Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Monday 1st November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, I did not participate in Second Reading on the Bill, but I did get some correspondence that explained to me what was going on, and I just could not believe it. I am not going to repeat the arguments which were so eloquently put by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and the supporters of the amendment but I could not believe it. As an employer, I am required to do criminal record checks and if I got a response that said someone was guilty of hate crime, I am afraid their application would go straight in the bin. Yet we discover that people can be put on such a list without their knowledge, as my noble friend Lady Noakes said, and that their name will stay there indefinitely. That of course does not apply to people who have actually been convicted of crimes, so they are in the worst of all positions.

Then there is the arbitrary nature of this recording, so I wondered how big a problem this is. I am told that there have been 119,934 of these incidents recorded by 34 police forces and that 2,130 of them were done by children. It is extraordinary that this could be happening and is part of a wider concern where our free speech is being undermined. I went on Twitter; I think I lasted about three months. I have spent 40 years offending and upsetting people with the things that I said. So far as I know, I am not on a list as having committed a hate crime.

However, the essence of our democracy is that there should be free speech and that our police should be in the business of finding out what the evidence is, not turning into the people who conclude and are, in effect, prosecutors. I will not detain the House but among the examples given was someone who expressed the view that trans women should not have access to women-only spaces. Well, I believe that; is it a hate crime? Am I not allowed to say that? The fact that someone could be put on such a list indefinitely offends against our democracy.

I am sure my noble friend the Minister will have a brief, because all Ministers always do. I am sure she will have her brief from the Home Office—I worked in the Home Office for a while—and it will say that the amendment is not perfectly drafted and that some provision elsewhere could cover it, and all the rest. I hope she will throw that away and give an undertaking not only to bring forward a government amendment but, this very day, to get on to the College of Policing and end this absolute outrage.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I think I am probably quite woke, and proud to be so; none the less, I support the broad thrust of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, subject to a couple of caveats. The first caveat is a slightly light-hearted one. As a serial offender, I gently say to noble Lords and friends across the Committee that the overuse of adjectives named for great writers does not always help the cause of human rights. We have all done it: “Dickensian” for socioeconomic rights and “Orwellian” or even “Kafkaesque” for civil liberties. “Chilling” is similar. In fact, an online wit once said of my overuse of these terms: “That Chakrabarti woman finds everything chilling. She sees refrigerators everywhere.” That is just a gentle point about the way we frame this.

I support the broad thrust of this, but the problem is not just about allegations of hate. It is about soft information, as it is sometimes called, or allegations that are not capable of sustaining a criminal charge and should not sit on databases for years and years, or indefinitely. This problem has been growing for many years with the rise of the database state and the potential to hold all sorts of data, even if it never matures into a charge. That is dangerous.

In my previous role as director of Liberty, I saw many cases of this kind. Not all involved free speech. I remember one woman who had allowed her small children to play in the park while she went to a kiosk, and people thought they were unattended. She was cautioned by the police because she was at the borderline, they thought, of neglect, but there was no question of pursuing a charge. None the less, this data sat around for years and was hugely detrimental to her when she sought to work in positions of care.

This is not just about the glorious culture wars that have got everyone to their feet today. It is not about your views on trans inclusion or not, but about whether so-called soft information or police intelligence that never matures into a charge should sit unregulated, off the statute book, as a matter of police discretion and administration. Whatever our views on the free speech point, we surely have to agree with procedural point that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, was right to make clear.

I remind noble Lords that free speech is a two-way street. It is not just about the woke and so-called cancel culture; it is also about protesters who feel that they attend demonstrations and sit on police databases for many years just because they have been caught on CCTV. We in your Lordships’ House would do a great service to the nation if, whenever we consider these so-called culture wars that centre around identity politics and in particular free speech, we remember that it is a two-way street. It is people on either side of very contentious arguments who sometimes want to “cancel” each other, and we should remember that.

My final point is a substantive one about the way I urge the Minister to take this forward. Given that the concern is about not just hate incidents but all soft information that may be held indefinitely, can the Minister’s response today—or on Report, with, I hope, substantive government safeguards—be comprehensive and address not just non-crime hate incidents but all soft intelligence and all police data about individuals that could be to their detriment going forward, whether it touches on free speech rights or other rights such as Article 8 rights to privacy and autonomy? Can this soft information that has been held administratively by the police be on the statute book and brought under proper regulation and control?

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, the issue is very simple. We surely have to decide whether hate crime and non-hate crime, and all their different manifestations, should be left to police guidance, or whether the issue is far more important than that and should be brought under the process of Parliament—legislative control and legislative process. To me, the answer is perfectly clear: the latter.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, on 17 September 2019, I attended the first day of an historic sitting of our Supreme Court. It was subsequently to rule unanimously—as I had repeatedly warned and argued—that the Government’s prorogation of this Parliament was a grave and unlawful abuse of power. As I walked out into the lunchtime sun, with just one young female colleague, we were the target of a noisy, at times abusive, and even racist demonstration. Noble Lords may remember the mood. Despite a counterdemonstration, there was a negligible police presence; however, neither group surged. It was unpleasant, but I was unafraid for my safety and would never have dreamed of making a complaint. Nor did I hear a complaint from anyone associated with government—quite the contrary. I do not believe that the streets outside Parliament or our higher courts should be islands of tranquillity, nor that I should be protected from offence, let alone dissent. I fear that this Government display a thinner skin.

The Minister is a commercial lawyer of considerable distinction. I am merely one of the public lawyers whom he mentioned in his opening remarks. Indeed, I am one of the activist lawyers to whom his colleague, the Home Secretary, often refers disparagingly. However, I hope he will agree that I have always tried to disagree with him kindly and well.

In my view, the best way of protecting free speech and democratic dissent is to show and not tell. These values cannot be imposed, like some kind of one-way system, with the stroke of the town planner or a parliamentary draughtsman’s pen. Freedom of expression, liberty and equality under the law constitute the ultimate two-way street. I urge the Government to recognise this and not continue to prosecute a culture war in which there is one law for some—especially the Executive.

For many public lawyers and vulnerable people, including the desperate refugees some of us spend our lives representing, attempts to clip the wings of judicial review look nothing short of retribution for the prorogation case of 2019 to which I have referred. It is like losing 11-nil in the FA Cup final and coming for the referee with a baseball bat. Attempts in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill to curtail peaceful but noisy and impactful protest by law seem like a response to the growing international recognition of the Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion movements that will just as easily be used against vigils such as that for Sarah Everard. It is an illiberal dog whistle at a time when the Government should be attempting greater post-pandemic unity and equality—the rule of law, not more divide and rule.

An essential government free speech czar for universities is an oxymoron indeed, not least when these institutions are bound by Article 10 of the human rights convention —our first amendment if you like—and subject to judicial review. Perhaps the Government would do better not to threaten such protections and demonstrate the tolerance and civility that they demand of others.