Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Joanna Cherry and John Hayes

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 18th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry]

Let me just develop this point, and then I will take some interventions. I agree with the House of Lords on that. It fits with what I observed on the ground in Rwanda, which I will come on to in a moment. Importantly, the hon. Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans), who is no longer in his place, earlier referred to what he described as the views of the UNHCR. When I met UNHCR officials on the ground in Rwanda, they said that they did not believe that Rwanda is a safe country for asylum seekers. They said that it will take systemic and structural change to happen first and then that change will need to cascade through the system. That will take time. I also believe that a greater commitment to meaningful human rights protection is required.

[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. and learned Lady is making, as she usually does, a considered argument based on her visit to Rwanda. I have not been there. I wonder whether, in making that argument, she is mindful that previously both the United Nations and the EU have designated Rwanda as a suitable place to accept refugees. What does she make of that?

[Joanna Cherry]

The Rwandans host more than 100,000 refugees on their border who have come over from neighbouring countries such as Burundi and the Congo because of conflict in those countries. They are people from neighbouring countries who have the ambition to go back to their own country as soon as they can, and they live in refugee camps on the border. They are a completely different category from asylum seekers who have sought to come to the UK and who are going to be sent to Rwanda. That is not just my view; that was the view of the UNHCR.

Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Joanna Cherry and John Hayes

2nd reading
Monday 19th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Hegel said, “What is reasonable is real, and what is real is reasonable.” In facing the very real threats that pervade, it is certainly reasonable that we equip those missioned to keep us safe with the powers they need to do so. That is partly about putting in place a legislative framework that allows them to counter those threats, for we know what will happen otherwise. We sit in this Chamber graced by the coats of arms of our former colleagues Jo Cox and David Amess. We in this place know what it means when those missioned to keep us safe are unable to do so.

On that basis, I was proud and pleased to take the original Investigatory Powers Bill through this House—some veterans of its passage are in the Chamber tonight—and, in doing so, we were conscious of the need to strike a balance between, on the one hand, providing the powers and equipping the police and the security services with the necessary mechanisms to do their job and, on the other hand, retaining both the privacy of individuals and putting in place the necessary safeguards mentioned by the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper).

That balance was at the heart of our considerations then. I am conscious that I said in that debate:

“It is important to understand that privacy is at the very core of the Bill… The protection of private interests and the protection of the public are at the heart of all we seek to do”.––[Official Report, Investigatory Powers Public Bill Committee, 12 April 2016; c. 90.]

That remains so, but it is also important to recognise that we always anticipated that the legislative arena was bound to require a dynamic approach, of the kind we are discussing this evening, and that we would need to update the legislation to deal with the changing character of the threats I described. It comes as no surprise that the Government have introduced legislation to do just that, to add to what is already on the statute book and to make it more appropriate.

[Joanna Cherry]

The right hon. Gentleman and I often crossed swords during the passage of the 2016 Act, but we have since reached a point of rapprochement on discovering our mutual passion for the importance of freedom of expression. From what he is saying this evening, I think we can also agree on the importance of privacy. Of course, that comes from the right to a private and family life under article 8 of the European convention on human rights. Does he agree that it is unfortunate, given this Bill’s huge implications for our constituents’ privacy, that the Government have decided not to conduct a privacy impact assessment? Surely such an assessment is vital, and it is perhaps something upon which he and I can again, rather unusually, agree.

[Sir John Hayes]

Our agreements are becoming rather less unusual. I do not know whether that gives the hon. and learned Lady any pleasure, or whether it causes her pain. None the less, she is right that, when we consider such legislation, it is important that it is scrutinised to an even greater degree than we would normally expect in this place.

The 2016 Act was considered by three Committees of this House. It was subject to pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament and, indeed, the bulk powers, which have been mentioned, were subject to an independent review by David Anderson, who has since been elevated to become Lord Anderson.

