Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Lord Coaker and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 22nd April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by saying straightaway to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, since he asked me what we would do, if—and I emphasise “if”—we win the next election: we will repeal the Bill. We have been quite clear about that, but that is not what we are debating this evening. We are debating the Bill that we have before us and, in particular, the two Motions A1 and B1.

I think it is important that we dispel some of the myths around the debate that has taken place today, started by the Prime Minister this morning in his press conference. He seemed to imply that the debate in this Chamber is between those who want to stop the boats and those who do not, whereas I have made the case continually, as every Member across this Chamber has done, that we all agree that we need to stop the boats; the dispute in this place is about exactly the right way to go about that and to do that. That is the important distinction that lies between us.

We believe that the Bill as it stands is inconsistent with the principles and traditions of our country and, as such, that is why we oppose it and the various arguments that have been made. Never have I stood at this Dispatch Box and at any time said to the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart, the Government Chief Whip or the Leader of the House that we will block the Bill. That has never been the policy of His Majesty’s Opposition, and never been something we have said from this Dispatch Box; indeed, we voted against a Motion that was put before us some weeks ago to do that. But we have also said that we would stand up for the proper position of this House. The proper role of this Chamber is to argue, to debate, to revise, to suggest amendments and to put forward that case. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, I hope he is in a position, in a few months’ time, where he is stood here doing exactly the same as I am, and being as a frustrating and challenging as I am trying to be to him, because that is the proper role of the House of Lords. Therefore, it is important that we do that.

I cannot remember which noble Lord said this, but if the Government were as worried about the delay as they say they are, why on earth did they not sort all this out before Easter? All their own side were whipped to be here on a Monday after we debated on the Wednesday, only to have a further email go out to say they would no longer be required. That is how much of an emergency the legislation was. The Government could have cleared this before Easter, and yet they did not, presumably because the Prime Minister could not guarantee that everything was in order for the Bill to work. Let us not talk about the House of Lords delaying the legislation; let us look at the Government’s timetabling of their own business and their inability to get that right. Even today, the Government in a press conference to the lobby, as I understand it, could not give any detail of the numbers that they expect to be subject to the provisions of this treaty—the numbers of flights they expect or, indeed, the exact date when it will take place.

This has never been an argument about the integrity of this Chamber. I do not believe that there is a single Member of this Parliament, in the other place or this Chamber, or any of the journalists who report our proceedings, who does not have proper integrity. I would not have gone on the radio, as a Government Minister did this morning, and accused this House of bordering on racism in the way in which it debated the Rwanda treaty. That is a shocking and appalling comment to make. I do not believe that that is what the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, thinks, and I do not think that anyone in here has been bordering on racism in anything that they have said. I have heard detailed arguments and positions espoused by many, but nobody in here—or in the other place, or anybody who reports on these proceedings—has been anywhere near racist or racism. There is a legitimate difference of view, but we should not resort to those sorts of things being said.

I object also to what the Prime Minister did this morning, when he suggested that those of us who opposed the Rwanda Bill before us lacked compassion—that somehow there was anybody who was not opposed to the drownings or some of the appalling things that we see. Of course, we are all opposed to that—there is not a single individual in this Chamber, in the press or in the other place who does not abhor some of that which takes place. But that is the context in which we have been debating this issue.

We are quite right to turn to around and say that we should look at what the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, is saying, and what my noble friend Lord Browne is saying. But it is not just about Labour Peers. Again, the Prime Minister and other people have gone on saying, “Labour is blocking this—Labour Peers are blocking this”. We do not have a majority in here to block anything; we have to have the support of Cross-Benchers, Tory Peers abstaining or disappearing, as well as the Liberal Democrats voting with us and everybody else.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Greens!

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Sorry, I missed out the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. It is like being at a wedding—you know that you are going to miss somebody out. You go through all the aunts and uncles and all the other relatives and you see the glower of Aunt Mabel from the back—not that that is you, Lady Jones! But seriously, that includes the Greens, of course. It is about all of us who believe that the Bill is wrong standing together. That is why it is important.

If the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, chooses to put his Motion A1 to the vote, of course we will support it and will be pleased to support it. It is a sensible amendment—it does not block the Bill; it simply says to the Government that they should let the monitoring committee that they themselves have set up talk to the Secretary of State, who can then make a Statement to Parliament saying that Rwanda is safe. That also gives the Government a get-out clause by saying that in future the Secretary of State, presumably on the advice of the monitoring committee, can say that Rwanda is not safe—whereas under the Bill at the moment, whatever happens, they are compelled to believe that it is safe. It is a perfectly sensible amendment.

