Respect Orders and Anti-social Behaviour

Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Hate crime is pernicious and I would support the noble Baroness’s contention that hate crime, whether against the Jewish community or people who are legitimately protesting about Palestinian issues—not Hamas, Palestinian issues—is an important potential crime. If crimes are committed and the police wish to pursue those crimes at a local level, they can do so; there are powers in place to make arrests where criminal activity takes place in any form of protest.

The noble Baroness shakes her head, but there are powers now available for the police to arrest people on the basis of hate crime. If the police exercise that power, that is a matter for the police. The noble Baroness would not expect a Minister to undertake those arrests. The police make a judgment; they can make arrests and bring matters to court. Indeed, they have done on a range of crimes, particularly against the Jewish community in the current climate.

[Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers (CB)]

My Lords, in order to qualify for a respect order, will behaviour have to be criminal? If not, what criteria will it have to satisfy?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for his question. I want to get to the exact wording correct. With the respect order particularly, it does not have to be criminal behaviour. It can be behaviour that potentially causes alarm, distress or harassment. Again, I say to the House that those matters will be tested as we go through Committee. There will be opportunities to clarify what that means and put down some legal guidelines during Committee in this House. The idea of the respect order is to tackle what I would term low-level anti-social behaviour. If criminal actions have been taken, criminal sanctions are available to police to make arrests accordingly. I hope we can reflect on that during Committee.