding the misuse and racist application of stop-and-search powers, the Government decided to roll them out further. I therefore hope that when the Minister sums up, he will address disproportionality. I am sorry, but the equality impact assessment is flawed. It does not address the Bill’s disproportionate impact on our black and ethnic minority communities, and on black men in particular. Overwhelming evidence, including the Home Office’s own data, provided to human rights and civil liberty organisations, details the inherent disproportionality in the use of police stop and search. We know from the Independent Office for Police Conduct’s report that, in the year to March 2021, black people were seven times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people; Asian people were 2.5 times more likely to be stopped and searched.

We know that stop and search powers are ineffective. According to the Home Affairs Committee, between March and May 2020, more than 80% of the 21,950 stop and searches resulted in no further action. That is counterproductive. The decision to ease section 60 and the new powers in the Bill do not consider the trauma that structural oppression causes to our black and ethnic minority communities, and in particular to our black boys.

The Bill will also create the offence of intentional obstruction of a suspicionless, protest-specific stop and search. It might be used to target legal observers, or community-led protest marshals, who play a vital role in protecting the rights of groups by keeping them safe and explaining many complicated and technical laws. They are there in an observer or advisory capacity. The lack of that crucial function will impact many groups, and disabled people and people from ethnic minority backgrounds in particular.

We do not need the Bill. It will not solve the problems that it seeks to address. All it will do is increase the criminalisation of people from our under-represented and under-served communities. The Government are not interested in protecting people or serving those who need them most; they want only to protect themselves, to hold on to power by playing with people’s lives, and to manipulate the public to deflect from their failures. They are doing that at people’s expense. If they cared, they would have brought forward the victims’ Bill and ensured justice for the 1.3 million victims who gave up on the justice system last year. I will stand up for the people and, along with Opposition colleagues, I will vote against the Bill.

May 25, 2022
Alex Cunningham – 2022 Speech on the Public Order Bill

The speech made by Alex Cunningham, the Labour MP for Stockton North, in the House of Commons on 23 May 2022.

This is the first Bill of the Queen’s Speech and it is stark proof that the Government are out of steam and out of ideas. It is a sad day for democracy, as was best illustrated by some of the contributions that we heard from the Government Benches. Instead of the ambitious reforms that our country needs and deserves at a time when the cost of living is spiralling out of control for many of our constituents, the Government have served up these reheated proposals that contribute little, if anything, to the law. We on Teesside do not have a problem with protests, but we do have a huge problem with the massive increase in violent crime and antisocial behaviour. We also have a big problem with health inequalities and the fact that unemployment in our area remains over 30% higher than the national average. Dissatisfied by her attacks on our historical right to peacefully protest in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which has yet to come into force, the Home Secretary is trying to have a second bite of the cherry. However, if she thinks it is so important to restrict protests, why has she not introduced any of the statutory instruments to implement the measures in the Act before bringing forward yet another Bill this year? The hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) also questioned that. It is just more evidence that she is more interested in headlines than real practical policies.

We on these Benches believe that the vital infrastructure and services on which we all rely must be protected from serious disruption and that protests must not put others at risk, but the police and courts already have powers to deal with such dangerous and disruptive protests, including the use of injunctions and existing criminal offences such as the obstruction of a highway and criminal damage, among others. It is worth noting that these existing powers have already been used to arrest people and to prosecute cases of obstructing infrastructure and locking on during the Insulate Britain blockade of the M25 and the Just Stop Oil blockade of Kingsbury refinery.

This Bill’s assortment of new offences will do nothing to actually safeguard vital national infrastructure and ensure that it is protected from serious disruption, and we know that the most effective measures for preventing such disruption already exist, and that is with injunctions. We do, however, recognise that there can be a real problem with delays in seeking injunctions, and a lack of preparation, planning and co-ordination between different private and public authorities. So why is the Home Secretary not focusing on this issue, and including provisions for co-operation between the police and public and private authorities to improve resilience and prevent serious disruption? That is what we would do.

