Knife and Sword Ban

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 6th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I have given way several times on the point about figures, and have explained in detail where the figures come from.

[Yvette Cooper]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to give the Minister the opportunity to make sure he is not providing inaccurate information to the House. He has implied that the ONS believes that the crime survey, rather than the police recorded crime statistics—[Interruption.] No, this is about factual information from the ONS.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. Front Benchers must not speak during a point of order.

[Yvette Cooper]

There is a factual point about what the ONS believes is the most accurate measure to use for knife crime. I have quoted at the Minister the ONS’s words about the police recorded crime statistics being the most accurate measure for knife crime, and the Minister has tried to deny that that is the case. I want to give him the opportunity to give accurate information to the House, and to be clear that the police recorded statistics—which show that knife crime has gone up over the past eight years—are the ones that the ONS recommends.

[Hon. Members]

That is not a point of order.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Yvette Cooper

Monday 27th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary has been in post for two weeks, during which time he has used the same language to pick a fight with Stockton and show what he thinks of his own Rwanda policy, he has been attacked by his Back Benchers, and Downing Street has already been forced to confirm it still has full confidence in him. Twelve days ago he said the number of asylum hotel bed spaces are down, but four days ago Home Office figures showed they are up to a record 56,000—10,000 more than at the beginning of the year. Does he even know what is going on?

Illegal Migration

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Yvette Cooper

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Ordinarily, points of order are taken only after all statements and urgent questions are finished. However, I will take a point of order from the shadow Home Secretary if it relates specifically to the statement that has just been delivered.

[Yvette Cooper]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is specific to a sentence in the Home Secretary’s statement and her answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle). It is a factual issue. She said that

“the asylum initial decision backlog is down by 17,000”

whereas Home Office official statistics say that the asylum initial backlog is now over 170,000, up from 160,000 in December. The facts are that the asylum initial decision backlog is up by over 10,000, not down by 17,000. I know that there was a lot of nonsense in what the Home Secretary said, and sometimes it is hard to know where to start, but this is about the facts given to Parliament. Will she now withdraw the incorrect statement that she has made, because her facts are wrong?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Let us remember that this is not a continuation of a debate; it is a point of order to the Chair, and it is not a matter for the Chair. The way in which facts are presented here in the Chamber is entirely—[Interruption.] Who is shouting at me? The way in which facts are presented in the Chamber is entirely a matter for the Minister, or any other Member who is presenting the facts. If the Home Secretary wishes to say anything further to the point of order—[Interruption.] She does not. [Interruption.] No, that is enough. This is not a matter for the Chair and we cannot continue the debate. It is a matter of debate and interpretation of statistics. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) for drawing her concerns to the attention of the House, the Chair and, indeed, the Home Secretary.

Public Order Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Yvette Cooper

2nd reading
Monday 23rd May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

A retrospective clause might affect not only the right hon. Gentleman but the Prime Minister —not that the Prime Minister has much of a record of taking seriously offences that he has committed or their consequences.

The problem with the Bill is that not only does it not respect the principles in respect of defending historic freedoms to protest, but nor does it contain sensible measures to safeguard national infrastructure. The Bill does not recognise the powers that the police and courts already have and the need to ensure that they can be used effectively; nor does it address some of the key changes currently faced by the police and authorities. The Bill does not include an effective strategy to avoid disruption to essential services, and there is clear evidence that some of its measures just will not work. At the same time, the Bill does not safeguard historic freedoms to protest—quite the opposite: it undermines those freedoms and targets peaceful protesters and passers-by instead.

Let me look at the proposals in more detail. The police and courts already have a range of powers that they can use in the minority of cases that involve serious disruption or criminal activity. They include powers in respect of wilful obstruction of a highway; criminal damage; aggrieved trespass; public nuisance; breach of the peace; breach of conditions on processions and static protests; harassment; threatening, abusive and disorderly behaviour; trespassory assemblies; preventing others going about their lawful business; and injunctions.

If someone blocks the road outside an oil refinery, they are already covered by the offence of wilful obstruction of a highway. If someone vandalises tankers, they are already committing criminal damage, which is an offence. Indeed, that is why more than 100 people have so far been charged by Kent police and Essex police as a result of Insulate Britain offences, and why the independent report on protests by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services recognised that there were different views, even among police officers, about whether more powers were needed.

I have heard from police officers—including the chief constables and former chief constables of forces that have dealt with protests over many years—both about problems that the Bill does not deal with at all and about their concerns about the Bill’s extension of the powers that they already have, which they say are sufficient. One officer told the inspectorate that

“the powers are sufficient; it is the ability to implement them that is the challenge due to lack of resources”.

There are challenges for the police if they deal with people who are determined to break the law repeatedly and are not deterred by the fact there are offences, but police also referred to concerns that sometimes even when offences had been committed there was no enforcement by the Crown Prosecution Service or the courts because of

“substantial backlogs in court”

and

“so much time passing since the alleged offence that the CPS deemed prosecution to be no longer in the public interest”.

The Bill addresses none of those issues. The inspectorate also raised concerns about lack of training, guidance and co-ordination among forces and authorities—issues that we raised in Parliament when we discussed this issue last year but that the Government dismissed.

We have heard from officers who have said that the most effective measures that they use in the face of potentially serious disruption and problems are injunctions, but the problem is the delays involved in public and private authorities getting injunctions in place. The advantage of injunctions is that they can be targeted at the problem. They often come with much swifter enforcement processes than individual offences, with the courts taking them seriously and escalating penalties. Not only can they act as a deterrent but, crucially, they include judicial oversight, which ensures that powers are not misused. Yet we have heard from police officers frustrated by the slow response from private and public authorities that have the ability to seek such injunctions, but instead leave the responsibility to tackle disruption to the police rather than taking greater responsibility themselves. Police chiefs, too, have been frustrated by the fragmented institutional response; there are so many different private contractors and organisations involved that no one takes responsibility.