I come to my noble friend Lord Browne’s amendment. It is a meaningful concession on the part of the Government, and that is a really important statement to make. Let me say to all those who are listening that when people question why it is important sometimes that the Lords stands firm and challenges the Government of the day, whatever Government that is, and why it sometimes says to the Government, “You’ve got this wrong and you need to think again”—in this case, thanks to tenacious noble Lords and the brilliance of my noble friend Lord Browne in what he has done—the reason why it is important is because sometimes the Government give way. That is what has happened. If we had not pushed this last week, this concession would not have happened. If we had given way two months ago, it would not have happened.

So far from this being about the Lords blocking anything or delaying anything, it is the Lords performing its proper constitutional function and bringing about change from the Government. That is what it is about—and it has been done in a way that actually gets the Government themselves out of a bind. We know that many on the Government’s Back Benches and Front Benches, including many in this Chamber, thought that what the Prime Minister, one presumes, was saying was wrong, and they needed the Prime Minister to change his position. So the strength of what was proposed in this Chamber by my noble friend Lord Browne forced the Prime Minister—and we presume that he supports all this—to change his mind and come forward with that concession.

The concession that the Minister read out is significant and important, and it is something that my noble friend Lord Browne can be proud of. It may not be everything that everybody would want, but sometimes in politics you have to do what you can and achieve what you can. In the face of what my noble friend was facing—an absolute refusal by the Government to make any concession at all, with the Prime Minister standing in Downing Street and saying that he would not change a single word of the Bill—that has now been proved to be false, in the sense that my noble friend Lord Browne and your Lordships have changed the mind of the Government.

Public Order Bill

Debate between Lord Coaker and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Report stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Yes, of course. If I gave that impression, it was a mistake on my part. This is the whole point: there has to be “serious disruption”, as in my amendment. The debate—not the argument but the debate, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, just raised—is about what we actually mean by serious disruption. I thank the noble Lord, for pointing that out. If I said that, it was a mistake.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I am curious about this “serious disruption”. Quite honestly, if anyone has driven on the M4, the M25 or through the streets of London, they will know what serious disruption is, because we get it every single day from people using their cars. If we have any confusion about what serious disruption is, that is what it is: traffic jams. Perhaps we ought to lobby the Government to stop traffic jams, because they cause more delays to children getting to school, to ambulances getting to hospital, and so on. Please, can we just understand that serious disruption is something we all experience, every single day of our lives? What we are talking about here is not really serious disruption: this is people who care about the future of humankind, here in London and worldwide. Could we take it a bit more seriously?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I agree with my friend the noble Baroness about the importance of the issues. I think everyone in the Chamber is taking this seriously. There is a legitimate debate going on as to what “serious disruption” means. My friend is right to point out that we are discussing very serious issues, and we will talk about that when we come to “reasonable excuse” in particular. Before I am accused of being a hypocrite, I should say that I did drive here today—I thought I had better own up to that.

I turn to Amendments 48 and 49 and the Government’s response, we think, to slow walking, introduced at a very late stage—not in the Commons, and not even in Committee in this Chamber, but here on Report. It has been our contention that existing legislation, enforced robustly, would deal with many of the problems we have seen. As the chief constable of Greater Manchester said—and no doubt we will quote chief officers at each other, so let me start—in an article in the Telegraph on 12 December 2022, entitled “Just Stop Oil protesters should be arrested ‘within seconds’”:

“I think fundamentally, if people obstruct the highway they should be moved … very quickly”.


In other words, he argued for greater use of obstruction rather than a whole range of new powers, as contained in Amendments 48 and 49. We should remember that existing law, whatever the rights and wrongs of this, have led to Extinction Rebellion calling off its action.

In new subsection (3) as inserted by Amendment 48 and new subsection (4) as inserted by Amendment 49, there is the same argument about hindering that is more than minor, which I have just been through with respect to the meaning of “serious disruption”. In other words, the threshold for what constitutes “serious disruption” is being lowered.

I think all of us believe in the right to protest. Yes, sometimes we may get irritated when protests disrupt our lives, and clearly there have to be limits, but many of these amendments simply go too far; they will have a chilling effect on protests and protesters. It will undermine one of the fundamental freedoms we all enjoy: standing up to injustice as we see it. It is a price we pay for our democracy. Any interference with these freedoms poses an unacceptable threat to the right to protest, which is a fundamental cornerstone of our rights and our democracy. I beg to move.