The hon. and learned Lady is right that the need for scrutiny is profound, particularly when we equip organisations with extensive authority to invade private space. Of course, we will not know much of what they do. Many of the individuals involved in the security services and the police, and the work they do, are rightly unknown to all but a few, so it is all the more important that, in giving them such authority, we behave in the way that the hon. and learned Lady describes—I am now adding to the small, two-person coalition formed between us.

It is right that the legislation is updated to make it fit for purpose. The ISC, of which I am also proud to be a member, has been told of the need for urgent, targeted and necessary changes. When we consider this Bill, we should test whether its provisions are indeed urgent, targeted and necessary. I am not absolutely convinced that all we see before us passes that test, and I will say a little more about that when I come to clause 14 and its associated schedule.

There is more expertise in the Chamber tonight than I could possibly imagine but, by way of background for the wider audience, I will say a word about what the 2016 Act does and why this Bill therefore matters. The Act provides the law-enforcement and security services with the vital powers they need to keep us safe, and it does so in a way that is clear and transparent.

When we passed the Act into law, we ensured that the safeguard mechanisms were radically overhauled. The innovative double lock that we put in place was, at the time, unprecedented. As the shadow Home Secretary said, it does two things: it provides the necessary protection that she describes, but it also gives the security services confidence that what they are doing is not only authorised but thoroughly checked. It is also good for Ministers to know that the process has judicial oversight as well as political oversight.

There have been a number of changes since the Act was passed, both in the job done by the security and intelligence services and the police and in the reason they have to do that job, for the people who seek to do us harm are dynamic, too; they change what they do, and technology has also changed. All of that explains why this Bill is, in broad terms, welcome and necessary.

But the powers I describe are not given solely to the people I mentioned. They are also given to a number of other public bodies. This was debated at great length when the 2016 Act was considered in this place. These public bodies—ranging from local authorities to the Environment Agency, the Health and Safety Executive and all kinds of others—have proper legal functions. I am not debating that, but they are not quite of a kind with the security services and the police. To grant these bodies such intrusive powers was always controversial and, to put it mildly, was bound to give rise to some scepticism.

When Parliament considered the Act, we deliberated on that provision in great detail and took a very considered and cautious decision to restrict the use of the power, which we considered to be intrusive. As a result, the public bodies that I have described, including the Environment Agency, the Health and Safety Executive and local authorities, are required to take further procedural steps in order to compel the disclosure of communications data from telecommunications operators. They must obtain either an authorisation under the current IPA, a court order or other judicial authorisation, or regulatory powers in relation to telecommunications or postal operators, or they must obtain the communications data as secondary data as part of a valid interception or equipment interference warrant. So their ability to take advantage of the powers within the existing Act is both limited, particular and subject to those safeguards. The Bill before us seeks to remove that requirement for those further procedural steps in relation to a wide range of public regulatory authorities.

Worse still—I hope the Minister will correct this in his summation—we have yet to learn which those bodies are, as we have not seen a list of the authorities. I hope we will get that list, if not tonight—as it is a big ask for the Minister to read them all out in his 10-minute summation, I hope he will write to the House, and put a copy of the letter in the Library, explaining which bodies will enjoy those powers.

The Government’s argument for removing the restrictions I have set out is that a broader array of communications now fall into the category of communications data—the definition of communications data has broadened—and that a wider number of organisations now constitute telecommunications operators. As a result, it is said that the current restrictions prevent some regulatory authorities from acquiring the information necessary to carry out their statutory responsibilities. The problem with that argument is that unless we know what those regulatory functions are and unless we understand which bodies are involved in the supervisory functions, it is hard to know whether the changes before the House can be legitimised. I have no doubt that will be explored in Committee— I would be amazed if it is not—but it would be helpful if the Minister could be ahead of that further consideration and clarify which specific bodies will fall into this category.

