Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the hon. Lady, and she is absolutely right that the Court can only do so much. It is not an overarching justice system with all the investigators, witness relocation schemes and enforcement powers that a domestic scheme or a domestic jurisdiction would have. We have provided financial support and a dedicated liaison officer from the Met, based in The Hague, to facilitate information co-operation. We have offered military analysis support and witness protection support. I have had discussions, and so has the Foreign Office, with other supportive states parties, including the US war crimes ambassador, about how they can support the ICC in ensuring that there is accountability for war crimes in Ukraine.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the decision of Russia and its proxies to place on trial four British nationals—three of whom are serving members of the Ukrainian armed forces, and the other is a civilian—and subject them to a kangaroo court, sentencing two of them to death, amounts to a war crime? What support will he give to the Ukrainian authorities, specific to these cases, to help them amass the evidence they will need in due course to bring all those concerned to justice?

[Dominic Raab]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: this is another unlawful act, taking Russia further and further into pariah status. We have said that clearly, and our allies have too. On Ukraine, as well as the support that we are providing to the ICC, I have had meetings with the Ukrainian Minister of Justice and the Ukrainian Prosecutor General, to ensure that they have all the support that we can practically provide in relation to the domestic investigations they are conducting.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Anne McLaughlin]

I absolutely do, because if people feel empowered by being part of that democracy, other than getting to vote every four years, that can only be a good thing.

The notion that the police can intervene on any kind of noise threshold—as we have heard, we do not know what the threshold is—puts the fundamental right to protest at risk. This Bill will create a situation where people who are simply trying to have their voices heard will be dragged into the criminal justice system. We are going to need extremely large prisons by the time this Government have finished with all this legislation. The reduced knowledge threshold, where a person ought to have known that restrictions were in force, is an Orwellian nightmare. A protester will have to second-guess how the authorities will judge their behaviour.

The language used in clause 55 is vague at best: “serious unease”, “alarm” and “distress”. A protest may seem more alarming or distressing to one police officer than to another. This hands far too much discretion to the police, and there is a point when too much discretion becomes a burden. That was echoed by former police chiefs and senior officers, who have warned against the political pressure that this Bill will place on frontline officers. If the police do not think these powers are necessary, why do the Government? As we have heard from a number of speakers, the powers already exist for them to deal sufficiently with a protest that could result in serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of the community. I just do not think the Government have made a good enough argument that the powers are insufficient. For those reasons, we support Lords amendment 73.

We also support Lords amendment 80, which would remove the police’s ability to impose greater conditions on static demonstrations. The Public Order Act 1986 was careful to delineate and differentiate the conditions that can be imposed on static demonstrations and those that can be imposed on a march or moving protest, which is sensible as it reflects the relative ease with which a static demonstration can be policed. Clause 56, which the amendment seeks to remove, will see the distinction removed.

In the words of Big Brother Watch, clause 56 could potentially hand the police

“unfettered discretion to impose any condition they see fit including, for example, restrictions on the words or slogans that can be expressed on placards.”

That is a democratic outrage. This is an attempt by the Government to level the distinction between static and moving protests. As they tend to do, they are levelling down, not levelling up. For that reason, we support Lords amendment 80.

We also lend support to Lords amendment 87, which removes the police’s ability to impose conditions on a one-person protest. What a situation. The might of the Government and their legislative power is bearing down on single protesters, which is ridiculous and disproportionate in equal measure. Worryingly, it has the potential to snare anyone who even stops to engage with that protester as committing a criminal offence. As I said, we are going to need much larger prisons.

Lords amendment 88 would narrow the scope of the offence of wilful obstruction of the highway to include only highways that are part of the strategic road network. We are caught in a trap where, on the one hand, I am glad to see this offence is restricted to the strategic road network but, on the other hand, I am alarmed to see the associated sentence increased from a fine to 51 weeks’ imprisonment—much larger prisons. This amendment is targeted at some very specific protesters whom we have all witnessed taking their protests to the streets and roads, but I feel this severe penalty has the potential to create a chilling effect—I have used that term all too often in the past six months during our consideration of the Judicial Review and Courts Bill and the Nationality and Borders Bill, although, from what I am hearing from the other place tonight, there is now not much left of the latter.

Turning to Government amendments 90 to 93, I am disappointed that the only amendments to part 4, on unauthorised encampments, appear to be technical clarifying amendments that do nothing to row back on the measures expanding the criminalisation of trespass and the accompanying police powers. Again, this is an area where existing powers are available to the police. This is more to do with targeting a minority than targeting trespass.

We know this Bill will disproportionately interfere with the right of respect for the private and family life of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller groups. The new seizure powers in respect of vehicles—vehicles often being the home of Gypsies and Travellers, in particular—are very likely to mean that people will end up facing homelessness. I can only hope that, in mitigation, the Government will focus on providing further support and funding to local authorities across these islands for authorised sites and implementing a national sites strategy. They might want to speak to the Scottish Government about some of their work on this. The Court of Appeal has set out that this community has an enshrined freedom to move from one place to another, and that the state has a positive obligation to protect Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities’ traditional way of life.