Public Order Bill

Debate between Lord Coaker and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Does the noble Lord not realise how disappointing his response is in many ways? As the noble Lord, Lord Deben, just said, what happened in Hertfordshire was a real challenge to us to respond to something which seems to threaten journalistic freedom to report on protests. All of us are saying that, for the Government to turn round and say, “Don’t worry: it was a rare occurrence and it won’t happen again—no need to worry” with a shrug of the shoulders is just not the sort of response that one would hope to get from the Government. As I said, I do not believe we live in a totalitarian state, but every now and again a challenge emerges which threatens to undermine aspects of our democracy, and in this case it is journalistic and broadcasting freedom.

I think that we, certainly I, would expect the Government to reflect on what the movers of the amendment said and on some of the many moving speeches, including from my noble friend Lady Symons, and whether there is a need for the Government to act in order to protect one of the cherished freedoms that we have. I think that is what people in this Chamber—if I read again what the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said; the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, made the point through her amendment; and I have tried to do it through the words that I have said—are expecting from the Minister, rather than simply, “Well, it was just one of those things that happened and it won’t happen again.”

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Very briefly, what concerns me about this—well, lots of things concern me—is that the police, including the custody sergeant, should have known it was an illegal arrest, but they must have thought they could get away with it. That really irks me. It is the thought that the police were so high-handed, and that is why it has to be explicit so that they cannot in any sense claim ignorance of the law.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Lord Coaker and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Thursday 3rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right, except that those who interject constantly with tiny, mean little points also ought to respect the House and perhaps be courteous to everybody else. It goes both ways.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Coming from where I have, it seems incredibly courteous to me. We have Ministers who try to answer questions, which is refreshing. However, I take the point—the noble Baroness is absolutely right in what she said.

This is an important little amendment, which I support, in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister, Lady Hamwee and Lady Jones. It is not a party-political or ideological issue but a question of administration and removing a totally avoidable obstacle for people granted asylum in the UK. The British Red Cross is campaigning for it. The 28-day move-on period is simply not long enough to put basic arrangements in place. It leaves people facing avoidable poverty, and we should be able to do better. I remind the Committee that we are talking about people who have been granted asylum, not those waiting for their decision.

I believe we can go on a couple of minutes past 3.30 pm, but I will not detain the Committee for very long. The Minister, Tom Pursglove MP, gave a couple of answers in the other place that I did not quite understand. He did not disagree that there was a problem, saying:

“We are aware of reports that some refugees do not access universal credit or other benefits, or adequate housing, within 28 days.”


He went on to say that extending the period to 56 days, as the amendment suggests, would not fix the problem but he did not say why. He said there was a problem, but that extending the period would not do anything about it. Can the Minister elaborate on why the Government believe there is a problem but that extending the time limit would not make any difference? He also gave no response to the points raised on cost savings to local authorities and the benefits to the public purse of extending the time limit, lessening homelessness and the use of temporary accommodation. He gave no answer to any of those questions.

Finally, Mr Pursglove said that

“we must also consider the strong countervailing factors that make increasing that period difficult”—[Official Report, Commons, Nationality and Borders Bill Committee, 4/11/21; cols. 666-67.]

but he did not say what they were. He just stated it. Knowing our Minister as I do, and knowing that she does try to answer questions, I say that it is not really acceptable to make a statement as a point of fact without some evidence to support it. The Minister in the other place accepted that there was a problem with 28 days but did not say why extending it would not solve this. He just said, “Yes, there is a problem”, almost as a shrug of the shoulders. This important little amendment seeks to help those who have been granted asylum deal with their transition into the life we all want them to have.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Coaker and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Wednesday 20th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I have a confession to make: I love the traffic police. I have spent many happy hours in the front of a police van with an automatic number plate recognition machine, spotting illegal drivers. The fascinating thing about criminals is that not only do they break the law on drugs, guns and so on, but they do not pay insurance on their cars either. If I were a criminal, I would make sure that my car was perfectly legal, but for some reason they do not. So the traffic police are incredibly successful at catching criminals; at one point—I do not know if this is still true—their arrest rate was far higher than that of the average police officer here in London.

In the 12 years that I sat on the police authority, I took advantage of that to go out with the traffic police. I remember one spectacular day when they had a car-crushing machine next to the A1. All the vehicles speeding down the A1 saw that machine and slowed to legal limits. We were not actually crushing cars that had been taken that day; they had brought some cars out with them from central London. So I am a big fan. The traffic OCU serves an incredible function of keeping our roads safe.

