Asylum: UK-Rwanda Agreement

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I am reminded of a saying of John Major’s: if you are in a hole, stop digging. I will be supporting the Government tonight. I am not sure that this is the solution to the problem that we have before us. There is a big contradiction: we hear about vulnerable immigrants in Calais, but we also hear about migrants who spent thousands of dollars to get there. The prospect of a trip to Rwanda is not going to put them off getting a boat across the channel, so let us regard that as a starter.

Let us look at what Rwanda is actually up to. It was very anxious to get into the Commonwealth—virtually the only Commonwealth country that we did not manage to colonise, but we let it in. Now, I see the Rwanda business as being rather like putting old people into private equity homes. Rwanda has spotted that there might be an opportunity for making quite a bit of money out of the West—particularly the United Kingdom—and so it has signed up to this. We can well ask: is it a safe country? Is anywhere in Africa particularly safe? I cannot think of any country in Africa that I would wish to go and live in. Perhaps it is safe: we do not know. That, however, is not the point. The fact of the matter is that even if it is declared safe, we are going to get 200 to 300 people there out of thousands who are coming to Britain.

We need to look at this more widely, as one or two noble Lords have mentioned. We need to realise that the whole international migration system has got out of hand. It is not whether or not people are any more vulnerable, it is the fact that, with modern technology, they can look at their iPads and work out that this would be a much better place to live than where many of them are at the moment. That is why there are smuggling gangs: they are catering to the market. It is as simple as that. They set up in business, saying, “What shall I do? Shall I run a bike repair shop? Shall I sell chapatis on the corner of the street? Oh no, I think I could make a lot more if I got a smuggling operation together”. That is what is happening. If we are going to cure it, we have to do it as a European entity.

I noticed today that Prime Minister Meloni of Italy has gone to see President Erdoğan in Turkey to talk about migration. But it is no good just one Prime Minister and one President talking about migration. This has to be a European step forward. We have to start off by rebuilding the countries of the Middle East that we smashed to pieces. We caused Libya to be a failed state; we were the people who went into Iraq in very dubious circumstances; we were the people who, I was assured by the last Foreign Secretary-but-eight, had to get rid of Bashar al-Assad, even though he was running a country that was certainly authoritarian but was pretty peaceful. What did we do? We bombed it to bits. So the first thing we have to do is get prosperity back and the second thing is to get agreements at a European level on a much wider basis. That is the solution.

I have read the report and I think it is very good. I am not going to vote for it, however, because I am going to support the Government in their attempts—which probably will not work—to deal with this problem. We have to decide whether we wish these efforts well or ill.

We seldom talk about the famed people of Britain, but I can tell you that in Cambridge, where I live, there is no big queue of people saying, “Can we have a few more boats? Can we have an asylum centre in Cambridge?” It is just not there. So we should come to terms with reality. These are my final words: the difference between this and another system is that in a democracy the people vote, and they are entitled to have their votes translated into action. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the people want illegal migration to stop. The job of the Government is to do that.

Citizens’ Rights (European Affairs Committee Report)

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, first, I add my thanks to the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, for this report. I am not a member of his committee, but I follow what it does. I am afraid I am still an unrepentant remainer—leaving the European Union was a disaster.

My first point is about paper documents. In this country, we sometimes overlook the fact that in most of Europe, paper documents and paper residence permits are extremely important. I do not know of any country in Europe, although Estonia may be one, that does not issue paper documents. The Government should look at some way around this.

I turn to the situation of people living in the European Union and ask the two other party representatives here to tell us what their views are. It seems to me that when we talk about people in Europe, we pretend they do not exist, but they very much exist now they have votes, and we are coming to an election. I would like to see at least one of the parties, preferably the Labour Party because it is more likely to form an alternative Government, come out very clearly and say that it will move as far as it possibly can towards restoring free movement in both directions. We benefited enormously from free movement both in Europe and from people coming from Europe. It seems there are 1.2 million people there and, thanks to our Government, many of them will now have a vote. This is not a small number. It could well swing one or two marginal constituencies, and all the parties need to have a very clear policy about what they are going to do to help our citizens in Europe get their rights, because this is quite fundamental and it is something that can appeal to them.

I have been to Spain to speak to some of our expatriates who live out there, and it is a very big issue. They feel somewhat ignored. I ask that the parties look at the way in which they can make life better for people in Europe, and appeal to them—in other words, put it in the manifestos, boost and bring back the UK national support fund and work with the various migrant groups. Most of the groups in Europe have UK associations, and most of them work and pull people together. They need a message from the political parties in this country that they are wanted and valued—and we are told that there are 1.2 million such people to appeal to.