What are the Government so afraid of? From the man outside Parliament today adorned in plastic bottles to make a point about the overuse of plastics, to the many who finally found their voice in the last two years through the Black Lives Matter movement, and who are using that voice to make a very simple point that black lives matter every bit as much as white lives. From our Ukrainian brothers and sisters here on these islands who feel so helpless right now and who need to come together to protest against what is happening in their country, to people who simply wish to save the planet. What are the Government so afraid of? Well, I thank and applaud those protesters. This Government want to stop and criminalise them.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

I will be brief and speak to two issues: first, in praise and thanks; and secondly, by way of caution.

In praise and thanks, I am delighted that the Government have accepted the amendment moved in the other place by the noble Lord Best and the noble Lord Young repealing the Vagrancy Act 1824.

Almost 200 years ago, as the cities were filling with the dispossessed at the end of the Napoleonic wars, our forebears in this place came together and passed a piece of legislation that today seems anachronistic and wrong. As a result of the votes later tonight, we will consign that legislation to history. Our understanding of rough sleeping and homelessness has transformed unrecognisably over the course of those two centuries. Today, we see it as a crisis of housing, of health, of social justice and of the criminal justice system. We do not see it as a criminal offence for someone to find themselves sleeping rough on the streets, and we should not live in a country where it is a criminal offence.

Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I would be happy to do so. The hon. and learned Lady makes an important point. She has got the point, if I may say so, that sadly we will not be able to help every Afghan judge, but if we can signpost them to other countries that may be able to help, we will of course be pleased and keen to do so.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

I, too, thank my hon. Friend for her excellent work on the scheme thus far. As was implied by the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), the long-term success of the scheme will depend on the Minister and the Government persuading local authorities to participate and on giving them the tools to succeed. That is more difficult than it was with the Syrian scheme because local authorities currently have literally tens of thousands of people, mostly asylum seekers, in hotel accommodation. There are currently 60,000 to 80,000 individuals—almost a constituency-worth of people—in hotels. What is my hon. Friend going to do to persuade local authorities throughout the United Kingdom to participate and to ensure that they have the funding and support that they need to do so?

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his role at the beginning of Operation Warm Welcome. He did an enormous amount to energise and persuade councils of the benefits they could derive from having new citizens in their local areas. We are looking at a wealth of options to try to address the housing needs that my right hon. Friend has articulated so well. Those options range from the generous funding package that we have set out for some months now under the resettlement scheme to approaches such as a jobs-first approach—namely, trying to match jobs with those Afghans who feel able to work, and with accommodation. We are seeing whether we can get help from employers to offer accommodation as part of their employment offer and we are using the likes of Rightmove and others to tap into the private rental market so that we get these people into permanent homes as quickly as possible.

Terrorist Incident at Liverpool Women’s Hospital

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

While I understand the hon. Gentleman’s sentiments—I, too, offer my good wishes to the driver of the car for a full recovery—he is inviting me to speculate on the possible motivation of the individual by indicating that there may have been some radicalism. As I said earlier, we are not yet clear about the motivation of that individual.

Obviously the hon. Gentleman will understand that investigations, not least digital forensic investigations, are under way. As for the materials used in the incident, there is ongoing, extensive forensic examination of premises that have been occupied and of the vehicle on site. Until we know exactly what the circumstances are, it is hard to draw any conclusions, as the hon. Gentleman asks me to, but when we do, I am sure that we will be able to find a way to let the House know.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

I extend my thanks to the emergency services in Liverpool and Merseyside and the security services for the incredible work that they do, and to Mr Perry for what appears to be considerable bravery on his part.

As my right hon. Friend says, it would not be right to speculate on the motivations of the individual involved, but it is true that we have a significant problem in this country with extremism and extremist ideologies—a problem that we need to confront with renewed seriousness. He and the Home Secretary are equipped with a number of major reports, including Baroness Casey’s on integration and Sara Khan’s on potential changes to the law, and they either already have or will shortly have William Shawcross’s report on the effectiveness and potential reform of the Prevent programme. When will my right hon. Friend respond to those reports and set out the Government’s strategy?

[Kit Malthouse]

I understand that my right hon. Friend is not necessarily associating this particular case with the strand of work that he is looking at, but he is quite right that there have been a number of reports over the past few years that have looked into the very difficult job of combating radicalism, not least in an internet age. I know that he is impatient for change. My right hon. Friends the Home Secretary and the Minister for Security and Borders are applying themselves with some enthusiasm to that area of business, because although we can do a lot on prevention from an organisational and a policing point of view, in the end it is critical that we get to the root cause: the radicalisation, often self-radicalisation, of individuals, which often happens online.