Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Debate between Baroness Chakrabarti and Lord Balfe

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

I say to the noble Baroness that, early in my career, I asked a senior trade unionist who had been the best Minister of Labour, and he said Walter Monckton followed by Iain Macleod.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

That is even more wisdom from the noble Lord, Lord Balfe.

That concludes what I wanted to say about this group of amendments, and I look forward to hearing later, I hope, a word of consensus from the Minister in response.

Public Order Bill

Debate between Baroness Chakrabarti and Lord Balfe

Committee stage
Wednesday 16th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

I suggest to my noble friend that it also leads to juries being less and less likely to convict because they see these offences as being very spurious.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I could not agree more with the noble Lord, Lord Balfe. Again, it echoes something that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, said. He will forgive me if I summarise his excellent contributions: let us not bring the law into disrepute—not in this place. We are not an elected House, but we are a scrutinising Chamber; we have the time and expertise to make sure that we do not bring our statute book into disrepute. That is where we agree, across the Benches and across this Committee.

I totally agree with the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, that having proportionality in our law is not a problem; it is a benefit. Ministers should not work so hard to squeeze out the judgment and proportionality that must be employed by decision-makers, including police officers and courts.

I will stop there, save to say once more to the Minister that he has not been well served in some of his briefing. Respectfully, it is perfectly legitimate for Members in this Committee to begin by asking the Government to justify why they are legislating and where there is a gap in the existing law, because that central point has not been addressed in this hour of debate. If we do not address it, there will be more cases like that of Charlotte Lynch, and others who are not journalists—in some cases they are bystanders and in some cases they are peaceful dissenters. There is plenty of police power on the statute book and some of it has been abused. There are plenty of criminal offences and some of them have not been used when perhaps they might. It really is for the Government to justify interfering further with the spirit of British liberty. With that, I will—for now only—beg leave to withdraw my amendment.