If the Government were serious about the resilience of our vital infrastructure, they would have much more effective partnerships in place to make sure that companies act and co-operate, and that everyone understood their shared responsibilities. They would make sure that they understood the right to peaceful protest and the responsibility to safeguard essential infrastructure, and could get injunctions in place fast. They would be working to get the capacity, training and guidance in place that the police and the authorities need.

Instead of all of that—instead of those common-sense approaches—the Government have chosen to widen hugely powers on stop and search and on banning orders, which will affect both peaceful protesters and passers-by. Stop and search powers are hugely important as a way of preventing crime, but they can also be very intrusive and humiliating powers, which, if used in the wrong way, can be counterproductive and undermine legitimacy and trust in policing. Rightly, they are designed to be used to prevent the most serious crime—knife crime and drug dealing—and the police themselves have recognised serious concerns about disproportionality and about those who are black being much more likely to be stopped and searched than those who are white. Those powers should be used sensibly and not as a political football.

The police already have the power to stop and search someone who they believe has equipment that could be used for criminal damage, but the Government want to widen that to cover anything linked to a public order offence, including public nuisance and serious annoyance. We should ask the Government what that includes. They believe that noisy protests are a public nuisance, but does that include stopping and searching for a boombox or even for a tambourine? We concede that tambourines can be annoying, but could that be covered by the stop and search powers? That would allow the police to stop and search people not because they suspect them of being involved in a protest but simply because they are passing by an area where a protest is likely to be held.

What would that mean? Let us imagine that police expect an angry protest in a town centre by local residents who are furious that their local library is about to close. Those local residents’ singing and shouting would undoubtedly be a serious annoyance to those who are studying or using the library and reading quietly. Under the Government’s new rules, they could easily be covered by public order offences. In response, a local police inspector could designate the town centre a section 60 area and stop and search not only peaceful protesters but passers-by.

Let us think, too, about what that means for Parliament Square, where there are protests all the time and sometimes, people go too far and commit public order offences and the police rightly have to step in. But the offences that can be used to justify a section 60 stop and search order in this Bill are really broad and now include noisy protests that cause public nuisance and serious annoyance. I have an office that overlooks Parliament Square and I can say that there is definitely noise, loud music and serious annoyance every Wednesday before and after Prime Minister’s questions. With gritted teeth, I defend their right to be seriously annoying but the Government do not, so, again, under this Bill, a police inspector could designate Parliament Square every Wednesday and stop and search MPs, our staff and civil servants on their way to work, and also tourists and passers-by. Does the Home Secretary really think that we should all be stopped and searched every time the Prime Minister comes to Parliament? It sounds totally ludicrous, but that is what this Bill does.

The Government also want to be able to apply serious disruption prevention orders to people who have never been convicted of a crime. They want to be able to restrict where someone goes, who they meet and how they use the internet, even if they contributed only in some broad way to people causing disruption to two or more people. Again, the Government are extending powers that we would normally make available just for serious violence and terrorism to peaceful protest. Police officers themselves have said that this is,

“a severe restriction on a person’s rights to protest and in reality, is unworkable”.

[Interruption.] The Minister for Crime and Policing says that they have not, but that is what it says in the inspectorate’s report.

The inspectorate also said, that it agreed with the view shared by many senior police officers. It said that

“however many safeguards might be put in place, a banning order would completely remove an individual’s right to attend a protest. It is difficult to envisage a case where less intrusive measures could not be taken to address the risk”.

The inspectorate’s report also said:

“This proposal essentially takes away a person’s right to protest and…we believe it unlikely the measure would work as hoped.”

The Policing Minister is right: that is the view not of a police officer, but of the Home Office, which was submitted to the inspectorate.

There is an alternative approach for the Government: to work sensibly with the police, local authorities and those who run public and private infrastructure; to support the right to peaceful protest; to work together to safeguard essential infrastructure; to review the measures that they have just introduced before coming back for more; to work on training, guidance and resources that public order teams need; to work on streamlined plans for injunctions that could protect the smooth running of essential infrastructure if needed; to work in partnership with essential services such as the NHS and not just with oil and gas supplies; to accept that protests that this Government find seriously annoying are a vital part of our democracy; and, ultimately, to drop this Bill.

The Government should use this time to bring in a victims’ Bill that could increase the rape prosecution rate; that could provide more support for victims of crime; and that could take more action to get dangerous criminals behind bars or more community penalties to prevent repeat offending by first-time offenders. Instead of wasting time stopping and searching people outside a library protest, they should do something to tackle the serious antisocial behaviour and rising crime across the country; do the job of a Home Secretary instead of grandstanding and making headlines; and do the proper, practical work of keeping our communities safe.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I hope that we will manage this afternoon’s debate without a formal time limit, but that will depend on everyone taking less than eight minutes. I am sure that that can be achieved. It will be a much better flowing debate if we do not have a time limit, so I trust Members not to abuse the privilege of having the Floor.

Health Measures at UK Borders

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Yvette Cooper

Wednesday 27th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Now we go to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, Yvette Cooper.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab) [V]]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I welcome these measures, but they do not go far enough to deliver a comprehensive system. The Brazil and South Africa variants have been identified across several continents, and in the first wave, less than 1% of new cases came from China. The overwhelming majority came from European countries that the Government said were low risk at the time. May I ask the Home Secretary about the number of people likely still to be arriving who are not covered by quarantine hotels, who do not have to take further tests on arrival, and who will be able to go straight on to the public transport system from Heathrow or wherever they arrive? Can she confirm that that is likely still to be thousands of people each day, and does she think that that is wise?