Public Order Bill

Lord Bishop of Manchester Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Lords Chamber

Finally, what are the proponents of Amendment 45 afraid of? Our laws should be based not on anecdote, as with the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, but on proper, robust, empirical evidence. I hope we will be able to test the will of the House on this issue tonight.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, in Committee I shared my concerns about Clause 9 as it then stood. I am grateful for conversations that have taken place since. I particularly thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Sugg and Lady Barker. The latter has listened patiently and sympathetically to me and my friends on these Benches at some length.

My concerns regarding Clause 9 had nothing to do with the moral merits or otherwise of abortion; they lie in my passion to see upheld the rights of citizens of this land, both to receive healthcare and to protest. Women must be able to access lawful medical interventions without facing distressing confrontations, directed at them personally, when they are identifiable by their proximity to the clinic or hospital. At the same time, anyone who wishes to protest in general about abortion law must be able to do so lawfully, with the least restriction on where and when they may do so.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Morrissey, for the proposals she sets out in Amendments 41 to 43, which build on the Australian example. Were they the only amendments put forward, they would have my support. However, what we now have in Amendment 45 is, I believe, something that strikes a more exact balance. It meets human rights requirements and contains sensible limits. It has widespread support and is, I believe, more likely to survive scrutiny in the other place. If it is moved, I intend to support it.

I accept the remarks of the Supreme Court regarding the necessity of proposed new paragraph (a) on influencing, but I have two brief questions on that matter on which I seek clarification. Much has been made in religious circles about whether silent prayer would be criminalised by this clause. We have heard it again tonight. As noble Lords might expect, I believe in the power of prayer, so I want to clarify on the record that the act of praying is not in itself deemed an attempt at influence, given that when I pray, I am trying to ask God perhaps to change the heart of a third party.

My second and rather less metaphysical question is intended to clarify that influence works both ways. Would a coercive and controlling partner, or ex-partner, determined that a reluctant woman should go ahead with an abortion and accompanying her against her wishes, be as guilty of the same offence as an anti-abortion campaigner?

Finally, I cannot support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Farmer. It would remove safe zones from this Bill without providing any obvious parliamentary process for us to re-engage with the issue in a timely manner.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much welcome the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Beith. I am so glad to hear that he has considered this matter and come to the conclusion he has. Of course, I also welcome those of the right reverend Prelate.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Morrissey, that this is a good try, but her proposals might well have benefited from testing had she been involved in Committee. She might have changed her mind about how we in this House need best to reflect the clear will of the elected House on this matter. Not only has the elected House had a clear view on this matter, so has this House. Our job today is to make sure we provide at this point in the Bill an amendment that does that job. Amendment 45 does that because it complies with the EHRC, recognises differences and proposes a framework that reflects the issues as they pertain to abortion provision in England and Wales.

However, Amendment 44 would in many ways do what we saw the last time we discussed this matter: kick it into the long grass. Indeed, I remind the House that last time, it was defeated by 138 votes to 39. It would bring about a delay, meaning that thousands of women, nurses and midwives going about their lawful business would be harassed and intimidated. This seems to me to be really very straightforward.

Public Order Bill

Lord Bishop of Manchester Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I have Amendments 19 and 31 in this group. As I explained in Committee, the offence of causing serious disruption by being present in a tunnel, as drafted in the Bill, could criminalise those in London Underground tunnels, for example. Amendment 19 is designed to restrict the offence to tunnels constructed in contravention of Clause 3: that is, a tunnel created to cause, or that is capable of causing, serious disruption. I am pleased to say that the Government agree, albeit that their alternative, Amendment 29, restricts the tunnels an offence can be committed in to

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

whether the tunnel was created in contravention of Clause 3 or not. They are not adopting my amendment, which covers any tunnel built in contravention of Clause 3.

I know one should not look a gift horse in the mouth, but can the Minister explain how being present in a tunnel that does not cause, and is not capable of causing, serious disruption—that is, a tunnel that was not created in contravention of Clause 3—can result in serious disruption being caused by a person being present in it? Why is it necessary to extend the definition of a relevant tunnel beyond tunnels created in contravention of Clause 3? Why should the House agree to government Amendments 21, 29 and 30 rather than my Amendment 19? I am sure the Minister will have been prepared to respond to that question. Maybe not, looking at him at the moment.

My Amendment 31 concerns the offence of being equipped for tunnelling in Clause 5. We believe that the offence of having an object

“with the intention that it may be used in the course of or in connection with the commission”

of an offence of tunnelling is unnecessarily complicated. Can the Minister explain why the proposed alternative wording—having an object

“for use in the course or in connection with”

the offence—is not sufficient? For example, Section 25 of the Theft Act 1968 states:

“A person shall be guilty of an offence if, when not at his place of abode, he has with him any article for use in the course of or in connection with any burglary, theft or cheat.”


What does

“with the intention that it may be used”

mean? Either the person intends to use the object or they do not, even if they may end up not using it—for example, because it might prove to be unnecessary. “I’ve got this pickaxe in case the protest tunnel we’re building encounters rocks, but if there are no rocks I may not have to use it,” is still having the pickaxe for use in the course of or in connection with tunnelling.

The other amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol, seek to leave out Clauses 1 and 2. Locking on has been used for centuries as a form of protest, most notably by the suffragettes. This new offence is widely and vaguely drawn—for example, to include people attaching themselves to other people without defining what “attach” means. Not only is there a right to protest, there is also a long-standing acceptance that people should be able to protest in the way they see fit. The creation of a locking-on offence is not even supported by the majority of rank and file police officers, according to His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services:

“Most interviewees did not wish to criminalise protest actions through the creation of a specific offence concerning locking on.”


As with the whole of the Bill, there is sufficient existing legislation to cover locking-on activity, whether it is highway obstruction, for which the penalty now includes a term of imprisonment, or public nuisance, where the maximum penalty is a prison sentence of 10 years. Can the Minister explain the circumstances in which locking-on activity would not be covered by any existing legislation?

As for Clause 2 and the offence of being equipped for locking on, as currently drafted, the offence of having something

“with the intention that it may be used in the course of or in connection with the commission”

of a locking-on offence by any person, not just the person in possession of the object, could cover a whole range of everyday objects that someone is innocently in possession of. While the offence presumably requires the prosecution to prove

“the intention that it may be used in the course of or in connection with”

an offence of locking on, the power of the police to arrest is merely based on a reasonable cause to suspect that an offence may have been committed—a very low bar. As I said in the debate on a similar clause in what was then the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, you could buy a tube of superglue to repair a broken chair at home, get caught up in a protest and be accused of going equipped for locking on.