We have already heard the Home Secretary blow and bluster at the Dispatch Box after the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed, deploying all manner of dodgy statements about the Opposition’s approach to law and order. She could have had our full co-operation with that Bill—there were some very good proposals in it—but she chose to play silly political games by introducing other measures that served to shackle our people and diminish their rights. She knew all too well the game she was playing, but so did the public, who recognise that the Tory Government, rather than getting on with fixing crime, prefer to muck about with the rights to protest.

This new Bill introduces powers that are far too widely drawn and that could criminalise protesters and even passers-by. All of us who work here will have seen many enthusiastic protests outside in Parliament Square. It is what we expect while working in this the seat of democracy. Many of us, more likely those on this side, have enjoyed many a protest. My favourite goes back 50 years to when students were demanding a better deal from Ted Heath’s Government. It was very noisy, but very successful. The morning chant was simple: “Heath out, Heath out!” No one was more surprised than me when the chant changed later to “Heath’s out, Heath’s out!” because that was the day he called the general election.

If Parliament Square were designated as an area for suspicionless stop and search, which the Bill introduces, could Members of Parliament and our staff coming to work on the estate be stopped and searched by police? It seems far-fetched, but that may be a logical conclusion of the measures in the Bill. I would be grateful if the Minister shared his thoughts on his staff potentially being caught by these measures as they head into the office. As Justice has said, this Bill will

“criminalise a breathtakingly wide range of peaceful behaviour”.

As well as rapid injunctions to protect infrastructure against serious disruption, we would create a fast-track buffer zone outside schools and vaccine clinics to protect children and those accessing medical care from dangerous anti-vaxxers. What we have opposed and will continue to oppose is the criminalisation of peaceful protesters and passers-by. The Home Secretary has said this Bill is necessary to prevent “mob rule”, but would she call those protesting against the Russian invasion of Ukraine a mob? Is that the term she would use to describe the thousands of women who have gathered together for vigils to demand action on violence against women and girls? It is gatherings such as those on which her Bill will impact, not just potentially dangerous and disruptive ones. Why introduce a new offence of locking on when it is effectively covered by existing offences such as criminal damage, public nuisance and obstructing a road? Why introduce SDPOs when the Home Office’s own response was initially to reject them on the grounds that they would stop individuals exercising their right to protest?

It is time for the Home Secretary to stop playing petty political games, and time for the Government to stop wasting legislative time on the Home Secretary’s hunt for headlines and to bring forward legislation that will actually address the many issues facing our constituents.

May 25, 2022
Rishi Sunak – 2022 Comments on Downing Street Parties

The comments made by Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 25 May 2022.

I’m grateful to Sue Gray for her report and I sincerely repeat my apologies for the event I received a fine for.

The Prime Minister has apologised and lessons have been learned. I hope we can now move forward and continue delivering for the British people.

May 25, 2022
Rupa Huq – 2022 Speech on the Public Order Bill

The speech made by Rupa Huq, the Labour MP for Ealing Central and Acton, in the House of Commons on 23 May 2022.

Here we go again: illiberal legislation on public order and regulating protest boomeranging back in here after the other place flung it out last time. I do not deny that there can be value in appropriate sentences and tighter enforcement in the face of serious disorder—for example, pitch invasions are increasingly common and unwelcome nowadays—but we have to be proportionate about these things.

In 2019, it did seem a bit bizarre when we saw Extinction Rebellion on top of tube trains, when that is one of the most green forms of transport. It probably did not make any new fans there, and ditto when the A40 in Acton was blocked. We all prize living in a liberal democracy, but if curbs are disproportionate and the exercise is about curtailing everyday freedoms primarily to win favour with the red tops and to play to their party base and the gallery, then we do have a problem.