As I said, the issue was highly scrutinised when we last debated these matters. At that time, the powers were tied to national security and serious crime circumstances only, to avoid impinging on the very privacy mentioned by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry). For that reason too, Parliament granted the powers to a limited range of organisations. We should not brush that aside lightly. Colleagues will be aware of various reports of the intrusive use of investigatory powers by local authorities and other public bodies. The House would not be content to introduce sweeping powers for an unknown and potentially unlimited number of public bodies, when a previous Parliament decided that was too intrusive. I would like the Minister to satisfy the House about the necessity of the change, to specify to whom the change will apply, and to reassure us that there is no weakening of the core connection between the privacy of the individual and the necessary powers available to do what is legally right.

As I said earlier, in broad terms the Bill is welcome. It is important to understand that we need to update the legal framework in which those missioned to keep us safe operate, but the Bill can be improved during its scrutiny. I simply point out that when we debated the Act in its original form, we recognised that through scrutiny that Bill could be improved. As we continue consideration of this important measure, I hope that this Minister—one of my successors as Security Minister—will recognise the same.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Joanna Cherry and John Hayes

Committee of the whole House
Wednesday 17th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry]

I certainly will not be supporting the other notwithstanding clauses in the Bill, but I felt that it was perhaps time that we had one that benefited Scotland for a change.

My amendments are designed to protect Scotland’s courts and constitutional tradition. They are there to ensure that asylum seekers in Scotland might still enjoy the protection of the courts from the infringement of their fundamental rights. That is what people in Scotland want, and it has been expressed repeatedly through the Scottish Parliament. I am, of course, a Scottish MP and a member of the Scottish Bar, and I am here to do what I can to protect Scotland and its legal system from the extraordinary attack on human rights and the rule of law that this Bill constitutes.

However, I am not a Scottish exceptionalist. I recognise that—as reflected in the House of Commons Library’s excellent legal briefing on the Bill, and indeed in the speech that preceded mine, by the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam—concerns about the impact of the Bill on the rule of law and the constitution are shared by many in England, including many lawyers. For every lawyer cited by Conservative Members in favour of the Bill and the draconian amendments to it, they will find two lawyers who disagree.

The Library briefing, which is an excellent summary of the different legal views on the Bill, concludes:

“Tension between the sovereignty of Parliament to legislate, and the role of the courts in enforcing the rule of law principle that executive bodies must exercise their powers within their statutory limits, may be tempered by restraint on both sides. If either the courts or Parliament ceased to exercise such restraint, significant constitutional uncertainty could result.”

I believe that if we pass the Bill, this Parliament will have ceased to exercise the restraint referred to there—it would be a major departure from such restraint. I predict that, if the Bill passes, we will see what might be an unprecedented constitutional challenge to an Act of the British Parliament.

[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. and learned Lady is making a good point about the checks and balances that prevent arbitrary power, and she is right that that is central to our constitutional settlement, but this is not the exercise of arbitrary power, because the Bill, and the amendments to it, are quite specific about their provisions. For example, in the amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), our separation from the international obligations that I know she holds so dear is very specific to this particular legislation. That is not arbitrary—it is anything but.

[Joanna Cherry]

The Bill seeks to carve out a group of people coming to our country, or who are in our country, from the protections that the rest of us enjoy. History shows us that that sort of legislation can put a state on a pretty slippery slope. That brings me to my arguments in relation to clauses 3 and 5 stand part.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights has not yet had the chance to complete legislative scrutiny of the Bill given the speed with which it has passed through the House, so we have not as a Committee reached a concluded view on the Bill. However, before Christmas and before Second Reading, a Chair’s briefing paper referring to the legal advice that the Committee had received was published, and it is extensively referred to in the excellent legal commentary published by the House of Commons Library.

The briefing says, inter alia, that the disapplication of the Human Rights Act 1998 in clause 3 is very significant. As I indicated a moment ago in my answer to the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), human rights are meant to offer a fundamental level of protection for every person on the basis of their humanity alone. As our Committee has noted in a previous report, if those protections are disapplied when they cause problems for a policy goal, they lose their fundamental and universal character. Arguably, that is especially the case when they are disapplied in respect of a particular group. In this case, fundamental human rights are being disapplied in respect of migrants who come to the United Kingdom without prior permission.