From my own extensive knowledge of policing, I say that if you have a tube of superglue in your pocket while innocently trying to negotiate your way around a protest and are stopped and searched by the police, as this Bill will allow, and if you then believe you can convince a police officer that they do not have sufficient cause to suspect you are going equipped to lock on and, as a result, that you should not be arrested, that would represent a triumph of hope over experience. We support Amendments 9 and 10.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I shall speak very briefly in support of the amendment to remove Clauses 1 and 2 that my right reverend friend the Bishop of Bristol signed. She regrets that she cannot be in her place today. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said, establishing new offences of locking on and being equipped for locking on have very significant consequences for the right to protest. A few days ago I got an email from a retired vicar in my diocese. He wrote to tell me he is awaiting sentencing: he has just been convicted of obstruction by gluing himself to a road during a protest by an environmental group. The judge has warned him and his co-defendants that they may go to prison. I cite his case not to approve of his actions—which I fear may serve to reduce public support for his cause rather than increase it—but because it clearly indicates to me that the police already have sufficient powers to intervene against those who are taking an active part in such protests. Anything extra, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has just so eloquently illustrated, is superfluous.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

I would like to add to my noble friend’s very precise definition of the drawbacks of this clause. In more general terms, its provisions will lead to situations in which people do not know they are breaking the law and are then accused by the police of doing so. I should have said they do not know they might be breaking the law because of its broad terms. That is a very unhelpful situation should it arise; in my submission, it will arise quite frequently. The sorts of things that are covered by this provision are everyday household items—as my noble friend pointed out—such as glue or a padlock. I referred in earlier debates to the practice of young people of placing a padlock on a bridge—as a sign that they are eternally joined with each other—and throwing the key into the river so that it cannot be taken off again. Imagine the conversation you would have with a police officer when you are trying to explain those circumstances, and he thinks you are on your way to a protest.

Public Order Bill

Lord Bishop of Manchester Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, I speak to my Amendments 85, 88 and 90 to this clause. I make it clear that, although I have regularly voted to secure more protection for the unborn child under abortion law, I am opposed to the kind of protest outside clinics and hospitals to which Clause 9 is directed. I am deeply troubled by the extent to which this clause restricts free speech, indeed abolishes it within 150 metres of a clinic or hospital. I cannot vote to write into English law a clause which, as presently worded, makes it a criminal offence to seek to influence, persuade or even to express an opinion. I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, has an amendment which deals with the complaint I made at Second Reading in respect of the last of those words but not the others.

This clause as it stands is clearly inconsistent with the European Convention on Human Rights and imports into our law the dangerous concept that to express an opinion can constitute interfering. Once that concept has found its way into our law, such language would be welcomed by the anti-free speech brigade and we would find it sought after in other areas of legislative restriction. Those who advance the so-called right not to be offended in student union politics would latch on to such wording with enthusiasm.

I turn first to Amendment 85, which has the support of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans. It seeks to protect the normal activities of a church, chapel, mosque or temple that finds that it is within the 150-metre zone of a clinic providing abortion services. I will come on later to how wide a range of areas that could be. In such a church, mosque or temple, what if a debate is organised on the arguments for and against abortion in the light of the religious convictions of those who worship there? What if a poster is put up outside the church to state that such a debate is to take place on a particular date with a brief indication of the points of view of the different speakers? What if a campaign meeting designed to enable the church to play a greater part in the public debate on this issue takes place there? These are normal activities of churches.

Let us remember that these churches and mosques have been sitting in these places for many years and, all of a sudden, the area they are in is determined to be one in which they cannot do what they did previously. They cannot have the kind of discussions and conversations which are normal to them. That is a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, also sought to cover in her Amendment 95 and I appreciate that.

I turn to my Amendments 88 and 90, which take out some of the words in this clause, to which I have referred, but they do not affect the provisions covering intimidation and harassment, which none of us favours at all. Amendment 88 takes out the ban on a person who “seeks to influence” within the 150-metre zone, while Amendment 90 removes the words

“advises or persuades, attempts to advise or persuade, or otherwise expresses opinion”.

I am astonished that that wording could ever have got into the draft of the clause. That there could be any part of the United Kingdom in which it is a criminal offence to express an opinion is, to me, quite extraordinary. This cannot be made consistent with the ECHR or historic rights of free speech. I hope that by Report the Government will be able to bring forward a significant redraft of this clause.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, made some helpful suggestions but they are not enough. Amendment 95 relates to “persons accompanying”. I am glad that she has included that amendment, because it deals with a situation in which somebody is accompanying someone to an abortion clinic, and they are having a discussion about whether she should or should not go through with it—the pros and cons. That would be a criminal offence under the legislation, unless her amendment is accepted. It illustrates what dangerous territory we are in and how close we are to the cliff edge of losing our free speech.

I shall look at some other instances. What if a member of staff, perhaps a whistleblower, questioned some aspect of the policy or practice of the clinic and sought to get it changed, potentially affecting and limiting the provision of abortion services? What if that discussion was taking place, and the person thought that they could rely on a conscience clause, because in a certain case they thought that the wrong decision had been taken or a practice was dangerous? Is that person going to be guilty of a criminal offence for doing so? I find that extremely worrying. What about a picket in an industrial dispute, such as a nurses’ strike, which interrupted abortion services or access to some extent? That would appear to be covered by these provisions.

Amendment 84 from the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, and Amendment 93A from my noble friend Lady Hamwee, also worry me, because they would extend the term “clinic” to any

“place where advice or counselling relating to abortions is provided”.

That is every doctor’s surgery in the land—a huge extension of the potential scope of this legislation. The free speech restrictions that it imports would seem inexplicable to somebody simply walking along the street in the vicinity of a doctor’s surgery, having a conversation about the rights and wrongs of abortion, who is overheard by somebody who reports them. Before long, a police officer is pursuing the case.

As to the amendments proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, I am very sympathetic to Amendment 98, which seeks to make the review the basis for action, which seems quite logical, but I am afraid I am not sympathetic to his Amendment 99. As he conceded, the amendment passes over to statutory instruments and delegated legislation the whole substance of this legislation. As the noble Viscount indicated in an intervention, that would deny the possibility of amendment of whatever was put forward. Those are very serious issues. I think on all sides we can agree that what the scope of the criminal law should be in this area is fundamental. It should be decided by primary legislation and, although I appreciate the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, has felt obliged to use this mechanism, it is not the right one for such fundamental issues.

I hope that colleagues on all sides of the Committee, whatever their views on abortion, will address this issue so as to ensure that the criminal law is not so extended that historic rights of free speech are damaged and legitimate action by innocent people is neither prevented nor made the subject of criminal offences and prosecutions. I hope Ministers will look very carefully at my amendments and others and produce some workable and practicable redraft on Report, which we will also want to look at with the greatest of care.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

I rise to address Amendments 85 to 88, 90 and 92, to which my right reverend friend the Bishop of St Albans has added his name. He regrets that he is unable to be in his place today. I also have sympathy with a number of other amendments in this group.

It is a heated and emotive debate on this clause, and it was heated and emotive when it was added in the other place. The danger is that we get dragged into debates about whether abortion is morally right or wrong. Indeed, I have had plenty of emails over the past few days, as I am sure other noble Lords have, tending in that direction. As it happens, I take the view that the present law on abortion strikes a reasonable balance; in particular, it respects the consciences of women faced, sometimes with very little support, with making deeply difficult decisions.

Moreover, history teaches us that the alternative to legal abortion is not no abortion but illegal abortion, with all the evils that brings in its train. Others, including people of my own and other faiths, may disagree with me on either side but that is not the focus of your Lordships’ deliberations this afternoon. Rather, as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, reminded us, we are seeking to weigh the rights of women to access legal health services alongside the rights of others to seek peacefully to engage, persuade or simply pray.