I support Amendment 19. Of course, everybody expects the police who respond to blue-light emergencies to drive fast, overtake, go through red lights and so on, and it is right that the police are given the necessary legal protections to do their job in these situations. Then there are more controversial and dangerous tactics, such as officers aggressively ramming moped drivers who refuse to stop. We cannot leave that for the courtroom to decide—it has to be a political decision. Whether a tactic meets the standard of a reasonable and careful constable is political, because you cannot leave police officers uncertain about whether their behaviour is legal. It would also leave the public unsure about what standard of driving you can expect from our public servants. Amendment 19 addresses that issue and is an extremely neat solution.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments would improve the Bill. The legislation in some respects is too loose, and needs to be tightened. I hope that, when we move from Committee to Report in a few weeks, the Minister will have had time to reflect on the previous group but also on some of the points being made here, because that will make what we all want much more likely to happen. I hope that he will be able to reflect on the points that noble Lords have made and come forward with the Government’s own amendments to take account of those points, some of which are exceedingly logical and good and would enhance the Bill and what the Government are seeking to achieve.

The amendments raise key issues in relation to the police driving provisions. The aim of the clause is not to allow the police to drive without safeguards or scrutiny but to ensure that they are not criminalised for what they have been trained to do. Amendment 19 raises a reasonable question about national standards for competent and carefully trained drivers. As we will come on to in Amendment 20, there are various levels of training, and the number of fully trained officers will differ between forces. However, that does not alter the fact that there is a need to set out in more detail and with more clarity what a nationally recognised standard will look like. Will it be covered in the training that officers receive, and is the Minister confident that the Bill makes it clear what a national standard means? The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, posed a reasonable question, which was answered well by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, about what that means between different police forces such as Devon and Cornwall and the Metropolitan Police, and how they do things. Those are the sort of points that the Minister needs to raise.

On Amendment 20, the idea of a reasonableness defence is an issue that officers are concerned about, which was raised consistently in the Commons. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, did not mention that quite as much as he did the national standards, but we need to ask how this whole area of reasonableness, which is used in the courts, stands with respect to this Bill. It is difficult to craft an answer, but the issue goes back to the level of training that an officer receives, which varies from force to force. It not only varies from force to force, however: the level of training varies within the police force.

Let me give an example for clarity. If I am a member of the public on the street, I know generally what a response car looks like, and you would expect a response car driver to have had the highest level of training, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said he had received in the past. It is about a proper response driver responding to emergencies or pursuing a vehicle. That is what you would expect if you were a member of the public. But not all police cars are response cars. What about a police van? I have seen police vans driving after people. What happens then?

Is this level of training—police pursuit—available only to response drivers? What about other drivers, or will they be compared to the normal standard? This takes the police into very difficult territory. I have not been a serving police officer like the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, but I can only imagine that if someone said, “Officer, a mile down the road there is a really serious incident”, and a police van driver did not put the blue lights on and go down there, and as a consequence a murder or a rape took place, people are not going to say, “That officer driving the police van was quite right; he did not respond in the way that he should because he has not had the proper level of training”. This takes us into difficult territory, and it is also about the reputation of the police.

What happens, however, if the police van driver does that, but then crashes or injures somebody else? I thought that was the point of Amendment 20 and the reasonableness defence: you would expect the police officer driving the van to do that, even though they are not trained to the level of the police response driver. From the Bill, however, it is not clear whether the police van driver—I am making that up as an example—would be able to do that and respond to an emergency situation with the same level of protection that the Bill tries to give to a response-level trained driver, whereas the public would expect them both to respond in the same way.

That is the point of the reasonableness test that Amendment 20 seeks to drive into the Bill. I hope that I have given a clear enough example of the sort of situation that might arise for a police officer, whether operating in Devon and Cornwall, the middle of London, Sheffield, Cardiff or wherever.

This is the point of the Committee: it drives that level of detail that seeks to clarify the way the legislation is drafted—as we saw with the previous grouping, where there is a real problem around the phrase “police purpose”—but also tries to ensure that the legislation delivers in both its wording and its intention.

On the drafting of the Bill, can the Minister just give us some assurance that officers with basic police driver training would be protected if they found themselves having to respond to an incident that ideally required a higher level of training? That is a fundamental question and if I were a police officer driving a vehicle that was not a response vehicle, I would want to know whether I was protected by law in the way that we seek to protect other drivers.