That is the main reason why I spoke. The second reason, which I have already mentioned, is that I want to see a party committed to bringing back as many of the benefits of the European Union that we have lost as they can. Within the area of citizens’ rights and free movement, a lot can be done, and it will benefit Britain. This is not charity but sheer common sense.

National Security Bill

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Wednesday 21st June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, there is no doubt that a number of foreign Governments seek to subvert our democracy and in many cases that means seeking to influence political parties, particularly the governing parties. All parties are looking for finance; the temptation is to accept that money. I rise mainly to applaud the colleagues who have spoken before, and particularly to adopt what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said so well about the inadequacy of the current safeguards.

I congratulate the Government on organising the two-day conference on the reconstruction of Ukraine. Understandably, it is focusing mainly on financial reconstruction, but I have just come from a parallel conference on restoring, or improving, democracy in Ukraine, which involves looking particularly at the political parties. What sort of example are we giving to Ukraine if we allow these loopholes to continue? How do we inoculate Ukraine against possible subversion from Russian oligarchs and others? How do we inoculate ourselves and our own democracy from similar attempts? I think of the phrase “sunlight is the best disinfectant”, which is attributed mainly to the great American jurist, Justice Brandeis, who was so towering in his intellect and legal knowledge. If we are to have the sunlight, the onus must surely be on the Government, or anyone else who seeks to block that sunlight, to give good reasons why they should do so, because we know that there are malign forces seeking to subvert our democracy.

We need an active citizenry and a committed democracy to counter these sorts of attempts. I believe the response of the Government, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and others have shown so well, is inadequate to that task.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I will take just two minutes, because when I vote against the Government, I generally listen to the debate and have a clear view. Democracy is being bought. This is part of a very difficult proposition that we have. I completely support the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, but I am also concerned at the amount of money that goes into political parties in Britain, because it is just not true that people pay for nothing. We need to look at the whole structure of party financing.

I have been many times to Ukraine, which has just been mentioned. It is not just foreign financing; one of the curses of Ukraine was oligarchs buying political parties and buying seats in the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament. We have to look at what we call democracy and how it functions if we are allowing so much money to go into it from basically pretty covert sources.

I would like to see a very strict limit on donations. I am delighted in some ways that the Labour Party is now reported as getting millions every quarter—but this is not the way forward, any more than it is for our party. We have to find a better way of doing it. To all those people who deride state funding, I say that at least it is in the open and is based on the number of votes.

I will support the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, but I see this as a much wider thing. I will also support the Motion about the Intelligence and Security Committee. The noble Lord, Lord West, made an excellent speech outlining why we should, and I have nothing to add to it. We need a fundamental look at the way we fund democracy in this country.

Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I do not think there are evil people involved in this and I have not gone down the moral/immoral route. I am concerned, genuinely, with ensuring that the electorate and citizens of this country do not feel that parliamentary discussion uses international treaties as an excuse to not do what they anticipate that Parliament was asked to do. For example, this could be about the abolition of the Vagrancy Act. Let us be honest; a lot of promises have been broken recently. I have heard excuses made for why we have not yet abolished that Act. I have heard excuses for why we can no longer get rid of tuition fees, and for why leasehold will not be abolished—

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

The noble Baroness will recall that we had a referendum to leave the European Union. Many of us opposed that, but it was the clear will of the democracy of this country that we left. Surely, on these international obligations that we are saying we are bound by, if the demos—the people of Britain—feel that they wish not to be bound by them, that is perfectly legitimate. We have to find a way to carry the wishes of the people into legislation and not use international agreements to say that the wishes of the people must be ignored.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I am coming to an end. I understand the noble Lord’s point and I am endeavouring to explain that I think those international agreements are being used in a particular political way on this issue. I have suggested that breaching promises to the British electorate—I was trying to give some examples across party lines, so that nobody would think I was having a go at any one party—is leading to cynicism and bitterness in the electorate. The low turnout at the local elections was an indication of the fact that many people feel politically homeless.

I do not necessarily support the Bill. I want it to be scrutinised by this House, but I felt that the amendments I was referring to were almost avoiding scrutiny by simply ring-fencing the whole nature of the Bill and saying, “You can’t do that because of international treaties”. That would seem to render us even trying to scrutinise the Bill a waste of time and it will lead to even more cynicism about the lack of democracy. That is my point and it has nothing, as it happens, to do with Brexit or the EU. Although the desire to control one’s borders and one’s laws was undoubtedly part of that, I was not making that point in this instance.

National Security Bill

Lord Balfe Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 13th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

My Lords, as I set out at Second Reading, the first responsibility of any Government is to ensure the safety of their citizens. National security is at the forefront of this Government’s agenda, and that is why the passing of this Bill is so important. It gives us a new toolkit to tackle those state actors who threaten the safety and security of the United Kingdom. By listening carefully, and working closely with your Lordships through the passage of this Bill, we have created legislation which is stronger, more targeted and shows the importance of the scrutiny that this House provides.