However much we may disagree with the causes and tactics of those protesting, we need to remember that in a democracy not everything that is unpleasant should in consequence be made illegal. Harassment and abuse of the kinds to which the noble Baronesses, Lady Fox and Lady Sugg, and others have alluded must be condemned in the strongest possible terms. The use of legislation, including on harassment, to confront inappropriate behaviour is absolutely legitimate, but it already exists. If such behaviour is becoming more widespread, let us see the police and local authorities use those current powers more extensively so that they can create a safe and respectful atmosphere for vulnerable women.

I understand that no one has ever demonstrated that widespread abuse is prevalent or that new powers are necessary. At the least, we need clear research, as the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, proposes, to underpin such extensive new measures. In line with other provisions of this Bill, many of which we have already discussed, there is a need for the Government and police to take proportionate action while maintaining the strongest possible safeguards for freedom of speech, expression and assembly. Those are at the core of our nationhood. I do not think that Clause 9, as drafted, takes that proportionate approach.

I respect the views of those noble Lords who take a harder line against abortion and the many who reject the position from a more liberal standpoint. However, I cannot accept that it is desirable to legislate against expression of opinion on the matter or providing advice and guidance, even if one is in one’s own home or a place of worship. I cannot believe or accept that seeking to provide information could be met with a six-month prison sentence. I believe Amendments 88, 89 and 90 would help set a better balance on these provisions around freedom of speech. They would leave those things that are genuinely egregious in the clause and extract those things that are not.

Amendment 85 clarifies that Clause 9 cannot apply within an area

“wholly occupied by a building which is in regular use as a place of worship”.

Again, I do not expect or demand that religious positions on abortion are respected any more than others, but I worry that a minister of a religion holding views that are mainstream within his or her faith tradition—and are demonstrably legal to hold—could be barred under this legislation from expressing that view within their own place of worship.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

I have some difficulty in understanding the thinking behind this amendment. If a sermon was being preached in a church or mosque, which is what we are being asked to contemplate, that sermon would not in any way impact on the person visiting the abortion clinic some distance away.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

I thank the noble Viscount for his intervention. As the noble Lord, Lord Beith, said a few minutes ago, you might have a poster outside the church, mosque or temple saying that you are having a particular event on a particular day. It appears that would be caught by this legislation, but let us have the matter clarified by Ministers.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and others for their principled note that good powers must protect those who hold views with which you disagree or even find deplorable. Abortion is contested and emotive. I do not dispute that, as a result, there may on occasion be actions and levels of disruption that fail the test of Christian or any other charity. I deplore it when that happens.

However, there is a point of principle here going far beyond matters of abortion. Clause 9 is so broad and non-discriminate in its approach that it sets unfortunate precedents. I have real concerns that if we pass this clause into law in anything like its present wide form, we will see demands arise for exclusion zones, buffer zones or whatever they may be called in all manner of other locations and for all manner of purposes. I will listen with care to the rest of this debate, but I urge further concern in the approach to this part of the Bill. I hope Ministers will reflect on this and bring back some revised wording at a later stage.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to support many of the people who have spoken today but in particular the amendments, which I have co-signed, in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Sugg and Lady Barker. However, having listened to the debate very thoroughly, and being a believer in free speech, I have become increasingly of the opinion that we need to find a good resolution as a result of this debate, rather than a fast and rapid one.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I do not know if I am breaking the rules of the House in saying this, but I feel that some of the speakers in the last debate were slightly self-indulgent. I am appalled that we are still only on group 2. Would the Minister and the Whip take that back to the Chief Whip and the Leader of the House and suggest that people show a little more restraint in their agonising over certain bits of the Bill while somehow not agonising over the rest of it, which is plainly very similar to what they were arguing against?

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has summed up extremely well. He often says things that I wish I had said. He was absolutely right to raise both the inherent potential racism in these measures and the prison population. We are already one of the most imprisoned nations in the world, even with Iran having corralled 15,000 or 16,000 protesters against its repressive regime. Adding to the prison population will be a complete folly.

I also oppose Clauses 10 and 11. I am very worried about Clauses 10 to 14, because they give the police extensive new powers to stop and search anyone in the vicinity of a protest and confiscate items from them. Under Clause 11, a police inspector can designate a whole area in which the police can stop and search anyone without suspicion. That means people taking part in a protest, people walking past, journalists—anyone in the area. That is ludicrous and repressive. It beggars belief that the Government think this is okay to include. It also includes stopping vehicles and searching them, again without suspicion.

My Amendment 101 exposes some of the risks. With this offence of locking on, any cyclist who has a bike lock in the vicinity of a protest could have it confiscated. This could even include a random person cycling past. Anyone cycling past is likely to have a bike lock on them, because if they are not cycling then the bike lock is likely to be on their bike. This exposes endless innocent cyclists to being stopped, searched and having their bike locks confiscated. There are similar risks for anyone who has glue, Sellotape or presumably anything that police do not like the look of—jam sandwiches or anything.

Like the other protest clauses in this Bill, this one is far too broadly drafted. The Government are so obsessed with fighting climate activists that they will expose anyone to being stopped and searched and having things confiscated. The Government are seeking in this Bill to make protest a crime instead of a right. That simply is not just.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, first, I declare my interest as co-chair of the National Police Ethics Committee for England and Wales, though I am speaking on my own behalf. I want to focus my remarks on the amendment opposing the question that Clause 12 stand part of the Bill, to which I am a signatory, but also on those opposing the questions that Clauses 10, 11, 13 and 14 stand part of the Bill. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for the way they have introduced this debate.

It is deeply concerning that the Bill seeks to extend suspicion-less stop and search powers to the context of protest. If brought forward, such measures would open a Pandora’s box for the further misuse of such powers that have in many contexts caused trauma, both physically and mentally, particularly to those in marginalised communities. The proposers of these clauses may have in mind the current environmental protesters, who appear, somewhat unusually, to include a large proportion of those from white, middle-class backgrounds, notably one of my own clergy. But history tells us that such powers, after a short time, are almost invariably and disproportionately used against minorities, especially ethnic minorities.

I would not be involved with the police in the way that I am if I was not passionate that our forces should gain and hold the confidence and respect of all sections of our society. But I know all too well how fragile that respect and confidence are. Police powers that are not grounded in suspicion create suspicion, and they create suspicion in those parts of society, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has so eloquently indicated, where we can least afford it.

We must note when considering the Bill’s creation of a new stop and search power in relation to specified lists of protest offences that there is—as has been referred to—no agreed position among police forces that such a power is either necessary or wanted. When you add to this the fact that the definition of “prohibited objects” is so broad—the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has referred to bike locks, but it could be posters, placards, fliers or banners—I am not sure about jam sandwiches, but I suspect it fits in somewhere; all could become suspect. How would the police ascertain that such objects were in fact for use at a protest? There are lots of legitimate reasons why you have household objects with you. The Joint Committee on Human Rights states:

“A suspicion of such an offence, even a reasonable one, in the course of a protest represents an unjustifiably low threshold for a power to require a person to submit to a search.”


There are serious risks here for people’s ability and willingness to exercise rights that are fundamental in a democratic society.

The Bill attempts to address what it refers to as “public nuisance”. But its scope is too broad—arguably, any form of protest risks “public nuisance”. Indeed, in these very halls of Parliament, four suffragettes chained themselves to statues to bring attention to their demands for votes for women; we must ask ourselves whether our contemporary context allows space for similarly important issues to be protested on. As things stand, these clauses risk a disproportionate interference with people’s Article 8, 10 and 11 rights as set out in the Human Rights Act.

