Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Bill

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 16th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, on introducing the Bill. I also congratulate him on taking on the chairmanship of the Football Regulatory Authority. I suspect that is something he will have to declare many times in future years.

I shall not repeat some of the figures that the noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, has given, regarding the reasons why everyone is against sexual harassment and how it is so gender-based. I suspect I received some of the same briefing materials as she did.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, for the way in which he introduced this Bill by emphasising that it is not introducing a new law as such but increases a maximum sentence and reintroduces guidelines so that police can have better guidance on how these sorts of offences might be charged.

The noble Lord said that, when he was a Minister, he often said that legislating is not a form of semaphore. I take the point but, nevertheless, a form of semaphore is sometimes welcome. I have dealt with many bits of legislation, as I know the noble Lord has, in which we are trying to indicate that society’s attitudes are changing on violence towards women. A lot of legislation we have been involved with has been in the private sphere—domestic abuse and domestic violence. I know through my work as a sitting magistrate in Westminster Magistrates’ Court, where we now have dedicated domestic abuse courts, that we are seeing greater awareness of trying to manage the process through the court system because of the high dropout rate of victims of domestic abuse. That is in the private sphere, and this Bill is dealing with similar issues in the public sphere.

It is of course true that this is hugely gendered in the way it is experienced by women and girls, particularly young girls; it is something they grow up with and a persistent part of their daily lives. The noble Lord is providing a service to the House in this modest Bill, and he was right to be modest in the claims he was making for it—he is realistic in that. It is of course part of an ongoing campaign. We heard something of the nature of that ongoing campaign from the noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, when she talked about the limitations, as she and the campaigners described them, of the Bill, including the level of the bar of intent, where things can be dismissed as banter. Perhaps more legislation on such definitions will come forward in future—I do not know.

Nevertheless, I welcome the Bill. I welcome a bit of semaphore from this House to say that society’s expectations of behaviour are changing and that this is being reflected in our law courts and should be reflected in the activities of the police. With that reflection on the Bill, I am happy to welcome it.