Public Order Bill

Debate between Lord Coaker and Lord Anderson of Swansea

Report stage
Tuesday 7th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 47 in my name, for which I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. Just in case I forget, I say now that I want to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 47.

Before I do so, I want to say how much I sympathise and agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and others have said about Amendment 46 and stop and search with suspicion. It is worth reflecting that many of us are grappling with a Bill with much of which we disagree, but we are at Report stage and difficult decisions and choices are before us about how we might improve the Bill—if the votes are won in your Lordships’ House—and send it back to the other place with the best possible chance of it not being overturned, thereby impacting on the legislation in a way which will protect, as many of us want to, the rights and freedoms that the people of this country have enjoyed for generations and which parts of the Bill seriously threaten to undermine. That is the choice that lies before us. That is the difficult choice I have in saying from the Labour Front Bench that we are focused on Clause 11 in particular. That does not mean that we agree with other aspects of the stop and search powers, but it means that we think that Clause 11 in particular is an affront to the democratic traditions of our country.

We have heard what it actually does. We have had a former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, a former senior police officer of the Metropolitan Police, and others, telling us about stop and search without suspicion and the impact that it has on black and ethnic minority communities, particularly on the young. Will your Lordships seriously pass into law something that will make that fragile relationship between the police and those local communities even worse? Is that what we want to do? And what is it for: terrorism, serious gun crime, serious knife crime, or the threat of murder and riots on our streets? No, it is because some protests may take place somewhere, and we will have stop and search without suspicion to deal with it. Is that in any sense proportionate or a reasonable response to public disorder? Clearly, it is not.

I cannot believe that His Majesty’s Government are seeking to introduce into law stop and search without suspicion for protest-related offences. I do not believe the Government themselves would have believed it—they certainly would not have believed it in the time of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, with the Conservative ideology as it existed then. Margaret Thatcher would not have introduced it. She would have regarded it as an affront, even in the face of the poll tax riots and the miners’ strikes—although there were certain things that went on there. In the face of all that, she did not introduce that sort of legislation. I will be corrected by any member of that Government—there are a few here—as to whether that was the case. She understood that the right to protest was fundamental, however difficult that was for Governments. Yet the Conservatives of today believe it is perfectly reasonable to introduce this not for murder, terrorism or knife or gun crime, as I said, but for protest. Is that the Tory tradition that this Conservative Government want to lay out before the country? It cannot be. It is a totally disproportionate reaction to what is happening, but the consequences are serious and dramatic, and potentially catastrophic. As so many noble Lords have said, at a time when there is a fragility of confidence between the police and certain communities, it is like pouring petrol on the flames. It is just unbelievable.

However, it is not just that. In the debate last week I gave an example, and I will give another one, because that brings it home and makes it real. When your Lordships vote on leaving out Clause 11, consider this. If it is in the Bill, there is a fear about what happens when there are protests around Parliament—there will be protests; I do not know what they will be about. Let us say that people lock arms—disgraceful—so they have attached. The police are worried about it and so an inspector declares that, for 24 hours, it is an area that they are concerned about. That gives an additional power to the police to stop and search without suspicion. Your Lordships can be searched. I know you would think that was an affront, but that is the reality that many black and ethnic minority communities face every single day, sometimes—that is an exaggeration, but they face it in certain circumstances.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

Surely it is not just a matter of black and ethnic minorities. We do not know who were the two care workers who were stopped, whom the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, mentioned. However, it is clear—I speak as someone who, as a young barrister, had to carry out many sus law prosecutions—that a person stopped in those circumstances may next week appear on a jury and may be hostile to the police as a result of that, taking it out on them as a member of the jury.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Anderson for that important point.

My example is that around Parliament Square, we have a designated area. Your Lordships, passing through it, can be stopped. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, has often mentioned that sometimes you have no idea that you are in such an area. I know that all your Lordships would co-operate—we have clarified that it must be an officer in uniform, so we would all stand there. However, if it was tourists who could not speak English, then good luck with that. It may be a young student with no idea that they are being stopped. That would happen. It is in the Bill that it is an offence to resist, and so it goes on. It is a complete overreaction and a disproportionate proposal that the Government are making.

To bring it home, let us think of it on Parliament Square. That is not some obscure place in the back end of London somewhere, or Manchester or wherever. Let us bring it right to our doorstep. When somebody says, “Who made it happen?”, the answer will be that Parliament made it happen, unless it is stripped out of the Bill. Unless it is changed or taken out, it is us.

We have heard from numerous noble Lords today objection after objection to the Bill. I have many objections to it. However, if you hone it down, there cannot be many more pernicious examples than Clause 11. Stopping and searching without suspicion for protests—honestly. Good luck to the Minister in justifying it. I know that his brief will give him all sorts of good arguments but at the bottom, it is a baseless piece of proposed legislation that seriously undermines the right to protest. It will have a chilling effect on many people who are simply protesting in the way that they have always done. I will divide the House when it comes to Amendment 47 and ask your Lordships to stand against Clause 11, to send it back to the other place and say that the Government must think again. It is a disproportionate reaction to a problem which they may perceive and it should be thrown out of the Bill.