This country has long prided itself on being a democracy, this Parliament is at the heart of that, and one of our duties is to ensure that the rights and freedoms necessary to such a system of governance are not undermined. Those rights and freedoms include the right to peaceful protest. Therefore, should these provisions remain at a future stage, I will vote to oppose the questions that Clauses 10 to 14 stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to the clause stand part amendments in my name. In doing so, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester for their supportive remarks and the views that they have expressed, which I very much support.

Stop and search can be a frightening experience; it can be intrusive and intimidating. There are real concerns, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, outlined, about disproportionality, and a point that nobody has yet made is that it can be used against children, worries which matter so much in any democracy.

I am going to spend a few minutes going through this. The Chamber is not packed, but a lot of noble Lords will read our deliberations in Hansard, and this is one of the most important parts of the debate in Committee that we are going to have, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester outlined.

Despite these concerns, Parliament has given police the power to stop and search with suspicion for items such as offensive weapons, illegal drugs and stolen property. In its recent report, the Joint Committee on Human Rights accepted that stop and search with reasonable suspicion was appropriate in certain circumstances. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, are arguing through their Clause 10 stand part notice, is it right that these stop and search powers should be extended to peaceful protest? For example, new paragraph (g) inserted by Clause 10—I urge noble Lords to reread that clause—extends stop and search powers to an offence of

“intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance”,

when we know how wide the scope of “causing public nuisance” can be. Can the Minister explain what, in the Government’s view,

“intentionally or recklessly causing a public nuisance”

actually means? We would be passing this in new paragraph (g).

By creating a risk of causing serious inconvenience or serious annoyance through your actions in the course of a protest, or preparation for or travel to a protest, you would have to submit to a search under the Bill. How would an officer know my intention? Extending the stop and search powers to cover searches for articles connected with protest-related offences risks encounters between the public and the police where there is little or no justification. Does the Minister agree with that? People on their way to protests, marches, rallies or demonstrations are at risk of being searched in case they are equipped to commit one of those offences—or so the police believe.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, has just articulated with reference to her Amendments 100 and 101—this is the purpose of a Committee—what on earth do the Government mean by “prohibited” items? It is incumbent upon us to give some indication of what we consider prohibited items to be. It is easy to scoff when the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, asks if that includes a bicycle lock—but does it? I think it is quite right to ask that question.

This takes us to Clauses 11, 12, 13 and 14. Even if one thinks that stop and search with reasonable suspicion may be appropriate, to stop and search for prohibited items without suspicion, looking for articles with respect to peaceful protest, is not where this country should be going or what this Parliament should be legislating to allow the police to do. The application of suspicionless stop and search powers was previously reserved for use in the most serious circumstances, such as the prevention of serious violence, gun and knife crime, or indeed terrorism. Is this where we want our democracy to go—to use stop and search powers that we have previously said should be used only in relation to the prevention of terrorism or serious violence? We are now saying that they are appropriate to be used to search people going to a peaceful demonstration for prohibited items.

The Minister needs to explain—this is the purpose of my clause stand part notices, even though we are in Committee—why the Government think that is appropriate, whether the Minister agrees that it is appropriate, and why the Government believe it is necessary to give terrorist-related powers to the police to deal with peaceful protest. That is the purpose of my clause stand part notices for Clauses 11, 12, 13 and 14 on the creation of the suspicionless stop and search power in relation to a list of specified protest offences. I am grateful for the support of the noble Lords, Lord Paddick and Lord Anderson—who is not in his place—the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. I know there are others; the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has just said that she supports it. My reason for opposing these clauses is to ask the Government to justify such an extension of power to the police in the context of peaceful protest.

Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Lord Bishop of Manchester Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2022 Lords Chamber

who are entitled to register their right to that citizenship. Until we have achieved that aim, the terriers will continue to snap at the Home Office’s heels. I beg to move.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for giving us the opportunity to hold this short debate. The matters she raises are serious and require urgent address.

Greater Manchester—the Minister knows and loves it as much as I do—is a very diverse city region. Many of those who contribute to its flourishing and growth are families whose origins lie elsewhere. The children of those families enrich the life of our schools, including the 190-plus Church schools that educate over 60,000 children every day, often in the poorest communities. While these children rejoice in the distinctive heritage of their ancestral culture, and offer its riches to us, they are being brought up to be as British as I am. They know no other home. They are not immigrants—as the noble Baroness has said, we must not confuse the asserting of citizenship with immigration—they are British. They simply need to clarify that legally.

Ideally, I would not put a price on citizenship; it is far too precious. However, if a charge has to be made, it seems invidious to pitch it at a level where over half of the revenue is pure profit. Indeed, the profit levels might set the mouths watering of some of those who notoriously have milked our public coffers through the charges they have exacted for substandard PPE equipment—but perhaps that is for another day.

For cultural and religious reasons, many of these children are being brought up in families where they have more sisters and brothers than the average. We need those larger families to provide the future workers who will sustain our economy in years to come, as our population—noble Lords are no exception—increasingly ages. Many of their parents are key workers in those vital sectors of the economy, such as health and transport, which kept this nation going during Covid lockdowns, and they are often employed in the least well-paid jobs. Charging over £1,000 per child, especially when there are four, five or more children in the family, acts as a major disincentive to citizenship applications, one that prevents those children, as they grow up, being able to access the full rights to which they should be entitled as our fellow citizens. I echo the noble Baroness’s remarks about the opacity of the waiver regime. There is no point having a regime if it is not clear, when families embark on that process, whether they will be eligible.

I urge the Government to reconsider these charges as a matter of urgency. Perhaps it is not for me to intrude into private grief but, on a day when the moral authority of the Government is up for question, this would be a small but significant assertion that Her Majesty’s Government recognise a compelling moral case when they see one.

[The Earl of Dundee (Con)]

My Lords, in welcoming these provisions, I apologise for missing the opening remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. However, we are still left with some anomalies, one of which follows the decision to reintroduce the fee charged to other children at £1,012 when the application—

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Bishop of Manchester Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 26th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stroud (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment D1, and I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for her eloquent introduction to the amendment. This is a common-sense change. It would be a boost for the Treasury, for recruiters and, not least, for asylum seekers themselves. They often wait years for a decision on their claim while battling poverty, isolation and mental ill-health. However, the Government appear to want to maintain a ban on employment for asylum seekers, even after the introduction of their offshoring policy. They say that giving people the right to work will still encourage more people to come to the UK.

This pull-factor argument, however, is simply not supported by the facts. Evidence for it remains unclear, unshared or—as many suspect—non-existent. A challenge to Ministers from the Government’s own Migration Advisory Committee to show proof of a link between the employment ban and a pull factor has so far gone unanswered. Publicly available and up-to-date figures show no correlation. If such a correlation, or even causation, existed, asylum migration would look very different from how it does today. Certainly, 28,000 refugees would not have risked their lives crossing the channel in boats in 2021 to come to the UK, where they cannot work; they would have headed to Sweden, which received just 10,000 applications for refugee status, even though asylum seekers can work after day one.