We have made a range of changes to this Bill since its introduction, such as significantly tightening Part 1 in response to concerns relating to journalistic freedoms. We have amended the “ought reasonably to know” test to put it beyond doubt that individuals would not be caught if they acted unwittingly or without genuine knowledge as to the effect of their conduct. Further, we have focused the political tier of the foreign influence registration scheme more explicitly on foreign powers, providing us all with more information about the scale and nature of foreign political influence in the United Kingdom. We have also, under Clause 30, created a targeted defence available to UKIC and the Armed Forces for the extraterritorial offences under Part 2 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 in specific circumstances, replacing the previous approach of disapplying those offences.

I also note that the Government will bring back the sensible amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, to restrict the defence to intelligence activity of the Armed Forces, during Commons consideration of these amendments. We have extended the oversight provisions which were included in Part 2 on introduction of the Bill to cover Part 1 as well. We have also amended Schedule 3 to the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act, so that the statutory oversight for those powers will now be the responsibility of the new independent reviewer of national security legislation, ensuring that the oversight of all state threats provisions is in one place. The Government recognise the importance of independent scrutiny, and I know noble Lords welcome the inclusion of a new reviewer for the Bill.

I shall now speak briefly to the minor and technical amendments we have tabled today. Together, these amendments clarify definitions related to decisions of the devolved Administrations in Clauses 14(4)(a) and 71(3)(b) for the offence of foreign interference and the political influence tier of FIRS. These amendments will also clarify which officeholders in Scotland and Wales to whom a communication is sent are caught by Schedule 14 as set out in Clause 71(2)(a). I want to provide some context to these changes. We took the opportunity on Report in the Lords to clarify the drafting so as to ensure our policy intention in relation to government decisions was clear on the face of the legislation. We replaced the phrase

“a decision of the government of the UK”

through Amendments 50 and 118, with

“a Minister of the Crown (within the meaning of the Ministers of the Crown Act 1975), a United Kingdom government department”.

In doing so, we identified that the definitions did not fully reflect the decision-making powers of the devolved Administrations and their Ministers, but we wanted to make sure we got this drafting right, so we have worked closely with our colleagues in the devolved Administrations before tabling these amendments. Amendments 1 to 8 achieve the same effect as those tabled on Report mentioned above.

Amendments 1 and 4 relate to drafting changes for Clauses 14 and 71 respectively. They contain revised definitions for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to ensure parity for all Governments within the United Kingdom. Amendments 2, 3, 5 and 6 are consequential amendments flowing from Amendments 1 and 4. Amendments 7 and 8 relate to the definitions in Schedule 14, which covers those officeholders to whom communication is caught under Clause 71(2)(a). It is vital that the UK is able to promote transparency within the political lobbying arena and tackle those who seek to interfere in our democracy at every level and in every part of the United Kingdom. That is why these amendments are so important, and I ask noble Lords to support their inclusion in the Bill.

Finally, in terms of tabled amendments, there is also a change to the Long Title of the Bill to reflect the changes made on Report to the foreign influence registration scheme. I beg to move.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I briefly thank the Minister. I have heard from the stiftungs that we intervened on behalf of, and they thank the Minister for the movement that has happened and look forward to working closely with us in the future. I think it is as well to place these thanks on the public record.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I still feel quite grumpy about the Bill, but I accept that the Government have moved a little. I very much hope that, when it gets back to the other place, Members there will perhaps see fit to introduce stronger protections for journalists. I understand that something has gone into the Public Order Bill, but I think something should have been in this Bill as well.

Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Wednesday 8th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness and I entirely accept her correction. She is quite right about the figure of 100 million: it is displaced persons. On her second point, I am afraid I do not accept that it would be appropriate to exclude everyone under 18 from the operation of the scheme, and it is obvious why that should be: sadly, such an exception would generate very great abuse.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, this is certainly not an ideal Bill, but the problem it seeks to address has been around for a long time. In my view, it lost us the referendum, which was a big tragedy.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

It won us the referendum.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

It won the noble Lord the referendum, but it lost me the referendum. The key point surely is that we live in a democracy. The people are demanding action in this area loud and clear, and it is our duty as a Government to deliver what the public want. The public want the boats stopped, so I hope that we can have a discussion on the basis of making the Bill work, not wrecking it.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I entirely agree with my noble friend.

National Security Bill

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 1st March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I completely support what has been said by my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire in moving our Amendment 75, in respect of the exclusion of NATO members from the definition of foreign power, for all the reasons he gave and that I gave in Committee.

