Public Order Bill

Debate between Baroness Chakrabarti and Lord Davies of Gower

Report stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group take issue with offences listed in the first five clauses of the Bill, so it might be helpful to set out exactly why the Bill is so necessary and how it differs from existing public order legislation. The Bill seeks to speed up the ability of police to pre-empt, intervene and respond to the evolving tactics we have seen from—what can best be described as—a selfish minority of protesters. It also seeks to establish clear stand-alone offences, which target disruptive and dangerous behaviour, and impose sentences that are proportionate to the harm caused.

I have heard many times that the police already have the powers necessary to deal with disruptive behaviour, such as tunnelling or locking on. I disagree. We have only to look at the high levels of disruption as recently as a few months ago to see that more needs to be done. The Bill provides police with the powers necessary to combat these specific offences while ensuring that those who seek to cause serious disruption on private, as well as public, land are held to account. It is completely unfair that the hard-working public have to face misery and disruption caused by individuals locking on to a road or tunnelling under a building site, only to see the perpetrators arrested several hours after beginning their actions and then let off with a light sentence.

Clauses 1 and 2 are a key part of the Government’s plans to protect the public from the dangerous and disruptive protest tactic of locking on. We have seen protesters who use locking on and who tunnel be acquitted on technicalities. Therefore, it is important to have clear, stand-alone offences for locking on and tunnelling. This ensures that those intent on causing serious disruption for others can be brought to justice quickly and given a proportionate penalty that reflects the harms they have caused. The “going equipped to lock on” and the “going equipped to tunnel” offences enable the police to intervene earlier to prevent serious disruption. Dealing with a tunnel or a lock-on is extremely resource-intensive, taking hours of police time, which could be much better spent tackling other crimes and disorder on our streets. Surely noble Lords would agree that enabling the police to act before the acts are committed is in everyone’s best interests.

The Government are on the side of the public and will act to ensure that the public are protected from these disruptive acts. We welcome Extinction Rebellion’s sensible new year’s resolution to

“prioritise attendance over arrest and relationships over roadblocks”.

However, Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain are digging their heels in and have committed to continue trampling on the lives of others. Faced with this threat, it is clear to me that Clauses 1 and 2 should stand part of the Bill. Therefore, I respectfully ask the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, to withdraw Amendment 9.

Amendment 19, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, limits the extent of the offence of causing serious disruption by being present in a tunnel to tunnels which have been created through the commission of the offence of causing serious disruption by tunnelling. I thank the noble Lord for tabling this amendment and accept the need for clarity in distinguishing between those who cause serious disruption in a tunnel created for the purposes of or in connection with a protest, and those who cause serious disruption in tunnels such as the London Underground tunnels.

My noble friend Lord Murray previously committed to considering this matter further: subsequently, the Government have tabled Amendments 21, 29 and 30. These amendments provide that the offence of causing serious disruption by being present in a tunnel, as defined by Clause 4, is committed

“only in relation to a tunnel that was created for the purposes of, or in connection with, a protest.”

The Government’s amendments provide clarity in the legislation on the scope of the offence. This means that people who cause serious disruption in tunnels not created for the purpose of or in connection with a protest—such as the London Underground tunnels—would not fall within the scope of Clause 4. In contrast to Amendment 19, it also includes no additional burden for the courts when prosecuting offences under Clause 4, in that they would not be required to show that an offence has occurred under Clause 3 as well.

Finally, Amendment 31 raises the threshold at which an object may be captured within the scope of the “going equipped to a tunnel” offence, as doing so would limit the effectiveness of the offence. We are trying to ensure that the police can act proactively before these harmful tactics are used. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, raises the threshold for intervention too high. In light of this, I hope noble Lords will support the amendments in the Government’s name and reject the other amendments in this group.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful to all noble Lords who spoke in this short debate. I believe it was such a short debate because so much of the argument has been rehearsed in the first two groups. I thank the Minister for the tone of his remarks. The reason that so many noble Lords voted as they did in the first two groups is because of their profound concerns about the breadth and vagueness of these offences. The brevity of this debate is in no sense any indication of support for, for example, locking on—an offence that could find a courting couple, if that is not too antiquated a term, who linked arms being accused of being capable of causing disruption to police officers and, if an argument ensues, finding themselves in the territory of locking on. It was a revelation in one of the debates on the Bill when the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom—who is now in his place—said, in response to a challenge by one of my noble friends, that, yes, linking arms could be attachment.