The 62,000 people who claimed asylum in Spain last year, where they must wait for six months to work, would have simply crossed the border into Portugal, whose 1,300 asylum applicants can get a job after one week. The people who applied for asylum in France—over 100,000 of them—where they must wait six months to work, could have just stopped in, or headed to, Italy, where they can work after two months. That some countries with stricter labour access laws often receive more asylum seekers, while, in many cases, fewer refugees go to countries with more relaxed rules around work, shows the lack of link between application numbers and employment rules. As we have repeatedly said in these debates, what the overwhelming evidence does point to as pull factors are those things that make almost all of us feel safe: our families, our friends, our communities, our language, a sense of shared history, and a country with a stable Government and respect for human rights.

We have an environment in which Ministers are nervous of appearing soft: I understand that. They are so nervous that even a widely beneficial, evidence-based, common-sense policy such as the right to work has yet to be accepted because it might make Britain a magnet. But I believe that this is wrong, and, while the negative and costly effects of this ban might not seem obvious, they are real. The ban costs the taxpayer an estimated £210 million a year. It leaves asylum seekers in poverty and institutionally dependent; it leaves businesses up and down the country without extra hands at a time of record job vacancies; it takes a terrible toll on people’s mental health; and it damages any attempt at integration and future employment success.

It should not be so hard to reach agreement on a policy that has so much cross-party support and so many benefits. I spent years at the DWP, as a Conservative special adviser, working to support people into work and off welfare, only to be hindered from advancing the same opportunity to those who have sought the protection of this nation.

The instinct to work, to contribute and to provide for one’s family is universal and integral to who we are as human beings. It is what it means to be human, each one according to their talent, gift, capacity and capability. We damage people when we forbid them to contribute. I urge the Government to keep thinking and to think again.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I confess that I thought I had finished with ping-pong when I laid down my bat as table tennis captain of my college at university more than four decades ago. This is my first time at it in this rather different setting.

I rise to speak in support of Motions F1 and H1 in my name. I am extremely grateful to my right reverend friend the Bishop of Durham for his excellent previous work on these Motions. He is unable to be in his place today, so we worked on them together. I am also grateful for a letter I received this morning from leaders of many of the main Christian denominations in the United Kingdom, urging me to continue to press on these matters.

Clause 11 continues to be the most challenging part of the Bill in the way it differentiates the treatment of those who seek sanctuary in the UK. Therefore, I continue to support Motions B1 and C1. I also support Motion D1 and pretty well all others in this group.

It is a long-established principle of UK law that, when removing an individual to a third country, the UK has an obligation to ensure that this will not violate the person’s human rights or the UK’s obligations under international law. It is also a long-established principle, affirmed by the Supreme Court, that it is not enough for the third country to have signed international human rights treaties; it must respect them in practice.

Motion F1 would ensure that the UK can transfer an asylum seeker to another country only if that country is genuinely safe, both in law and in practice, for the individual being transferred, and where that individual’s rights under the refugee convention and human rights law will be respected. The Motion would also prevent transfers under agreements such as the recent Rwanda-UK memorandum of understanding, which as I understand it is not legally binding on either party, where the standards of treatment in the receiving country are unspecified and unenforceable in any court. It is essential that clear minimum standards are set to ensure the UK does not send people we consider to be refugees, both legally and morally, to a country where they may be denied protection and put at risk of refoulement.

I listened to the Minister’s assurances earlier and am grateful for them, but the UNHCR is clear:

“Such arrangements simply shift asylum responsibilities, evade international obligations, and are contrary to the letter and spirit of the Refugee Convention”.


In its latest annual report, Amnesty International set out that in Rwanda:

“Violations of the rights to a fair trial, freedom of expression and privacy continued, alongside enforced disappearances, allegations of torture and excessive use of force.”


Moreover, the Home Secretary’s response to understandable concerns about Rwanda’s human rights record that were raised in the other place demonstrates the risk that the designation of a particular country as safe may not be simply because it is safe but may become politicised or be influenced by broader foreign policy concerns. It is right that this country has foreign policy concerns, but they must not bleed into decisions about what is a safe country to which an asylum seeker could be sent. We need a clear, independent and enforceable legal standard.

My right reverend friend the Bishop of Chelmsford set out in a recent letter to the Home Secretary that the current plan to offshore asylum seekers to Rwanda

“treats the most vulnerable in our midst in a cruel and inhumane way”.

My most reverend friend the Archbishop of Canterbury has put it even stronger, in words I will not remind the House of this afternoon.

Without the provisions set out in this amendment, the only bar to relocating an asylum seeker to a country with which they have no connection would be for each individual asylum seeker to demonstrate that removal there would violate their human rights under the European convention. Furthermore, demonstrating a risk of refoulement from a third country requires demonstrating that its asylum provisions are inadequate. This is something that requires expert knowledge. That is not practical for the vast majority of asylum seekers to demonstrate in their individual cases.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

At end insert “and do propose Amendment 53H in lieu—

53H: Page 88, line 11, leave out paragraphs 1 and 2 and insert—
“1 In section 77 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (no removal while claim for asylum pending), after subsection (2) insert—
“(2A) This section does not prevent a person being removed to, or being required to leave to go to, a third State, where all of the following conditions are met—
(a) the removal is pursuant to a formal, legally binding and public readmission or transfer agreement between the United Kingdom and the third State;
(b) the criteria for removal are public, transparent and non-discriminatory;
(c) the State is a safe State, as shown by reliable, objective and up-to-date information, in that there are, in law and practice—
(i) appropriate reception arrangements for asylum-seekers;
(ii) sufficiency of protection against persecution, threats to physical safety, violations of fundamental rights, and other serious harms;
(iii) respect for human rights in accordance with international standards;
(iv) protection against refoulement;
(v) fair and efficient State asylum procedures, with sufficient capacity to process asylum claims fairly and in a timely manner;
(vi) the legal right to remain during the State asylum procedure; and
(vii) if found to be in need of international protection, a grant of refugee status that is inclusive of the rights and obligations set out at Articles 2 to 34 of the Refugee Convention;
(d) the person will have access to such fair and efficient asylum procedures, or to a previously afforded refugee status or other protective status that is inclusive of the rights and obligations set out at Articles 2 to 34 of the Refugee Convention;
(e) it has been determined following an individualised assessment in which the person has an effective right to participate that it is reasonable for the person to go to that State in light of their individual circumstances, including—
(i) their ties to the United Kingdom;
(ii) their vulnerabilities and specific needs, including but not limited to their sexual or gender identity and any history of modern slavery, torture, or gender-based violence;
(iii) the prospects of their long-term integration into the receiving State; and
(iv) any reasons that the State may not be safe for them; and
(f) the person is not a national of that State.
(2B) The Secretary of State must in each year lay a report before both Houses of Parliament which includes—
(a) the number of people who have been removed to a third State while their asylum claim is pending;
(b) the cost of removal per person.”””

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I wish to test the opinion of the House.

Daniel Morgan Independent Panel Report

Lord Bishop of Manchester Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I think my right honourable friend the Policing Minister asked that question yesterday. It is a very sad question to have to ask, 35 years on. In terms of the MPS being an exemplar in investigating serious corruption, this is talking about corruption within the police. Obviously the two are different things, but I hope, as my right honourable friend the Policing Minister said yesterday, that we will get closure for his family, because it must have been an agony for the last 35 years. I commend the noble Lord for the work that he has done on this.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I want to echo from these Benches our concern for the Daniel Morgan family, and also to reiterate my interest in policing ethics at both force and national level, as set out in the register.