Put shortly, we cannot see any valid reason for treating NATO members as foreign powers on the same basis as Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. We are tied to our NATO allies by a treaty which imposes binding mutual obligations of defence and support. I have considerable understanding for the concern and disappointment expressed in public and in the press by representatives of some friendly nations of that unflattering equivalence of treatment. Those feelings mentioned by my noble friend Lord Wallace are not helpful to British foreign policy or diplomacy.

I also cannot see why the Government would not regard it as positively helpful to have the power to add friendly nations to a list of countries that will not be regarded as foreign powers for the purposes of this legislation. It may be that the Government will conclude in due course, even if not now, that the inclusion of all friendly countries as foreign powers may be profoundly unhelpful to our national position. To have the power, if that transpires, to exclude countries from the definition by regulation, may be regarded then as thoroughly convenient. Why will the Government not accept the flexibility that this part of the amendment offers?

As to the exclusion of governing political parties from the definition of foreign powers, this was an amendment we moved in Committee and which we supported then, and support now, for many of the reasons mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, in support of Amendment 74. We see no basis for categorising all political parties that form any part of a foreign Government as foreign powers, as proposed in Clause 32(1)(e). It is unrealistic, it makes no sense and it is wrong in principle.

As the noble Baroness pointed out, this is the definition of foreign powers that governs the application of FIRS, as well as Part 1 and other parts of the Bill. It could cause all kinds of difficulties where there are coalition Governments, often without UK-style collective responsibility. It is also the case that political parties are themselves diffuse in their views and often divided. To equate all governing parties with the foreign powers in whose Government they take a part—often a small part—is, we say, profoundly misguided. Perhaps the Minister could explain how the Government justify treating even small coalition parties as the Governments of which they form a part?

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I think that this part of the Bill was drawn up by someone who had not travelled very widely. It really just does not make sense.

I speak particularly to Clause 32. I do not exactly spend all my time, but I do spend a good bit of it, talking to embassies in London, largely from European Union countries that I have known for some time. I also go to Brussels very regularly because I still have interests there. I meet many people from other parties and groups—for a time I was a member of the Belgian Christian Democrat party—and I wonder where this lands. Of course, in some countries—Belgium is one—you will always have a coalition; it moves around, but it is always there.

There are also many other groups—for instance, the Kangaroo Group in Strasbourg covers all of the European Union and exists to pull down barriers to trade. I am a member of that group still because it has a foreign membership category. What are we supposed to do? Incidentally, the Kangaroo Group was set up by Basil de Ferranti, a British Conservative—though it is now a long time since he has been with us. This is a bit of a mess.

I want to deal in particular with Germany, which has a long tradition of political foundations. It has the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which I do lectures for from time to time; I will be doing one later this month. It has the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, which is the socialist, or social democrat, one. It has the Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung, which is, if I remember rightly, the one from the liberal party, and it has the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung from the Greens. They all engage in trying to hold international conferences and gatherings to put across their policies, and they also invite people like me, who are reasonably well known in Germany, to go and give lectures and talks to members of their Stiftung. Part of the reason for that is to educate their own citizens in overseas political practice; it is not all one-way. I think we have missed something out here.

The Minister will say that it will not mean this and it will not mean that, but other people have looked at this Bill and at the explanations. In particular, the German foundations have concluded, reading this draft law on entities acting on behalf of a foreign power—under the law, Germany is a foreign power; that is the definition —that, if they are to get money from their Stiftung to do any work in Britain, the Stiftung will have to satisfy the German Government that it is legitimate to accept and apply for that money.

According to the German lawyers, Clause 31(2)(c), which says that any work carried out

“with financial or other assistance provided by a foreign power for that purpose, or … in collaboration with, or with the agreement of, a foreign power”,

means that the Stiftungen will fall under the scope of the registration scheme. In other words, if the Stiftungen are to be able to operate and satisfy their funders, they will have to satisfy them about this clause in our legislation. This means that a German Stiftung—a political foundation—that receives German taxpayers’ money, or for that matter a cultural institute, Chamber of Commerce or any London-based NGO or think tank that receives money from Germany, is an agent of a foreign power and has to register, according to the definition, every single interaction with UK politicians or high-ranking officials within 28 days. They have described this as making their lives “impossible”. I say to the Minister that it is not what we say the law means; it is what it means to a lawyer, and in this case what it means to a German lawyer.

I cannot agree that the concept of “foreign principle” has been removed. It has been removed and replaced with “foreign power”, but this does not cover what is needed. The fact of the matter is that, in the Minister’s letter, he very carefully said:

“Foreign opposition parties are not classed as foreign powers (for example the French Socialist party).”


