Public Order Bill

Debate between Lord Farmer and Viscount Hailsham

Committee stage
Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

Would the noble Lord address the point that regulations are unamendable?

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

I thank the noble Viscount for the intervention. I would have thought that regulations are amendable by a debate in this House.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

They are not, and they never have been.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

These regulations would allow for sunset and review provisions to be included, so the legislation can cease to have effect if appropriate, as I said.

I was talking about how regulations that require consultation with key stakeholders and need approval by both Houses improve on the current public spaces protection order system, which allows a local authority to impose buffer zones with scant transparency. The decision to introduce PSPOs is often initiated, drafted and implemented by one person or a group of council officials, with very little scrutiny and awareness of what factors they have taken into account.

I will speak briefly to other amendments. Those tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Fox and Lady Hoey, engage with the civil liberties and rights issues. However, they accept that interference with a decision can be disallowed, which would be a first in criminal law and very hard for the individual to defend themself against. A woman could simply claim that a choice made in the privacy of her mind had in some way been influenced by a message or person.

However, the tidying-up changes that my noble friend Lady Sugg proposes do not speak to the disproportionality of Clause 9, and in some ways worsen it. For example, Amendment 84 would ensure that a buffer zone also applies where an abortion clinic is embedded within a hospital or GP surgery, as we heard. This would vastly increase the footprint affected by buffer zones. Even if only all 373 abortion clinics were included, this would leap from the current 225 square metres to 26 square kilometres, and it would single out the issue of abortion for wildly disproportionate restrictions in comparison with other health areas. A person providing false information on a leaflet about any other medical issue would be free to do so, but someone providing accurate information on abortion would be criminalised.

I could say a lot more, but this is a big group with many speakers, and I know at least one noble Lord who was dissuaded from speaking because time is not limitless. As my noble friend the Minister will know from his many conversations, there is strength of conviction on both sides of this argument. I urge him to adopt the evidence-based policy route. There is again clamour for reform of this House, but the importance of our scrutiny and revising role is not clearly understood. We would be lax in our duty if we merely rubber-stamped or gently tweaked this inadequate and ideologically inspired clause.

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[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I am in general opposed to those of the amendments which are designed to reduce the impact of Clause 9. As I said at Second Reading, I support the concept of buffer zones around abortion clinics. Of course I accept the two propositions eloquently expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox: first, that the right to demonstrate and freely express views is of great importance in a democratic society; and secondly, that the provisions of Clause 9, as many of your Lordships have articulated, impose serious restrictions on such abilities. But again, as I said at Second Reading, these rights are not absolute. They have to be balanced with the rights of others, and the correct balance is often not easy to identify and can be the subject of legitimate disagreement—it usually is. However, in the context of abortion clinics, Clause 9 gets the balance about right.

I will identify occasions where the balance falls the other way: in favour of the demonstrator. Some of your Lordships will think that the examples are trivial. I have often hosted meets for our local hunts, both before the ban and after it; after the ban, our local hunt acts fully within the law. The saboteurs come and demonstrate, and they are often very tiresome. However, provided they operate within the law, I would not for one moment seek to ban them. There is another example. Pacifists sometimes demonstrate outside military recruitment offices. I disagree with that and think it is wrong in principle, but again it would never occur to me to seek to prohibit that activity.

The motives of those demonstrators and those who demonstrate outside abortion clinics have something in common. It is not that they are just expressing their own opinions, which of course they are absolutely entitled to do, but they are trying to induce a change of attitude on the part of others. It is when I come to those who protest outside abortion clinics that I am conscious of why the balance tips. Those who attend abortion clinics have come to a very painful and serious decision, and often an anguished one. I think it is very wrong to subject them to what is often intemperate bullying of an extremely nasty kind.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

I mentioned at Second Reading that the BBC did a poll which found that 15% of women who went to abortion clinics had been coerced into doing so. We do not have the information as to how many partners have said, “I don’t want this child, go and have an abortion”. We need to establish that by finding the evidence. We hear all the time that the people outside the abortion clinic are against abortions. We do not see the intimate pressure that women are often under in the home—not only from male partners but perhaps from their families—to do with shame and other things. This needs to be looked into before we make a decision on this.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

Parliament is in a position to make a judgment about these matters. I was in the House of Commons for nearly 30 years—not as long as my noble friend Lord Cormack—and I was well aware of, in many circumstances, from evidence which came from many quarters, the kind of abuse to which women seeking an abortion were subjected by those who demonstrated outside abortion clinics. I strongly suspect that is why the House of Commons voted for Clause 9 in such substantial numbers, because it knew it was happening and that it was wrong. We do not need a further review to establish those basic judgments.