These things are always a balance, but we have to tread carefully when it comes to limiting protest. Not that long ago, the Government were going softly, softly on stop and search. We even saw the police dancing with protesters, but the Bill goes for the eye-catching and draconian, such as creating the offence of locking on, where someone is potentially subject to 51 weeks in prison and an unlimited fine for intentionally attaching themselves, someone else or an object to another person, to an object or to land in a manner capable of causing “serious disruption”. It is so vague that it could apply to people linking arms. That is not to mention, as has already been said, that the most famous lockers-on in history were the suffragettes. It is just outside here where Viscount Falkland’s foot spur is missing, because in 1909 people locked on to it. That is part of our history and it is never to be replaced.

We have to beware of being heavy-handed and being led by moral panic with these things. The European Court of Human Rights has held that the freedom to take part in peaceful assembly is of such importance that it cannot be restricted in any way, as long as the person concerned does not commit any reprehensible acts. Concerningly, there is such widespread discretion in the Bill that the police have carte blanche. These laws are not dissimilar to what they have in Russia and Belarus.

If we think about the memorable protests of recent years, yes there has been Extinction Rebellion, but there have also been the school strikes. I do not condone bunking off school, but Greta Thunberg and her lot and the UK equivalent did put the lie to the youth being apolitical and apathetic. We have had Black Lives Matter and what happened to Colston, but I would argue that the sea change should have been the heavy-handed policing of the vigil for Sarah Everard. It was a shocking incident, and the policing was disgusting. In the immediate aftermath, we had a little bit of hand-wringing and concern, but the content of the Bill is a huge disappointment.

Unlike with the average road, where there is a minimal risk of disruption or it being blocked when we get in our car, women going about their lawful business every day in this country find that their route is blocked. What I am talking about specifically is women seeking an entirely legal abortion. It could be for any manner of reasons, and it is probably one of the most stressful and distressing moments in someone’s life. There is a one in four chance—this is from the Home Office’s own figures—that the clinic they attend will be subject to protests or vigils from anti-abortion protesters.

I have raised this issue with a number of different Home Office Ministers. I presented a ten-minute rule Bill in 2020 with massive cross-party support—from Members of seven different parties—so I know the will of the House is there. Even the Home Secretary, in answer to my oral question in February, was positively glowing, and I know she sees a lot of merit in it—but here is a Bill to curb protests and there is absolutely nothing on protests outside clinics. At least four more clinics have been affected since my 2020 Bill and, if we add it up, the issue affects 100,000 women a year, yet the Government say that there is not enough impact to warrant intervention. We know that psychological distress and damage is being done to those women and that precious police time is eaten up—Members should ask the police in Ealing.

In Ealing, we are lucky to have a pioneering council that put through a public spaces protection order to end more than 20 years of harassment at the Marie Stopes clinic. The street is now transformed, with no more gruesome foetus dolls or women being told that they are going to hell for a completely legal medical procedure. We are lucky in Ealing, but it should not be about luck. It was an act of last resort by our council, and only two other local authorities have followed—Richmond and Manchester. It is a fundamental part of the rule of law that people get equal protection under the law wherever they are, so why are people covered only in those three places?

BBC Newsnight had a feature on the subject last week. There is a huge file of evidence at the clinic in Bournemouth, but the council does not want to act, or shows no sign of acting. It is enormously onerous for councils that do want to push through the legislation, because of the burden of proof and officer time, so with everything else on their plates, it is not a priority for most of them. We are in a bizarre situation where, pending the outcome of a Supreme Court challenge, women seeking abortion in Northern Ireland could soon have greater universal protections from harassment than those in England and Wales.

At the same time, the Bill criminalises a huge range of peaceful non-disruptive behaviour and goes far and beyond what most people would ever deem necessary by supplementing powers that are already there. I give the Minister advance warning that I will be seeking to amend the Bill to protect women from this most distressing and unpleasant form of protest. Canada, Australia and several states of the US already have such legislation; it is not a crazy idea. We need a national approach. People will still be able to protest if they do not like abortion laws in this country, but the appropriate place to do that would be here, rather than around defenceless women in their hour of need. Every woman should have the same protection as people in Ealing.