I am particularly interested in the comments on vetting made in the report. In Greater Manchester we commissioned our own investigation into the force’s vetting procedures a few years ago. While on the whole that was satisfactory, as the report here has done, it identified that people from UK minority ethnic backgrounds were disproportionately getting vetted out of the system, both at recruitment level and promotion level.

I am grateful that there is talk of a wider piece of research into vetting nationally. I would appreciate some reassurances from the Minister that its terms of reference will ensure that any recommendations that are made fully bear in mind that we must have a police force that replicates the diversity of our population, including ethnic diversity.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Bishop of Manchester Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Lords Hansard - Part 2
Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, ever since this Bill began its progress through your Lordships’ House, I have struggled to understand why the source of noise seems to make a difference.

I am lucky to live in a large, busy and somewhat noisy city. Last week one of our local Jewish communities, which I live at the heart of, celebrated Purim, and it celebrated it noisily. I live close to Salford City football ground. I have a season ticket and go to watch matches there. But I would not need to be in the ground to know the score; I could tell from the noise that emerges from it. I am well within earshot of the annual Parklife festival in Heaton Park in north Manchester, which brings countless people from all over the country and beyond to have a fun weekend. I struggle to see why a night of noise from a religious festival or a weekend of noise from a pop concert is somehow acceptable, but noise from a protest for a night or a weekend somehow is not. If noise is a nuisance, it is a nuisance. The fact that it is generated by protests and not by pop music seems entirely irrelevant.

I take great comfort from what the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said earlier. I have double glazing, so perhaps nothing at all is a nuisance to me; but not all my neighbours in Salford are quite so lucky. Unless the Minister can give me some clarity as to why the source of the noise make such a substantial difference that we have to legislate against it, I will be supporting the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and others this afternoon.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I suggest that noble Lords may want to follow Sheffield Wednesday because, if you lived anywhere near the ground, you would never be disturbed by much noise from the team scoring.

I support the right to protest. What I am about to say may leave people thinking that I do not, but I genuinely do. I say that as somebody who, like the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has been a gold commander for public order events with tens of thousands of people—hundreds of thousands on occasion. Sometimes people in London imagine that the only protests that happen are with the Metropolitan Police leading them, but of course other forces have to deal with similar challenges an awful lot of the time.

There are different types of protest, but we seem to have started to talk about the only types of protest being the ones that happen in Whitehall, which we all regularly see and hear and which we have the most experience of, but they are not the only types of protest that happen around the country. I want to say a few words about those types of protest, and why I broadly support the Government’s idea to look at why noise can be a problem. Noise can be threatening and intimidating, it can be a nuisance and it can damage health. Surely the test of whether or not noise is okay is whether somebody of reasonable firmness—not somebody who is particularly sensitive—can withstand it. In certain circumstances we would all be very prone to being damaged by noise. Imagine a family who had someone who was terminally ill. Some of us who can cope with noise most of the time cannot cope with it all the time. So I think there is a test that can be applied, and the police would be quite able to apply it.

There is another example, I would suggest, of something that is lawful generally but when done too much can be a crime: picketing. That may have been contentious in the past, but people have engaged in it as part of a trade union dispute. However, it was made illegal, some time ago now, to gather in such a large number that it would intimidate people and prevent them working or doing other things that were reasonable. Picketing is therefore lawful, but not if it is done in such numbers and is causing such damage that it would cause normal people to be worried that they could not carry on with their normal lives.

The question that is not really addressed by those who object to the Government’s proposal is: is it always okay for protesters to cause noise nuisance, even if somebody is unreasonably damaged by that noise? If it is outside your home or your business, and it is day after week after month, is that okay? If not, how are you going to deal with it? I have not heard any proposals for doing that. Of course, it is okay in Whitehall, but it is not okay if it is at your home. We have had examples where people have had complaints and protests against them at their home or business repeatedly and frequently. We have to at least consider this when scrutinising this legislation. It is important to them, even if some people do not think it is important in general.

A question was raised as to whether police officers could assess whether noise “may” cause damage. That is a reasonable question, but, of course, police officers do this type of thing every day. They have to decide whether a breach of the peace is likely, and they might make an arrest or make an intervention around threatening behaviour. Whether something may happen is one of the things that they have to decide. They are just normal people who have to make a reasonable assessment. I do not worry about them too much on those grounds: they make that sort of decision every day and I suspect that they can carry on making it even if this was to be made further legislation.

There was a question about whether the police could intervene in a particular protest if there were tens of thousands of people involved and they were causing lots of noise. Could the police intervene and do they have enough staff? That is a fair question, but, of course, they do not have to intervene on that day. Perhaps it is impossible to intervene, but they can use that as evidence to decide whether to impose a condition in the future. That is one of the reasons why we have law: to decide whether you are able to impose conditions, what the reasons are for the conditions, and whether you can gather enough evidence to say that your “may” is a reasonable test. Therefore, it may not be on the first occasion that the protest happens, but it may be on the subsequent one, which, if noble Lords accept my argument, is something that at least has to be considered if there are repeated protests causing excessive noise for people, making it difficult for them to enjoy their lives.

I understand why people complain about this government proposal, but I honestly think that the people who oppose it have not yet addressed how they would deal with the problem if it was their home, their parents or their business. How do they intend to stop the noise, which can be so damaging to life? That is the question I would ask but, broadly, I support the Government’s proposal.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Bishop of Manchester Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, in his opening remarks my noble friend spoke to Amendment 89, and I hope that it is in order to introduce a more consensual note to this debate by welcoming Amendment 89. The first subsection of the new clause states:

“The Vagrancy Act 1824 is repealed.”


This shows the value of your Lordships’ House. When the legislation came to this House, there was nothing in it at all about the Vagrancy Act. But an all-party campaign, led by the noble Lord, Lord Best, who had hoped to speak to this amendment, inserted an amendment that would have repealed the Vagrancy Act in its entirety. That went back to the other place and, following a very constructive meeting with the Minister, my noble friend Lady Williams, and Minister Eddie Hughes, a satisfactory compromise was reached that is set out in Motion J and government Amendment 89, which, as I said, begins:

“The Vagrancy Act 1824 is repealed.”


My noble friend explained that there may be sections of the Vagrancy Act that need to be kept and therefore that total repeal is subject to a review, with an undertaking that it will be repealed in its entirety, subject to that review, within 18 months. I am most grateful to my ministerial friends for their constructive approach and I wonder whether the Minister, when he winds up, can say when the review that he referred to will be completed, and when we can have the assurance that there is nothing in the Vagrancy Act that needs to be kept and that, within the total span of 18 months, it will be repealed in its entirety. On behalf of all those who supported the campaign led by the noble Lord, Lord Best, I say that we very much welcome the outcome of our discussions.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I echo the thoughts that the noble Lord, Lord Young, has just shared. I declare my interest as chair of the Manchester Homelessness Partnership board and as co-chair of the national police ethics committee, because I also wish to speak to the Motion regarding serious violence reduction orders.

I support the Vagrancy Act repeal, as I know my right reverend and most reverend friends on these Benches do, and have sought to see that included in previous Bills. I am grateful that it is now on track and I look forward to working with Ministers and others to ensure that we avoid any unintended consequences and do not simply recreate the old Act in more modern language.