Bills that disapply parts of the Human Rights Act are not unprecedented under this Government, I am sad to say. Both the Illegal Migration Act and the Victims and Prisoners Bill have sought to disapply section 3 of the Human Rights Act in respect of certain legislation. However, this Bill seeks to disapply section 6 of that Act—the obligation on public authorities to act compatibly with human rights—which has never before been attempted, even by this Government, and represents a significant inroad into human rights protections. If we pass the Bill with clause 3 in it, it will effectively mean that this Parliament is authorising public authorities to breach human rights. That is an awful long way from what this Parliament intended when it passed the Human Rights Act, and what the United Kingdom intended when it signed up to the convention.

As we heard at some length yesterday, as a result of parliamentary sovereignty, if we pass the Bill, breaching human rights would be in accordance with our domestic law. However, it would still violate the UK’s obligations under the convention, because we cannot unilaterally change what the convention says. Also, as the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law has noted in its briefing on the Bill, if we disapply the Human Rights Act in the manner proposed, we are also breaching article 13 of the convention, which entitles people to an effective remedy.

I am afraid to say that the amendments to clause 3 tabled by the right hon. Member for Newark, who is no longer in his place, would make the situation even worse. His amendments 11 and 12 appear to extend the disapplication of the Human Rights Act to anything done under the Illegal Migration Act that relates to the removal of a person to Rwanda. That could potentially mean that the detention of people awaiting removal to Rwanda and their treatment prior to their removal would not be protected under the Human Rights Act. Is that what this Parliament really wants to legislate for?

Additionally, the right hon. Member for Newark wants to extend clause 3 to disapply section 4 of the Human Rights Act. As it stands, that clause does not disapply section 4; if the clause remains as it is when the Bill becomes law, it would be open to a court in future to declare that it is not compatible with the convention. That would be through a declaration only: it would not affect the ongoing function of the Bill, or allow removals to Rwanda to be prevented or delayed, but this Parliament and the Government would have to decide whether any changes to the law should be made. If we amend the Bill to disapply section 4 of the Human Rights Act, again, that would be something that has never been done before, and would further restrict the jurisdiction of our courts in saying to the Government and the public what their view is on the law’s compatibility with human rights.

Finally, I also believe that clause 5 should not stand part of the Bill. We have heard a lot today about Conservative Members’ concern about interim measures issued by the European Court of Human Rights. The reality is that, no matter what this legislation ends up saying, it can only affect domestic law. In respect of the ECHR in particular, the UK will remain bound by the convention as a matter of international law. Indeed, even if this Government—God forbid—were to exercise the nuclear option of withdrawing us from the convention, thereby putting us in bed with Russia and Belarus, we would remain bound for a further six months after withdrawal takes place. I hope they will bear that in mind.

At the moment, clause 5 says that only a Minister can decide whether to comply with interim measures, and that the domestic courts should ignore them. It remains to be seen what a Minister would do, but we all know that the Prime Minister has said repeatedly that he would not let a foreign court—to use his words—prevent flights taking off, which indicates that interim measures may be ignored. As I said earlier, in my intervention on the right hon. Member for Newark, interim measures are made under rule 39 of the Court’s rules of procedure. They do not form part of the text of the convention ratified by the UK, but when we ratified that convention, we signed up to the idea that the European Court of Human Rights is the body that determines its meaning, and since the 2005 case that the right hon. Member mentioned, it has held consistently that failing to comply with interim measures amounts to a breach of article 34.

Interim measures are fundamental to any court—they are issued to protect the position of an individual while their legal rights are determined. All this fuss about people in their pyjamas in the middle of the night is very silly. Judges in the United Kingdom, both in the English jurisdiction and in the Scottish jurisdiction, are regularly got out of their bed in the middle of the night to issue interim injunctions in England and interim interdicts in Scotland. It is a standard part of any legal system, and many of the concerns that Conservative Members have expressed about those interim measures have now been addressed by the Court in the reforms it is proposing.