Mr Holden

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Dr Huq

No, because other people still want to speak. The so-called hon. Gentleman has eaten up everyone’s time and my hon. Friends will not get in because of him.

Give or take a bit of tinkering with wordings and clauses, this Bill is essentially a regurgitation of the failed Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. It replicates all the underlying principles and measures that their lordships previously debated and comprehensively rejected. There is no imagination in it to deal with real problems, so for that reason, I and all Opposition Members will vote against the Bill tonight.

May 25, 2022
Andy McDonald – 2022 Speech on the Public Order Bill

The speech made by Andy McDonald, the Labour MP for Middlesbrough, in the House of Commons on 23 May 2022.

It is an absolute pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey).

The Public Order Bill is the latest in a line of Bills that this Government have decided to introduce, which can only be described as some of the most reactionary and authoritarian legislation in living memory. Instead of bringing forward measures to support people, following a global pandemic that has ripped through our communities, with many now in the dreadful situation of having to choose between heating their homes and eating, and with 40% of households expected to be in fuel poverty, Ministers are using parliamentary time to criminalise our basic right as citizens to protest peacefully—or even noisily and irritatingly.

The Bill follows a raft of recent laws passed at the very end of the last Session that were designed to stifle our liberties. We had the Elections Act 2022, containing measures cynically designed to prevent people from voting. We had the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, which gives the Home Secretary powers to strip dual citizens of their British citizenship without notice, and—in contravention of the UK’s international obligations—criminalises many of those seeking asylum, who now risk being shipped off to Rwanda thanks to her cruel and inhumane scheme. We also had the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, banning noisy protests and criminalising Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.

Thanks to the work of those in the other place, the Government’s attempt to pass provisions that, if implemented, would leave the UK in breach of international human rights law was scuppered. It is therefore very concerning that the Government have immediately opted to introduce them again in this Session through this Public Order Bill.

The headline measure banning people from locking on—attaching themselves to other persons or objects—is a dangerous assault on non-violent protest. To begin with, as has been pointed out, the Bill does not even properly define “attach”, so it is unclear what it means. Could linking arms with other protesters count? Could using balloons that need to be tethered to the ground fall under these provisions? On top of that, the Bill does not define what would constitute “reasonable excuse”. Would exercising the fundamental right to protest count?

Would the following example count, which I wish to bring to the Home Secretary’s attention, as set out in an early-day motion from 13 years ago, one of whose main signatories was the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May)? It begins:

“That this House commemorates the 100th anniversary on 27 April 2009 of the day that Margery Humes, Theresa Garnet, Sylvia Russell and Bertha Quinn, suffragettes from the Women’s Social and Political Union, chained themselves to statues in St. Stephen’s Hall to protest for the right of women to vote”,

and

“pays tribute to those and all other heroic women who fought for the rights of women during a time when society, and Parliament, thought them undeserving of equal rights”.

How can the Home Secretary countenance enacting legislation that would undoubtedly make protests such as that, which took place just a stone’s throw away from this Chamber, carry a maximum penalty of six months in prison, an unlimited fine, or both? What is more, the Bill would make it an offence merely to be in possession of equipment to lock on. A person would not have to lock on to commit a crime; just being equipped to lock on would be an offence punishable with an unlimited fine.

The right to protest was fought for by generations. When Parliament is not acting in the interests of the people, whom it purports to represent, the right to protest is paramount to keep this place in check. Were it not for those suffragettes, the securing of women’s rights would have been much delayed, which might have delayed the progress that enabled the Home Secretary or the former Prime Minister to be in this place. I cannot help but see the terrible irony in the Home Secretary’s introducing legislation that would criminalise the very means by which courageous suffragettes won women the right to take part in the political sphere. If it was right for the suffragettes to take that action, as the former Prime Minister advocated, why is it not right for other protesters holding this place to account?

Mr Holden

Legislation passed in 2007 turned trespass in this place into criminal trespass, so what the hon. Gentleman is talking about could not take place because of legislation passed under the last Labour Government. It is already a criminal offence, so the suggestion that the Bill does something different and criminalises something that was not already illegal does not hold water, does it?