That is not the German interpretation of our law. The Minister can shrug his shoulders, but the sensible way forward would be to accept an amendment such as the one put down by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, which makes it quite clear that these countries are not foreign powers for the purpose of this legislation. I invite the Minister to think carefully and come back at Third Reading with a much better definition. This general, catch-all “foreign powers” covers all of NATO but also, as has been mentioned, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Where are we going? Please could the Minister think it out a bit better and clarify it, possibly along the lines of the amendment, but certainly so that the people we deal with every day, who are cheerfully telling me about the attitude of the British Government to the reconstruction of Ukraine—which is not quite what the British Government are saying but is what the diplomats are picking up—can continue to brief us and keep us on top of things?

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to speak briefly to ask the Minister a question. I support what has been said by my noble friend Lady Hayter and the noble Lords, Lord Wallace and Lord Marks, but is Clause 32(1)(e) not possibly a case of government overreach? When it is listed that a political party involved in a Government of a friendly power should be included in the Bill in this way, does it imply that every member of that political party would be covered by this provision? Are we talking about the headquarters of a political party or the membership? That would involve so many people, I wonder whether the Government really mean to do that and, if so, whether they realise what an incredible extension and overreach that might represent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I am grateful to the Minister for his clear explanation. There remains a slight degree of uncertainty. Presumably the Government will issue guidance to be put in place before the scheme is operational. We raised this at our meeting with him.

I wonder whether, in advance of us considering FIRS next week, we could have more information about what the draft guidance will look like as part of the engagement that the Minister has committed to, which is welcome. We have seen some elements of the draft regulations and heard some explanations from the Government but, if he could expand on what the draft guidance might be, that would provide some reassurance to the Stiftungen and other organisations that are hurriedly trying to find out where they fit in this area around what a foreign power will be and the interaction with either intermediaries or those who are funded by them. It is hard to outline that in the Bill but, if the Minister could provide that information in advance of next week, it would inform us very well.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, before the Minister comes back, could either he or a representative of the Government talk to the German ambassador and clear up this difficulty because the Germans are quite convinced that they are caught by this? It would be good if he could come back here and say, “I’ve spoken to the German ambassador or the First Secretary and we have agreed this”. Otherwise, the confusion will carry on.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, in answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, I cannot make any promises but I will certainly try. In answer to my noble friend Lord Balfe’s question, as I said in my initial answer to him, we have engaged extensively with the German Government.

Public Order Bill

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

I am sure that even noble Lords who support the intention of these so-called buffer zones—in reality, zones of censorship for basic free speech—would not want a scenario where people are subjected to unlimited fines and six months, or even two years, in prison for merely expressing opinions. There are those who quite often—daily—are protesting and holding the city of London and the travelling public along the motorways to ransom, with even ambulances and patients proceeding to hospital to get emergency operations or treatment being stopped in those protests, thereby threatening life and limb, yet the courts give those participating in such actions a slap on the wrist. When was the last time you ever heard, on a first offence, of six months’ imprisonment or two years or five?

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a fascinating debate, has it not? We have spent almost as much time debating this clause, which was not, of course, part of the Bill in the first place, as the House of Commons spent debating the entire Bill. I broadly support my noble friend Lord Farmer’s amendment, but I support it because I want the Minister to go back and have a serious look at this clause, which was not a government clause in the first place.

I came into politics in the 1960s, and one of the first things I was involved in was supporting David Steel’s Act, so let there be no doubt as to where I stand on this issue, but I think we are getting two things mixed up. We are mixing up the need to protect people who decide to take advantage of a law that is on the statute book with harassment and other offences. The first question we need to ask is: do we need an extra law? Do we need it at all? Do we need Clause 9? It came in as a private Member’s initiative in the other place. I am not sure we need it. I think that in this past 70 years we have managed reasonably well on policing this.

I also draw attention to the fact that this whole wretched Bill, which we have now lost sight of because of this clause, is actually a fairly fundamental attack on many civil liberties which we cherish and believe in. I reflect that in the past couple of years, during the Covid epidemic, we have accepted restrictions on freedom which, in my view, were unwise, unwelcome, unwanted and unnecessary. We are now in a position where expressing statements—and you have only to look at some of the things online about Covid—is no longer acceptable. We are in a position where we have a very authoritarian undertone in the way in which public discourse in Britain is being conducted, and this is part of it. Unfortunately, these two things have got mixed up together.

I think that we probably do not need this clause at all. If we do need it—this is one of the jobs the Minister has—it needs to be sorted out substantially. I would like to think—and I do not wish to be part of it—that he calls together the various protagonists and tries to get some common sense out of this. I do not hold the other place in quite the same reverence as my good and noble friend Lord Cormack does. I think MPs probably saw something that was a very good press release come along and they voted for it. I think that was probably half the aim.