Any decision of a Minister not to comply with an interim measure would be inconsistent with our obligations under the ECHR. That means that if we let clause 5 stand part of the Bill, we will expressly authorise British Government Ministers to act in breach of international law. That is the reality, and I note that according to The Times, that is the advice that has reportedly been given to the Government by the Attorney General and by the Minister, the hon. and learned Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), when he was Solicitor General. That does not surprise me at all; it should not surprise anyone, because any legal undergraduate would be able to tell them that. As such, in so far as amendments 23 to 25 state that interim measures are not binding, that is inaccurate as a matter of law, and we must understand that they would put the UK directly in conflict with our international legal obligations.

Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Joanna Cherry and John Hayes

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 17th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Edmund Burke said that what matters

“is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.”

In considering the Government’s response to the Lords amendments, it is important to re-emphasise that the Bill is about fairness; about affirming the integrity of our nation by defending our borders from those who seek to arrive here illegally. We must have the power to remove those entrants from our country. To do so is just and fair. It is what the British people expect, what they voted for in 2019, and what they chose in the Brexit referendum.

Considering the arguments made in the other place, I was struck by the absence of a credible alternative to the Government’s proposal; there seems little sense there of the need to control our borders, stop the boats, save lives, and to make our immigration system fairer, more reasonable and more just. Sadly, much of the debate on the amendments in the other place has been characterised by a combination of denial and detachment from the popular will—denial about the urgency of the problem, and detachment from the sentiments expressed by my constituents and the constituents of other Members on both sides of this Chamber. Those arriving in small boats must be detained securely and removed swiftly, and it must be a straightforward process, for only through that process will we deter more people from arriving.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir John Hayes]

I will not, because of the time—I apologise to the hon. and learned Lady.

As the Minister has made clear, the Government’s response to Lords amendments 1B, 7B and 90D is rooted in the understanding that those amendments are unnecessary. The Government take our international obligations very seriously. Indeed, all three Appeal Court judges agreed that the Government’s commitments were in tune with and compatible with international law.

As for the motion to disagree with Lords amendment 23B, we must keep this matter in perspective. There is no evidence whatsoever that the vast majority of people coming to this country in small boats, or indeed a significant number of them, are seeking shelter from persecution because of their sexuality, and it is a distortion to pretend otherwise. In respect of the motion to disagree with Lords amendment 102B, this business of “safe and legal routes” is, again, a distraction, and a detachment from the urgency of this problem. The amendment is unnecessary and seems to constitute legislative grandstanding, for under section 1 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, the functions of the National Crime Agency already extend to combating all types of organised crime, including organised immigration crime.

Finally, let me deal with the motion to disagree with Lords amendments 107B and 107C, which propose the Archbishop of Canterbury’s “ten-year strategy”. I approve of having the Lords Spiritual in the other place. They are otherworldly—the Lord Bishops understandably take a view about an infinite, eternal future. However, those of us who are elected and answerable to the people directly have to deal with this world, here and now; and in this world; people demand that we control our borders, and they do so justly and reasonably.

Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Joanna Cherry and John Hayes

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. Lady informs many of her arguments in this place with anecdotes, sometimes with undue success, but I will not be drawn into an anecdotal debate because I want to address the issue in a rather more serious way—I do not mean to disparage her, of course.

In addressing amendments 133 and 134 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), amendment 131 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) and amendment 132 in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke), I want to be clear about the purpose of this Bill and why these amendments make sense. The purpose of the Bill is to deal with this matter as definitively as it can reasonably be addressed. The purpose of the Bill is to tighten the arrangements in respect of illegal immigration, and the amendments strengthen that aim. Our job, against a backdrop in which people are arriving in small boats and breaching our borders with impunity, is to re-establish the sovereignty of this country and the integrity of our borders by delivering legislation that does just that.

These amendments are designed to do two things. First, they would give the Government more power to achieve this objective. Secondly, they would limit the opportunities, which we know will be taken, to frustrate the Government’s will and, by extension, Parliament’s will to do more to address this matter.