On serious violence reduction orders, I am deeply concerned about knife crime. In fact, in Greater Manchester we are holding a summit on the afternoon of Friday of next week and I would be delighted if the noble Baroness the Minister could join us on that occasion, if her diary permits. As one of those who sponsored Amendments 114 to 116, I am grateful that we now have an expanded list of things that the review of the pilot must include and I am grateful for the assurances that we have heard today that the list is not exhaustive.

I still have concerns that these orders may prove unworkable, that they may put vulnerable women and girls at greater risk or that they may damage community relations with police through their disproportionate application. At worst, I think that all those things could happen, but for now I am willing to accept that the review is in good faith. Again, I look forward to seeing how the lessons learned from it will be taken fully on board and incorporated into any subsequent national rollout of SVROs.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Motion A1. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, on his introduction and support his amendment. Organised food crime costs billions and the police have far more urgent priorities to deal with. Food-borne illnesses cost money in lost earnings and even in some cases result in death. In the current food shortage scenario, it is open season for the unscrupulous to take advantage and exploit the public by producing and selling adulterated food that is not fit for human consumption. They avoid prosecution while the police are completely overstretched. This amendment would assist the FSA to act to prevent future food scandals. I fully support the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and urge the Government to accept this very sensible amendment.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Bishop of Manchester Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Lords Hansard - part one & Report stage
Monday 10th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

As a Green, I am very concerned about the Government undermining the doctrine that police on these islands gain their authority from the consent of the governed. Overuse of stop and search powers has deeply undermined community consent in many areas of the country. We worry all the time about the police being constantly distrusted. That is no wonder, especially with a measure such as this. There are racial and socioeconomic disparities in who gets targeted by the police—we cannot avoid that. These government severe violence reduction orders will create, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has said, a new suspicionless stop and search power, and once a person is issued with one of these orders they could face unlimited interference from police officers. We have to ask: is this the sort of measure that will bring those offenders back into society or will it turn them further away?

The Greens will support any amendments that improve this system of serious violence reduction orders, in particular Amendments 95B or 95A—whichever amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, comes up for a vote. That the reports from a pilot project are approved by Parliament before these orders can be deployed more broadly seems to me to be common sense. Why on earth would they be brought in before they have been measured? It is essential that the Government prove the efficacy of these measures and demonstrate that they are not being used in a way that is racially or otherwise discriminatory.

I particularly support Amendment 101 from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, which would repeal the existing powers of suspicionless stop and search. There should not be a power for the police to search without reasonable suspicion.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I support Amendments 90H, 90J, 95A, 95B and 95C, to which I have added my name. I also signal my support for other amendments in this group which also seek to control more tightly how serious violence reduction orders will operate. I draw your Lordships’ attention to my work on policing ethics, both for Greater Manchester Police and for the National Police Chiefs’ Council, as set out in the register of interests.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has indicated, Amendment 90H seeks to ensure that an SVRO can be applied only when a bladed article or offensive weapon is used to commit an offence, not simply when such an item happens to be present and in the possession of the defendant. As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has indicated, as presently drafted, the Bill requires no substantive link between the weapon and the offence. An individual could, for example, commit a road traffic offence while driving home from a church picnic, with their used cutlery on the passenger seat next to them, and the prosecution could ask for an SVRO.

I can see that subsection (5) of the proposed new chapter is intended to mitigate that by requiring the court to consider that imposition of the order is necessary to protect the public or the defendant from possible future offences involving such weapons. However, I do not believe it adequately achieves that objective. Asking a court to conject what might happen in the future can all too easily invite decisions taken on discriminatory or flimsy grounds, especially as no court would wish to face public criticism for having failed to apply an SVRO should later violence occur. To legislate for future conjecture requires a robust link to what has already happened. Subsection (3)(a) gives that; it requires that the weapon was used by the defendant in committing the offence in question. Deleting subsection (3)(b), as this amendment seeks to do, would ensure that any order is based on genuine and evidenced risk. To put it bluntly, it would pass my church picnic test.

Amendment 90J, if I may turn to that, seeks to more closely tie the order to the offence by limiting it to the actual person who used or had possession of the weapon, not some putative third party who

“knew or ought to have known”

that they had it. The de facto joint enterprise element in the current drafting of this clause widens the net substantially for who can be affected, and includes people not convicted of knife crime. As the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has just said, this is likely to disproportionately affect women and girls, who may well know or suspect that a partner or family member may be carrying a weapon but are far too vulnerable to be able to extricate themselves from a situation where violence involving such weapons may be committed by others.

I understand that the intention may be to provide such vulnerable adults with an excuse to stay away from both people and situations with which violence may be associated, but when I try to put myself in the position of such a person, I cannot really imagine saying to my partner or brother: “Oh, I must not be near you when you have a knife because I might get an SVRO against me.” I think these people are far too vulnerable. I hope I have persuaded your Lordships that Amendment 90J will address this deficit.

Finally, on Amendment 90J, apart from it being grossly unfair by ignoring the impact on vulnerable people, subsection (4) appears to be unworkable. How will the court determine if someone “ought to have known” that some other person had a knife? The amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, tease out this point specifically. I will leave others to speak to them at greater length, but if our own Amendment 90J does not win your Lordships’ support, I would hope that her amendments are more persuasive.

I now turn to Amendments 95A, 95B and 95C on the pilot scheme. In order to understand how SVROs operate in practice, these are entirely welcome. SVROs present a major innovation. There are significant risks of dangers from unexpected consequences—dangers that may outweigh any good that SVROs achieve. If we are to roll them out across the country, we need to have confidence that they are doing the job intended and making things better and not worse. For all the eloquence of our arguments in this House, there is nothing quite like having real, practical experience on the ground to draw on if we are going to get things right. These three amendments, taken together, simply seek to strengthen the pilot; to make it a genuine gathering of all the most relevant evidence, and one that will feed into a proper decision-making process here in Parliament, ahead of SVROs being rolled out across the nation.

In my early days as Bishop of Manchester, we had an idea of how we might make better and more locally informed decisions on where we deployed our vicars. We set up a two-year pilot across about a fifth of our dioceses. Towards the end of that period, we commissioned an independent evaluation by outside experts. We learned a huge amount from the exercise, and, in consequence, we never rolled out the substantive project. We did something different; we did something better. A pilot has to have the capacity to substantially implement the eventual shape of whatever is the final product, otherwise it is simply window dressing.

It is clear from speeches already made here today that there is considerable uncertainty about SVROs. In particular, noble Lords have drawn attention to the danger that they become associated with disproportionality and hence diminish confidence in policing and the courts. None of us wants that. We noted the risk that, rather than prevent criminalisation, they may draw more vulnerable people—especially young women—into the criminal justice system. We have remarked that extensive use of stop and search powers, especially in the absence of specific evidence of intention to offend, has over and again proved counterproductive. These last three amendments cover both the process and the content of the pilot evaluation. They will make for much better decisions on how and when, and perhaps most crucially if, SVROs are rolled out across the nation. I hope the Minister will be minded to accept them or to meet us to find an agreed way forward.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I wonder whether I could ask the Minister a question about her amendments to Clause 141. This takes forward to one point of detail the comments made by other noble Lords about targeting particular groups of possible offenders. Amendments 92 and 93 would extend the guidance from the exercise of functions by the police to, as in proposed new subsection 1A(b),

“guidance about identifying offenders in respect of whom it may be appropriate for … serious violence reduction orders to be made”.