I hope that after tonight, before we get to the next stage, we will be able to look at this in cool sort of way, and we will then get back to the rest of the Bill, which has some points in it that I find deeply regrettable and is not the sort of Bill that I would like to see passed by this House, but this is not part of it. This was a bit of private initiative written on top of it, and it is fundamentally mixing up two things: the right of the citizen to protest and the right of another citizen to make use of a law that has been there a long time and is working. Of course, we do not want people to be harassed and the like, but we also want to keep a sense of proportionality in all of this, and we need to remember that a calm head is probably a very useful thing to have when you are faced with an emotive issue such as this.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I am acutely aware of the time and, having spoken extensively in favour of Clause 9 at Second Reading, I rise briefly to express the Green group’s support for the amendment in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who made an important point. I will also speak in opposition to the other amendments in this group and address some points in the debate that I think may have been perhaps rather pointedly aimed in our direction.

There has been some discussion about how other elements of the Bill are aiming to restrict protest and this is seen to be restricting protest, but there is something profoundly different here. There is nothing in Clause 9 that stops people who are opposed to abortion or the provision of abortion services protesting on the high street, outside Parliament or on the M25. They could choose to do that; there is nothing in Clause 9 that would stop that happening. That is calling for system change, that is directed at our politics, at the way our society and our law work, but there is a profoundly different situation where protest is directed at an individual person, a patient who is seeking healthcare or advice about healthcare, to discourage them from receiving that healthcare. One point that has not been raised tonight, that I think really should be, is the fact that there is a risk if someone is driven away by this protest, they then seek to access irregular services, which are now broadly available on the internet, at potentially great cost to their health and well-being.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said that this is a catch-all amendment in that it is seeking to have broad coverage across the country. That is the alternative, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, said, to having a postcode lottery, where some people whose councils can afford to take action have protection and other people, often in poorer areas of the country where councils do not have the money, do not have protection.

The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, was concerned about intimate pressure. Let us look at where pressure for an abortion comes from. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan referred to mothers who fear not being able to pay for a baby. It is not just fear; the practical reality is that the greatest pressure for abortion in this country comes from an inadequate benefits system. I note that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, has been prominent in campaigning for the end to the two-child limit. I will join him and anyone else who wishes to campaign against this inadequate system.

I have one final point which I think has not been addressed. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, questioned necessity. A number of noble Lords asked what has changed since 2018. What has changed is this. A huge amount of what we see in the UK has been imported from the United States of America. We have seen an extremely well-funded and emboldened movement coming from the US to the UK. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, referred to his experience as a constituency MP. That was some time ago. Since then, and certainly since 2018, the levels of funding and pressure have changed. A movement started in the US is aiming to act around the world. I do not say that your Lordships’ House should stand up against this movement if it seeks to campaign to change the law in the UK—personally, I want to see full decriminalisation of abortion. I accept their right to campaign against the law and the system, but I will not accept their right to target individual patients seeking healthcare.

Public Order Bill

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 16th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Hendy has added his name to Amendment 60. In his unavoidable absence, I will speak to that amendment in words which are largely his, although I support and endorse all the amendments in this group.

The purpose of Amendment 60 is simple: to make more effective the protection the Government intend to provide for those with a reasonable excuse or those engaged in a trade dispute in the current version of Clause 7. I will focus specifically on trade disputes, with which I have some affinity.

By way of preliminary, it should be noted that the phrase

“in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute”

originated in the Trade Disputes Act 1906. It is now found in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, where is also found the definition of a trade dispute. For the purposes of today’s debate, it is sufficient to say that trade disputes encompass disputes over terms and conditions of employment and certain other industrial relations matters.

As drafted, Clause 6 recognises that obstruction or interference, which constitute the offence in subsection (1), may well be applicable to those picketing in the course of a trade dispute. Clause 6(2) seeks to exclude pickets from being found guilty of the subsection (1) offence. However, the way the subsection is drafted means that a person in such a situation, as we have heard, may be arrested, charged and brought before the court. It is only when presenting their defence that the trade dispute defence will achieve the protection afforded by the Bill.

Those who have signed this amendment and the rest of us who support it hope that, if someone is acting in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute, they will not be liable, as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, to be arrested, charged or brought to court for a subsection (1) offence. The defence should kick in before that point.

It is important to bear in mind three points. First, the right to picket in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute is a statutory right, now set out in Section 220 of the consolidation Act of 1992 but with its origins in the Conspiracy, and Protection of Property Act 1875. The price of the right to picket was that no protection was given for the offences created by the 1875 Act, such as “watching and besetting”, fascinatingly; nor has it been given for the array of other potential offences such as obstructing a public highway or an officer in the exercise of his duty, or more serious offences.

Since 1875, the right to picket has been regulated and restricted by many amendments to the relevant law, the latest being several requirements imposed by the Trade Union Act 2016, now found in Section 220A of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. This leads to the second point: the amendment seeks only to strengthen the protection against this specific offence; all other potential offences which might occur in the course of a trade dispute remain open to charge. The amendment does not seek to enlarge the right to picket.