Andy McDonald

The hon. Gentleman understates the significance of that process, which fundamentally changed our constitution and which was deemed to be illegal at the time.

What is so different between, on the one hand, the suffragettes, and on the other, protesters such as the esteemed international climate lawyer Farhana Yamin sticking her hands to the pavement outside the London headquarters of Shell to highlight the fact that the Paris agreement, which she helped to negotiate in 2015, was not delivering; or the Palestine solidarity activists locking on to one another outside the London headquarters of Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, whose subsidiary IMI Systems may well be responsible for supplying the bullet used to murder Shireen Abu Akleh? Just like the Government in 1909 withholding the right to vote from women, this Government’s failure to tackle the climate change crisis with enough urgency is an outrage that demands outcry. Much has been said of Insulate Britain and the objections to certain of its tactics. Government Members should contemplate why it is necessary for people to take such measures when we see our planet dying. If they want to shut up Insulate Britain, there is something very simple that they could do, and that is to insulate Britain and get on with it. In a healthy democracy, these uproars of objection would not be criminalised, but taken on board by a Government serving in the interests of the people.

The attempt to pass the Bill is a very dark day for democracy, and it is incumbent on us all to oppose it in its entirety. I encourage everyone who can do so to attend the TUC rally in this city, which is titled so aptly: “We demand better”.

May 25, 2022
Richard Fuller – 2022 Speech on the Public Order Bill

The speech made by Richard Fuller, the Conservative MP for North East Bedfordshire, in the House of Commons on 23 May 2022.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). She certainly put out the most certain bet that she has been on more protests than most other people in this House and she is honourable for doing so. She said that the contributions to the debate from the Government Benches had promoted divisiveness. I do not agree with her—people have been trying to express their point of view—but, standing alone, perhaps I shall be a sole voice in expressing some reservations about the intent behind some of the measures in the Bill.

I was grateful to hear some of the contributions by the Home Secretary, particularly her willingness to look at the Bill’s focus. I would like to take that up with the Policing Minister, who has been able to explain to me some of the more detailed provisions of previous Bills.

At some points in the debate, it has not been clear whether Members have been focusing on the Bill in the context of protest, climate change or criminal damage. The Bill is at its best when it focuses on those who would use protest as a cover to cause damage or create unreasonable disruption. It starts to lose its way when it strays away from that into an area where all democratic Governments need to be careful, which is how a Government of the day pass legislation that has an effect on protest.

My first concern of principle, then, relates to imprecision, in respect of which I shall mention a couple of clauses. Before I started to speak, I wrote down that I had concerns about why, with the Government having only recently taken a large Bill through Parliament, we had the provisions sort of re-presented today in this Bill. The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), who spoke for the Opposition, had a point about why these measures have come back to the House so soon and whether we have had time to see the impact of the measures passed previously. Again, I can see the rationale for the Bill when it is tight to its intent; when it goes broader than that, I have significant questions.

One reason I am a Conservative is that I believe in freedom of speech—the right of people to express themselves freely. Indeed, as a Government we are emphasising that in a number of other pieces of legislation we are bringing forward. In questions to the Secretary of State for Education earlier, we highlighted the importance of free speech in schools and the need not to have ideological perspectives. We are talking about it in universities, too. As I thought in respect of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, the Government are at risk of being in conflict with their freedom of speech priorities in proposing a Bill that focuses on some of the restrictions on protests.

Another point that came up in respect of the previous Bill and does with this one, too, is the risk that it puts on police officers being seen as political because of their decisions, given the very broad framework that is set out and the fact that it is hard to explain to someone who is being noisy or disruptive why they are being selected rather than others. I do not expect the Policing Minister to address that today, but it would be helpful to learn a bit more about that in my conversations with him.