There are reasons why, for example, people in wheelchairs might attach themselves to the wheelchair in order to feel safer during a busy demonstration. There are so many unintended consequences. Even if one thought it were legitimate to create specific—or bespoke, which is the phrase normally used by my noble friend Lord Ponsonby—offences to tackle the suffragettes of the future, this offence is so broad and so vague that it would catch people who do not even intend militant protest at all.

With respect to the Minister, when he tells us that the events of recent months make this legislation necessary, how does that square with the comments of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester? Gluing yourself to the road, with the intended consequence of being caught, has already led to prosecution and conviction. Legislating does not stop bad things happening but, with bad legislation, more bad things will happen. The law will be brought into disrepute, and the relationship between the police and the public will be further fractured at a time when it is under grave strain for a number of reasons that we need not rehearse.

In the light of the first two votes, His Majesty’s Government are going to have to do some serious thinking before the further passage of this Bill on these offences, the definition of “serious disruption”, the issue of “reasonable excuse”, and the need to protect journalists such as Charlotte Lynch, who the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, mentioned earlier, and a number of others who have been arrested under existing offences, including conspiracy to cause a public nuisance—no reasonable excuse for them before detention in a police station for many hours. The Government are going to have to think again.

In closing—because we may not get to the journalist protection amendment this evening—when the Home Secretary Ms Braverman appeared before the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who is in her place, as chair of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, before Christmas, she very kindly agreed to consider the subsequent amendment in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, to give specific protection to journalists. I have not yet heard a response from the Home Office. I have followed up with emails to the Home Secretary and to the public correspondence section of the Home Office. I hope that, before we reach that later amendment, there could be some consideration, as was promised to your Lordship’s Justice and Home Affairs Committee before Christmas.

I shall withdraw my opposition to Clause 1 standing part for the reasons I gave. I have every confidence that, in the light of the last two votes, which may have come as a surprise to them, the Government will sensibly now give some consideration to the way forward for this Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his explanation. As I said previously, rail and air infrastructure are each complex, interconnected systems, and it is not an easy exercise to find rail and air infrastructure that you can describe as non-essential to the running of services.

Adopting this carve-out could pose a risk of ambiguity as to whether certain facilities—sidings, depots, maintenance facilities, freight facilities, air infrastructure used for pilot training, air shows and, potentially, trials of flights, aircraft and so on—would be covered. It would therefore create ambiguity for the transport industry, the police and protesters, and would give protesters another opportunity to delay prosecutions where the prosecution has to prove that the infrastructure targeted was “essential”. I also note that these are not safe places to conduct a protest, although this has not necessarily stopped people in the past. It is therefore the Government’s view that all parts of our rail and air transport infrastructure must be protected. For these reasons, I respectfully ask that noble Lords do not press their amendments.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful once more to all noble Lords who spoke in this short debate. Once more, not testing the opinion of the House should in no way be taken as consent, let alone enthusiasm, for what the Government are doing here.

The criminal law should be an exercise in precision technical drawing, not impressionist art. However, this Government, and the Home Office in particular, are painting with a very broad brush. These broad powers and offences, which we have debated at length, are a blank cheque not just for police officers to use and misuse by accident or design, but for the Secretary of State to further define and amend this serious criminal offence of interfering with key infrastructure without the proper scrutiny that comes with primary legislation.

I am grateful to the Minister for at least giving me the assurance of the affirmative procedure. However, the problem with even the affirmative procedure is that, at a time of great public concern about the next protest movement down the track—the one that has not made the new year’s resolution that this Minister approves of—a list of amendments will be made to the regulations governing what is to be key infrastructure. Some of them will be sensible and acceptable, and some will be outrageous. Members of the other place and Members of your Lordships’ House will be put in the invidious position of saying yes or no without the kind of scrutiny and line-by-line consideration, voting and amendment that is possible with a criminal justice or public order Bill. This need to sub-delegate seems all the more extraordinary when we are getting public order Bills every year at the moment. This just does not compute to me.

Having tested the patience of noble Lords and the Minister, I will not test the opinion of the House.