The final point is this: a picket in the course of a dispute is not a secret activity; it is not one of which local police will be unaware. The very purpose of a picket—and I can attest to this from having stood on many of them myself—in the words of Section 220 of the 1992 Act is that of

“peacefully obtaining or communicating information, or peacefully persuading any person to work or abstain from working.”

To this end, pickets draw attention to themselves, to their union, and to the dispute they seek to further in the hope of persuading others not to cross the picket line. Your Lordships will be familiar with images of picket lines, and over the last few months, perhaps even familiar with actual pickets. The police will have no difficulty in recognising those acting in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute long before they, no doubt vociferously, proclaim it.

More than that, under Section 220A, a picket supervisor must be appointed by the union. She or he must be familiar with the very extensive Code of Practice on Picketing, and, most importantly for our purposes, she or he must take reasonable steps to tell the police his or her name, where the picketing will take place, and how he or she may be contacted. The section also requires that the picket supervisor must be in attendance on the picket or able to attend at short notice. She or he must be in possession of a letter of authority from the union which must be produced on demand; significantly hedged about, therefore.

It is right that in the creation of this new offence the Government have not sought to encroach on the protection of the right to picket in industrial disputes, a right which is also protected by Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and hence the Human Rights Act 1998. This amendment is exceedingly modest: it asks that the protection be made effective by preventing a picket from being charged with a new offence.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, and even more of a pleasure to reflect on the words of our good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Hendy. Before he came into this House, I do not think that we had quite the same level of wisdom and knowledge about the details of trade union legislation.

I too rise to ask that the Minister gives serious consideration to accepting Amendment 60; all it does is make it quite clear that a person, picket or trade union does not commit an offence under the clause by removing the words:

“It is a defence for a person charged with”—


they should not ever be “charged with”. This is a perfectly legitimate action undertaken by people in pursuance of a trade dispute, and quite reasonable. So I ask the Minister to look very carefully at Amendment 60, and when it comes back, to see whether this amendment cannot be accepted, because it is a very sensible amendment.

One could make virtually the same speech on many of the clauses in the Bill. I do wonder: what are we trying to achieve? Most of the things in the Bill are already offences. If we have a problem, it is that the police do not seem to think that it is worth prosecuting them—of course, we saw in the last few days that glorious picture of 11 rather bewildered policemen standing in the middle of the M25, gazing at a gantry.

This is not a sensible way to make laws; I am not sure that it appeals even to the Daily Mail. A lot of the Bill is reflex action stuff. It is man-in-the-pub stuff: “Oh, we don’t like this”—of course we do not want people to stick themselves to the pavement, but the law already exists. Between now and Report, I ask the Minister to have a very careful look at what we are trying to achieve, whether the Bill achieves it and, in particular, Amendment 60 and the Bill’s effect on the trade union movement—I probably should have declared that I am the president of a TUC-affiliated trade union —and its many voluntary workers who spend their leisure time trying to improve the lives of their colleagues. Please can the Minister have another look?

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Balfe. I absolutely agree with his fundamental point that here we are trying to create offences which are not necessary because there are already adequate offences to deal with these situations. I do not understand why the police have not used those existing offences in entirely appropriate situations.

I apologise for not having been able to speak at Second Reading, and I will try to be very brief now as a result. We have a situation here in which we are responding to someone else saying to us, “Something has to be done.” There are often situations in which, when we hear those words, the answer should be, “No, it doesn’t; we just need to do the things we have rather better”, and not produce a load of speciality legislation that will barely be used.

Sitting just behind me is a former Director of Public Prosecutions, my noble friend Lord Macdonald of River Glaven. I have heard him, very recently in fact, talk in another setting of the discretion not to prosecute that is vested in prosecutors. I apprehend that in many of the cases we are thinking of here, the police will NFA—no further action—a lot of them. If they do get to the Crown Prosecution Service because the police have not NFAd them, Crown prosecutors will NFA them using the second part of the CPS code test; namely, the public interest. It is very important, is it not, for us and the authorities which we invest with these powers to be proportionate in their use of them?

I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and others who have said that it is much better in principle for the whole burden and standard of proof to fall on the prosecution. However, I agree with my noble friend Lord Anderson that there is a bit of dancing on pins about that; it does not really make much difference in the end.

We should not be creating offences where, if they are summary offences, lay magistrates are going to find it very difficult to square their consciences with convicting people charged with them, and where—this is the worst possible scenario—if they are triable by jury, the jury may refuse to convict when there is overwhelming evidence that the offence was committed. Juries have done that recently, not least in relation to the Colston statue case in Bristol.

