Public Order Bill
Debate between Lord Macdonald of River Glaven and Baroness BarkerTuesday 22nd November 2022
(2 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Public Order Act 2023 View all Public Order Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 61-II(a) Amendment for Committee (Supplementary to the Second Marshalled List) - (21 Nov 2022)
Baroness Barker (LD)
I very much welcome the noble and learned Lord’s help in trying to find a suitable wording for what we are seeking to do. I want to inform your Lordships’ House of what is happening: there are individual acts that, one by one, may not be intimidating but, put together in a pattern with a deliberate aim, they are.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, that I am glad he was there with my colleague David Steel in 1967, but we are in a very different place now. Back in 1967, clinics were not having to deal with harassment as they are now.
Lord Macdonald of River Glaven (CB)
Does the noble Baroness agree with me that there is clear evidence of a concerted effort by well-funded, extremist United States—sometimes religious—groups to replicate in this country the situation that exists outside abortion clinics in the United States, in which women are routinely abused and threatened for trying to access medical care?
Baroness Barker (LD)
I do not think there is any doubt about that; the evidence is—