I think all Members present will recognise my final concern of principle. It is surely true that our politics have become far more divisive over the past decade. Whatever the reasons for that may be—perhaps it is a matter of political decisions or of social media—when people feel very divided on politics it is important that we keep open to them as many avenues as we possibly can for them to express dissent or an opinion or to say where something is wrong. That is an important context for the Policing Minister and the Government to consider as they think about the application of the Bill.

Let me turn to some points about the Bill’s provisions. I talked earlier about it being imprecise and straying from areas in which it is strong—its focus on the use of protest as cover for criminal damage—and unfortunately clauses 1 and 2 are where that level of imprecision starts. They are worded far too openly. Everyone here seems to know what attaching on means. Is that the phrase? I cannot remember exactly what it is.

Mr Holden

Locking on.

Richard Fuller

I thank my hon. Friend. I have no clue what locking on is. I do not know. Some colleagues have made the point. What does one have to attach oneself? I have no idea and there is nothing in the Bill to explain to me what locking on may be. It would be helpful for the Government to produce further provisions on that. It is disappointing that the Government are then extremely precise in clauses 3, 4 and 5 about some of the measures they wish to introduce. Precision is clearly not unavailable to them; it is a matter of choice where they have applied it.

A number of Members have spoken to clause 7, which introduces powers on stop and search. Some people have rightly made the point about the disproportionality of stop and search, which has been an important issue for me in my time in Parliament. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), who is no longer in his place, made his point by saying, “But what about the number of knives and the number of offences that have been caught?” First, that does not answer the question of disproportionality, which is the fundamental reason why many of us have concerns about the use of stop and search. Secondly, that argument is completely inappropriate when stop and search is applied to people going on a protest, because it is about not the other aspects of serious crime or serious drug dealing that we talk about, but people expressing their points of view. I say to the Government, “Please, if you are going to look at the extension of stop and search, think carefully before putting that provision in this legislation.”

Stewart Hosie

The issue is not just the extension of stop and search but many of the extensions in the Bill. I was struck that, if Lord Hain—then Peter Hain—could be convicted of criminal conspiracy for leading direct action events in the 1970s, which he was as part of the anti-apartheid movement, why do we need this panoply of illiberal measures now? The law was more than capable of dealing with many of the same issues 40 or 50 years ago.

Richard Fuller

The right hon. Gentleman is entitled to his point of view about the broader panoply; my point is specifically about stop and search. I hate the fact that a black man, perhaps with his son, who walks in the streets of London or in my constituency in Bedfordshire is 14 times more likely to be stopped, and very often for no good reason. He may then have to explain to his son or daughter why that has happened. Until we as a population start to find some balance about whether stop and search is useful or not and focus on what it means to the next generation, we will be letting down our young people.

Clause 7(7) is chilling:

“A constable may, in the exercise of the powers conferred by subsection (6), stop any person or vehicle and make any search the constable thinks fit whether or not the constable has any grounds for suspecting that the person or vehicle is carrying a prohibited object.”

That is on the way to a demonstration. We can do better than that.

What is serious disruption? It has been mentioned by many Members. It is a lynchpin in the Bill for many aspects of what may happen, but it is not defined in the Bill. Does the Policing Minister intend to come forward with some more precise language about what constitutes a serious disruption, so that we do not put undue pressure on police officers to work it out for themselves in the heat of the moment when people are going on demonstrations? One Opposition Member—I cannot remember which—said that a large demonstration is very likely to cause serious disruption by dint of being a large demonstration. If there is a protest of hundreds of thousands of people going through a city, there is likely to be serious disruption. If we are not going to define “serious disruption”, we will be at risk of having some of these powers misapplied.

Mr Holden

Surely, large protests such as the ones we saw over the Iraq war or the hunting ban, would have engaged with the police at an earlier stage to facilitate a proper, lawful and peaceful protest. What the Government are trying to target are those small, sporadic numbers of people who are causing deliberate harm to specific areas of key infrastructure. Does my hon. Friend understand the difference between those two cases?

Richard Fuller

I do; that was why I said that the Bill is at its best when it focuses on those things. I am just saying to the Minister that we should have more precise definitions in the Bill.