If your Lordships will allow me one quotation, I return in the end to some of the very wise words of Dr Martin Luther King, who said:

“One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”


That does not mean that a member of Just Stop Oil has the right to block the M25; the just or unjust law they would be dealing with is not the Government’s policies on oil but whether it should be a crime to obstruct the highway, so it will not actually help them very much in those cases. What I really want to say is that I think we will spend many hours today talking about issues that we really should not be troubling ourselves with at all.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Public Order Bill

Lord Balfe Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I always agree with some things she says, but generally not with that much. Tonight, I think we edge towards more agreement. This Bill leaves me feeling very worried. First, I would ask whether it is really needed. What problem are we trying to solve with this Bill that is not already able to be solved with the powers that currently exist? The second thing that concerns me is what I see as a reflex action towards authoritarianism whenever a problem arises. That does not leave me very happy at all.

Of course, the public are fed up with what they see as anarchism. There are ways of changing the law in this country. Mention has been made of Swampy—but if you go back in history, even at the end of the Second World War there were movements to occupy unoccupied properties in London. There has always been an undercurrent of people who think that the best way of changing the law is to do it their own way—in other words, without the law necessarily agreeing with them. To go back to the 1940s and the housing movement, undoubtedly what they did drew attention in a very strong way to the failings of post-war society properly to address the need for accommodation. I go back that far because I do not want to get mixed up in today’s debate, beyond saying that, clearly, there are always people who want to solve problems in their own way and somehow, in a democratic society, we need to make enough space for them to do so without bringing down the whole House.

I am speaking tonight because the convention is that you must speak on Second Reading to intervene in the later stages of the debate. I hope that we will have some very careful debate. One of the strengths of this House is that we do not have a guillotine—we look at the clauses and argue them through, and I hope that the Minister will have enough strength in his department to get some concessions. If he does not, I think there will be a few defeats around for the Government.

Someone asked what I would do in this situation. The only thing that I can think of is that, in my youth, which is a long time ago, we used to have a man called Mr Justice Melford Stevenson. He was well known; he was a stipendiary magistrate, and his basic starting point was “Fourteen days in the cells—oh, and what’s the charge?” One of the problems that we have seen, which we saw in Bristol, is that if you have an argument in front of a jury, the jury on occasions listens to the argument and refuses to do what society and the police want. I predict that that will be one of the dangers of the Bill—that, if you eventually get things to court, you may well find that they fall there because of a combination of magistrates who do not really want to go quite that far and juries that most certainly do not want to go quite that far. So we have to look at these things.

I want to mention the Clause 9 controversy. I was thrown out of the Labour Party, I am very pleased to say, but I have not yet been thrown out the Roman Catholic Church; maybe it is a little more dilatory than the Labour Party. I must say that I have always been a supporter of women’s rights and of Catholics for a Free Choice, the Catholic organisation that supports abortion. I have had letters and emails over the last few days, from people signing themselves “The Reverend Father so-and-so”, asking me to vote against “preventing prayer vigils standing outside or near abortion providers”. I have seen some of these prayer vigils—not because I have been on them, but because I was looking at them—and they are not friendly, you know. We have to be very careful. I can see that there is a need to look carefully at this clause, how it is drafted and what it does in the wider sense of civil liberties, but if I were in the House of Commons and I had a free vote, I would be voting for the clause, because something needs to be done.

One thing that needs to be done and it will, eventually, is that the Catholic Church should depart from its principle of always being exactly 50 years behind the times. Abortion is here to stay. It is not a pleasant thing. I have known a number of ladies who have had abortions. I have never known anyone trot happily down and think, “Oh, this is a solution”. It is a very stressful and often sad time. We should realise that that we should respect the rights of women to choose—frankly, it is for women to choose, not elderly priests.

I have a couple of final points as we are getting towards the deadline. I am concerned about injunctions by the Secretary of State. What does that mean? Does it mean an injunction by the Daily Mail? I recall a Labour Minister—I shall leave him nameless for the moment—who turned down a very reasonable policy that I brought over when I was a Member of the European Parliament. He said, “I’m sorry, Richard, we can’t do that, the Daily Mail won’t accept it”. That was a Labour Minister. I am always chary about putting powers in the hands of politicians, because there is a tendency for them to be leaned on and to make a more authoritarian decision. One thing we are still unravelling, of course, is the indeterminate sentence business, which is a blot on our landscape.

Let me say finally that we have to be very careful in the United Kingdom to preserve freedoms. I see in a lot of the proposed trade union legislation a reflex action—“Don’t let’s understand, don’t let’s talk, don’t let’s get things together, let’s just pass a law and make it illegal”, whatever “it” happens to be. This is not the way to run a consensual society. The strength of Britain has always been that it is a consensual society, so I ask the Minister to go away after tonight and think very carefully about the clauses in the Bill. Many of them go much further, I would say, then we should go in a civilised and democratic society.