To me, this reads very much like profiling. Can the Minister tell the House whether “identifying offenders” is about identifying particular individuals or a cohort, class or demographic in respect of whom the Government may see SVROs as appropriate?

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Bishop of Manchester Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Lords Hansard - part one & Report stage
Monday 13th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I declare my interests, first in my work with the National Police Chiefs’ Council, which has already been referred to today, secondly as chair of the Wythenshawe Community Housing Group, and lastly as deputy chair of the Church Commissioners for England, one of the largest owners of farmland in the country. I think I have almost as wide a range of interests as has this extraordinarily diverse and far-reaching Bill.

I am grateful to those noble Lords from across the House who have proposed and supported the amendments in this group and spoken to them so powerfully in this debate. Like others, I am also grateful to the Minister for generously taking time to engage with us last week.

In my short time so far as a Member of your Lordships’ House, I have become accustomed to Ministers telling us that they have sympathy for our position but that the present Bill is not the way to address the matters that concern us—for example, when we tried to look at safety in high buildings on the then Fire Safety Bill. I do not see why we cannot play the same card. We need a separate Bill, one that deals comprehensively with the needs as well as the obligations of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people—not simply legislation that offers fresh and very serious penalties for what may be rather minor infractions. The matters addressed in these clauses would surely be better dealt with in that more balanced context. That would allow Her Majesty’s Government to deliver on their manifesto commitment.

If that is asking too much, the penalties exacted for matters treated in this part of the Bill should at least be proportionate to the offences committed and not excessive. I draw your Lordships’ attention to the principle of lex talionis, set out in the Hebrew scriptures and most commonly referred to as “an eye for an eye”. This was intended never as an endorsement of physical mutilation but as a limit to how severe a sanction should be. It sets a maximum, not a minimum. Put bluntly, no penalty should exceed the seriousness of the offence.

I know from my housing association experience that there are many cases in which someone may inhabit their dwelling in ways that cause nuisance to their neighbours —the way they dispose or do not dispose of rubbish; playing loud music late at night; abusive language; sometimes even damage to neighbours’ properties—but I also know that there are many checks and balances before anyone can be removed from their home. Yet these clauses could allow for confiscation of somebody’s primary or only dwelling on the basis of a very low level of nuisance caused. Unless Amendment 55ZB in my name and those of other noble Lords is accepted, there will be no need to ensure that any alternative accommodation or site is, or rapidly can be made, available. There is some irony that we are debating powers to render families with no place to lay their heads, not even a stable, this close to Christmas. Surely we need to balance these provisions by a limitation on using them in such circumstances.

I know it is not the Minister’s intention to enact disproportionate penalties for minor infringements, so finally I ask her, as well as accepting our Amendment 57, to put on record in this debate that, before the Bill becomes law, suitable statutory guidance will be published to limit the exercise of these powers to that small minority of cases in which a very high threshold of wrongful behaviour has been reached; and, further, that reports on the exercise of these powers will be compiled and made available to your Lordships’ House at least annually, so that we can detect any tendency to abuse the powers that the Bill would enact.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and to support the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Whitaker, on Amendments 57 and 55ZB, to which I am happy to be a signatory along with noble Lords drawn from right across the House.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, set out the arguments for Amendment 57 with her usual clarity. At the heart of her remarks is the compelling case for social justice and the upholding of human rights. Suffice it to say that when it comes to inequalities, this group of people—Gypsies, Roma and Travellers—are in a league of their own. That was the conclusion of the March 2019 report of the Women and Equalities Select Committee. I know the Minister has given a great deal of personal attention to this issue; like others, I put on record my gratitude to her. When she comes to reply, I wonder whether she can tell us what account was taken of that report in framing this legislation and what action was taken to develop the cross-departmental strategy it called for.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, noted the absence of any detail still. I simply reinforce her message that the Government should publish and allow a debate on the strategy before implementing Part 4, or at least give a clear commitment as to when the strategy will be published. No doubt Covid will be prayed in aid to justify the delay but, even allowing for Covid, more than two years is simply too long. After all, those same constraints did not prevent the department coming forward with this change of law—or, for that matter, this entirely new Act of Parliament.

I will say a few words in support of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, who in her admirable way has pursued this issue over so long and has encouraged so many of us to join the all-party parliamentary group in which she plays such a leading role. She has rightly pointed to the absence of sites—a point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier. How we respond to that is surely about whether to criminalise or incentivise local authorities to do something about it.

The greatly missed Lord Avebury promoted the Caravan Sites Act 1968. As a young city councillor in Liverpool in 1973, I, along with others—some of whom are in the Chamber this evening—pressed for the city council to do something about that Act. We pushed for the opening of a permanent site for Travellers. It is situated in Oil Street, in Tara Park. The Act led to many new sites, but its repeal in 1994 disincentivised provision, and there are now some 1,696 households on the waiting list for permanent pitches in England, while the last funding round secured resources for just two transit sites.

The civilised answer is to make provision, not to introduce draconian, criminalising legislation based on some very dubious legal principles, which seem to me to run contrary to human rights obligations and our duties to contest bigotry and prejudice with solutions—points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. According to the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s barometer of prejudice, 44% of those surveyed expressed hostile and openly negative feelings towards Gypsies, Roma and Travellers. We should beware of doing anything to reinforce such prejudice and the old tropes.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, reminded us of where prejudice can lead. On 2 August each year, the day on which we recall the Roma genocide, I am always struck that on that very day in 1944 the Gypsy family camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the German Nazi concentration camps in the then occupied Poland, was liquidated. It is sometimes suggested that, during the Holocaust, half a million Roma and Sinti perished. At the time of the liberation of Auschwitz, just four Roma remained alive.

In our generation, it is down to us to guard against prejudice, which—I know the Minister would agree—can so easily morph into something worse. That is why the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, is right to draw attention to the obvious and inevitable violation of human rights that will occur if this clause remains unamended. As the Bill stands, it both criminalises people and deprives them of their rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which requires respect for their homes—a point the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, made—and their private and family life, which by law includes respect for their traditional ways of life. As long ago as 2001, the ECHR ruled that there was

“a positive obligation on Contracting States by virtue of Article 8 to facilitate the Gypsy way of life.”

I wonder whether the Minister can tell us how this provision achieves that objective.

Since 1995 the UK has been a signatory to the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, Article 5 of which says:

“The Parties undertake to promote the conditions necessary for persons belonging to national minorities to maintain and develop their culture”.


It is impossible to see how this legislation honours that obligation.

Before Second Reading, the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, along with myself, published an article in the House magazine pointing out that the way of life lived by the Roma, the Gypsies and the Travellers stretches back half a millennium, long before the enactment of the Enclosure Acts and the agricultural revolution. In this Bill, we intend to overturn the practice of centuries and criminalise trespass and enable the police to seize vehicles, as we have heard, and homes. Imagine the impact on the children of these families as they watch their parents’ possessions sequestrated and their families evicted—and this could be in the very depths of winter.

These amendments point to rank discrimination and are an attack on a way of life. Adequate accommodation for Gypsies and Travellers is a better, more civilised and more humane way to proceed, rather than locking people into endless cycles of criminalisation and evictions. If this amendment is taken to a vote by the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, I for one will certainly go into the Division Lobby to support her.