Clause 14(4) lists the prohibitions that may be imposed on someone subject to a serious disruption prevention order. Let me tell the Minister what this reminds me of. Earlier in my time as Member of Parliament for Bedford, I had a constituent who was under a control order. Control orders were brought in for people who our intelligence services said were terrorists or were at high risk of causing a major terrorist incident. Some of the provisions in clause 14(4) remind me very much of the control order provisions that my constituent was under. I ask the Minister please to look at whether that level of intervention on the activities of an individual, who has merely gone about protesting in a way that, yes, may have caused disruption and, yes, may have been subject to the provisions of this Bill, is truly what we should be seeing in a free society.

May 25, 2022
Caroline Lucas – 2022 Speech on the Public Order Bill

The speech made by Caroline Lucas, the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, in the House of Commons on 23 May 2022.

This is a deeply dangerous Bill, and I am pleased to support the reasoned amendments. The measures in the Bill represent a fresh outright attack on our fundamental rights. Indeed, as others have said, the human rights organisation Liberty has called it a

“staggering escalation of the Government’s clampdown on dissent.”

We are in the grip of multiple crises: a cost of living scandal that is pushing millions of households into fuel and food poverty; a war in Ukraine with disastrous consequences; and the accelerating climate and nature emergencies. What we need at this critical juncture is more democracy, not less—not a ban on our constituents participating in certain protests, not subjecting them to 24-hour GPS monitoring for the crime of disagreeing with the Government, and not barring them from participation in public life.

Today I want to focus on serious disruption prevention orders. I will also touch on stop and search, and the creation of new offences. Serious disruption prevention orders are a form of banning order that might more accurately be called “sinister disproportionate political orders”. They are sinister because the idea that someone can be banned from attending a protest for up to two years simply because they have participated in at least two previous protests within a five-year period is nothing short of Orwellian.

People do not need to have been convicted of a crime to be subject to an order. They just need to have dared to exercise the right to take part in a peaceful protest: dared to have attended rallies against Brexit; dared to have marched against going to war; dared to have held our children’s hands as they went on climate strike. How will the police know whether someone falls into that category? How will they know that someone is engaged in other activities that the Bill deems unlawful, such as buying a bike lock or painting a banner? Thanks to drastically expanded surveillance powers, of course, about which I will say more shortly.

The world was rightly outraged by footage of peaceful protestors in Russia being bundled into police vans and silenced for opposing Putin’s war in Ukraine. Make no mistake, this clampdown on British citizens is cut from the same cloth. I will spell it out: an SDPO would completely remove someone’s right to attend a protest, and therefore must be resisted by any right-thinking person who values our democracy.

Proposals to impose sinister banning orders are nothing new, and have time and again been labelled disproportionate. In response to a previous iteration of such orders, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services, and even the Home Office, issued the same warning about their impact on people’s ability to take part in protest. Her Majesty’s inspectorate stated:

“It is difficult to envisage a case where less intrusive measures could not be taken to address the risk that an individual poses, and where a court would therefore accept that it was proportionate to impose a banning order.”

In other words, the provisions in the Bill to restrict citizens are disproportionate to the supposed threats they seek to address.

Moreover, the Bill takes state surveillance to chilling new levels—for example, allowing electronic monitoring of someone subjected to an SDPO, with only the vaguest safeguards applying to any data collected, and the potential for associated negative impacts on individuals’ privacy and the wider community. It bears repeating that this could happen to someone who has committed no crime. As someone who has used parliamentary privilege in this place to open the lid on the immoral and arguably unlawful actions and sanctioning of police spies, this causes me considerable concern. The Home Office argues that such levels of interference are justified by the emergence of groups such as Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil, but existing legislation—for example, the Public Order Act 1986 and the Protection from Harassment Act 1997—already grants the powers that reasonable policing of such protests demands.