I commend the Minister and the Home Secretary for their work on the Bill, but I am certain that the expectations it creates, the time it absorbs and the opposition it will undoubtedly generate, mean that, if it fails and the Government are found wanting, Conservative Members will pay a heavy price. The Minister knows we have been down this road before with the Nationality and Borders Act, which we were told would do the job. I do not think Ministers were deceiving us—they genuinely believed it would do the job—yet, although we did exactly what I described by devoting time and political capital, raising expectations and bringing about opposition, we found that we could not achieve what we wanted to and that we needed additional legislation to do so.

We will not be given a third chance. This is our second chance to deal, once and for all, with the boats arriving at Dover and with the tidal wave—the Home Secretary described it as a “swarm”—of people who know they are arriving illegally and are breaking the law, for they know they have no papers and no right to be here. They therefore make a nonsense of an immigration system that must have integrity if it is to garner and maintain popular support.

Of course, people enter and leave countries, but they need to do so legally. Surely it is not too much to express that simple statement. It is not too much to expect a Government to maintain lawful control of our borders, yet I constantly hear from Opposition Members that this is militant, unreasonable, extreme. It is anything but. It is modest, moderate, just and virtuous to have a system that ensures the people who come here do so lawfully, and that people who arrive here seeking asylum are dealt with properly. That is a modest aim, and it will be made more achievable by the amendments in the name of my hon. Friends the Members for Stone and for Devizes and of my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland.

Given that the Minister is an old, trusted and good friend, I hope that, when he sums up the debate, he will agree to enter into a dialogue with those of us who speak for the people. We claim no more—no greater plaudit—than that we are the spokesmen of the hard-working, patriotic, lawful majority of the people of this country. In speaking for those people, we hope that he will enter into a dialogue with those of us who have tabled and supported these amendments with the aim of improving the Bill, of doing his work with him and for him, and in so doing honouring the pledge that the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have made to the people of this country. Honouring that pledge is the right thing to do, the just thing to do and, indeed, the virtuous thing to do.

[Joanna Cherry]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dame Eleanor. It is convention to say that it is a pleasure to follow the previous speaker, but I find it hard to say that because I do not agree with anything that the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) said. It is an extraordinary proposition to say that, to use his words, it is virtuous and just for the United Kingdom to pass legislation that is in breach of our international obligations. These are not obligations that have been imposed on us from above. They are obligations to which we freely signed up. If the Government and Conservative Members do not like the obligations to which they freely signed up, they should have the courage of their convictions and join their chums in Russia and Belarus as non-signatories to the European convention on human rights. [Interruption.] They do not like it, but it is true: those are the other two countries in Europe that cannot live with the obligations in the European convention on human rights.

I want to make another preliminary point before I go any further. The right hon. Gentleman does not speak for my constituents—he does not speak for the people of Edinburgh South West. The contents of my mailbox and my conversations with constituents show that he does not speak for them. He does not speak for other voters in Scotland, either. We are proud of our international obligations, and we would like to remain a signatory to the European convention on human rights.

There is widespread concern about this Bill, and not just from lefty lawyers, to whom the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici) referred earlier.

Public Order Bill

Debate between Joanna Cherry and John Hayes

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes]

I will not give way again; I see that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, if not yet on your feet, are edging forward in your Chair, and so asking me to bring my remarks to a conclusion.

Freedom is not just about the capacity to hear from others with whom we agree; a free and open society is one in which we hear from those with whom we do not agree. That freedom is at risk. Amendment (a) is most reasonable, and I urge the House to accept it with these final words from the author and statesman John Buchan:

“You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilisation from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass.”

Today I will vote against barbarism by voting for this amendment. I mission everyone in this Chamber to exercise their conscience and vote for it with me.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

I will confine my comments to the amendments that touch on the recommendations of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which I chair. We did not look at the debate on abortion buffer zones because that was not part of the original Bill, so I will not comment on that. In general terms, some of the points made by the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) could be carried across. I could very well ask of him why, if that is what he so clearly believes, he would support a power to stop and search without reasonable suspicion? So it cuts both ways.