The Bill is also disproportionate because the new offences could criminalise people for linking arms and having in their possession everyday items such as the bike locks that are simply “capable of causing” so-called “serious disruption”. There is no requirement for any disruption to be actually happening. The provisions just about fall short of policing people’s thoughts and intentions, but the direction of travel is clear and it should terrify us all.

The orders are sinister, disproportionate, and political—political, because the provisions allow far too much scope for police interpretation. On the new broad power for protest-specific stop and search, for example, a suspicion that someone might have knitting needles, a hoodie or even just a marker pen in their bag could be grounds for the police to act, but it does not stop there.

Mr Holden

The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech from her perspective. Could she ever consider a circumstance in which the section 60 stop and search power, which covers an area for a long period, is ever justifiable—or should it also be removed from the police?

Caroline Lucas

As others have said, evidence-based stop and search—where there is evidence and a good reason—is not in question. What is in question here is stop and search on the basis of a whim. As others have eloquently said, there is a very real danger of antagonising some groups who are already most disadvantaged, and therefore making the situation far worse.

The Government want to give the police powers to stop and search a person or a vehicle in a protest context, even when there are no grounds for suspicion. That will be permissible simply if a police officer believes that an offence—such as wilfully obstructing a highway or intentionally causing a public nuisance—might happen in the area or thinks that some people in the area might be carrying prohibited items; and there we are, back to the marker pens and knitting needles.

Protest is, by its very nature, liable to cause a public nuisance, disruption and noise, and to have specific targets, but real democratic leadership does not seek to ban opposition voices from protesting. Only a cowardly Government, who do not trust or respect their people, would take such a step.

Kit Malthouse

I wanted to ask whether the hon. Lady, notwithstanding her objection to the banning of protest, subscribes to the enthusiasm across the House for the ban of protests near abortion centres or clinics, and supports the creation of buffer zones that ban protests in those circumstances. If that is the case, is she possibly guilty of wanting to ban only protests with which she does not agree?

Caroline Lucas

I disagree with the premise of the Minister’s intervention. I have been proudly at the forefront of moves to say that women seeking their right to healthcare should not be subject to the personal, direct and threatening individual harassment that happens all too frequently outside abortion centres. I would wager that I have been on more demonstrations than anyone on the Government Benches—I have been arrested for them and I have been alongside them, and I have to say in parentheses that the characterisation of protesters by Government Members is wildly short of the mark—but I have seen nothing that is tantamount to the kind of harassment and direct intimidation that I have seen outside abortion centres, which is why the Minister’s comparison is not a reasonable one.

While I am on the subject of who protesters are, let me say that I am fascinated by the division between the protesters we support and those we do not. It seems to me that we support the ones who are silent and probably protesting in their own front rooms, because we do not like protest to be disruptive.

Tom Hunt

Will the hon. Member give way?

Caroline Lucas

No, I will not.

Protest is, by definition, disruptive. I can promise Government Members that the protesters I have been alongside include grandmothers who have never been on a protest before, nurses, doctors, teachers, care workers and people who collect the refuse. They are our community. I do not buy into the division that the Government are trying to make between a community on the one side and protesters on the other. The protesters are from those communities; they come up from them and are part of them. I say no to the kind of divisiveness that I have been hearing and we have been subjected to over and over again for the past five hours that we have been sat here.

Even if Ministers persist with this draconian and dangerous Bill, I sincerely hope that they will at least recognise the dangerous impact of already existing suspicionless stop and search powers, including their ineffectiveness, and their contribution to racial disproportionality and erosion of trust in the criminal justice system. I hope that the Government will not seek to extend them and therefore perpetuate such outcomes. More than that, though, my hope is that the Bill, which is riven with political ideology—and, frankly, puts the police in an untenable position—can be stopped in its tracks. I cannot find one shred of sense, proportionately or necessity in the Bill, and I hope that colleagues will join me in opposing it at every opportunity.

May 25, 2022
Sue Gray – 2022 Report into Parties in Downing Street

The text of the report written by Sue Gray and published on 25 May 2022.

Sue Gray Report (in .pdf format)

May 25, 2022