However, I will confine my comments to support for Lords amendments 1, 6 to 9, 20, 21, 23, 27, 28, 31, 32 and 33, which can basically be grouped into suspicion and stop and search, serious disruption prevention orders, and the meaning of the phrase “serious disruption”. I will speak to the Joint Committee’s report on our legislative scrutiny of the Bill, which was published on 8 June last year. It was a unanimous report of our cross-party Committee, which of course contains both MPs and peers.

The right to peaceful protest is a cornerstone of our democracy, which should be championed and protected rather than stifled. The Joint Committee concluded that while the stated intention behind the Bill was to strengthen police powers to tackle dangerous and highly disruptive protest tactics, its measures went well beyond that to the extent that we feel the Bill poses an unacceptable threat to the fundamental right to engage in peaceful protest. We have heard speeches about the historic basis of that right, and of course it is also protected in modern times under article 10 of the European convention on human rights, which deals with freedom of speech, and article 11, which deals with freedom of association.

In our report, we recommended that the power to stop and search without reasonable suspicion should be removed from the Bill. Other hon. Members have spoken about that in some detail. Basically, what we said was that the power to stop and search without reasonable suspicion inevitably gives rise to a risk of arbitrary or discriminatory use, and that it is disproportionate and inconsistent with the right to engage in peaceful protest. As we heard from other hon. Members, the police themselves said it is counterproductive and I do not understand that it is a power the police actually want as a whole. Lords amendments 6 to 9 take that out of the Bill, and I think that should be supported by this House.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between Joanna Cherry and John Hayes

3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons
Thursday 9th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

May I welcome you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to your place? I look forward to your wisdom and benevolence.

In our age, hyperbole is commonplace. Exaggeration permeates debate and colours discourse. Superlatives litter our language. Yet there are few in this House who would disagree with my claim that it is almost impossible to exaggerate the significance of the Bill and what it facilitates—our departure from the European Union. The case I make today is that even more important than the Bill’s provisions is its purpose. Even more important than leaving is the reason that we are leaving. That is the people’s rejection of the prevailing political paradigm that the chatterati and glitterati, the denizens of the liberal elite, believed for years was beyond question. At the core of this perversity was an attachment to pan-nationalism and a consequent affection for supranational governance. This led, among the liberal establishment, to a diminished sense of meaningful place. They came to regard it as not just permissible but desirable to erode the familiar touchstones of enduring certainty.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir John Hayes]

I won’t right at the moment; perhaps a little later. I know the hon. and learned Lady will want me to repeat that poetic phrase: the familiar touchstones of enduring certainty, epitomised by a spirit of local allegiance and a sense of national pride. The truth is that the bourgeois liberals—and at that point I give way to the hon. and learned Lady.

[Joanna Cherry]

I am not going to deny that I am a bourgeois liberal, but many people in Scotland who are not bourgeois liberals voted to remain in the European Union. Will the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the situation he is describing pertains in England but not in Scotland, where 62% of the population voted to remain and where my party, which I do not think really could be described as a bourgeois liberal party but does contain some old bourgeois liberals like myself, won 48 of the 59 seats? Will he do us the courtesy of acknowledging that he is talking about England, not Scotland?

[Sir John Hayes]

I congratulate the hon. and learned Lady on her honesty. She separates herself not only from most of her party but from most of the voters. She says that she is part of the bourgeois liberal elite, but they are not.

[Joanna Cherry]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir John Hayes]

I will give way just one more time.

[Joanna Cherry]

The right hon. Gentleman has made a very personal comment about me separating myself from most of my voters. Would he like to explain why, if I have separated myself from most of my voters, my majority over the Conservative and Unionist party went from 1,000 to 12,000 votes in the general election?

[Sir John Hayes]

One day, if the hon. and learned Lady continues, and maybe she will for many, many years, she just might attain the 30,000 majority that I got in South Holland and the Deepings, but I think it is very unlikely indeed.

As I say, the bourgeois liberals find it hard to stomach that hard-working British patriots do not share their affection for globalisation and their preoccupation with diversity.