Public Order Bill

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and Sarah Jones

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

I rise to speak on Lords amendments 1, 5, 6 and 20, beginning with the definition of “serious disruption”.

Before I go into the detail, let me mention the publication in 2021 of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary’s now widely debated report looking at protests and how the police response was working. Matt Parr, Her Majesty’s inspector of constabulary, called for a “modest reset” of the balance between police powers and the right to protest in order to respond to the changing nature of the protests we were seeing, which were sometimes dangerous; people were taking more risks. The suggestions included far more measures that were non-legislative than legislative, such as better training for police, better understanding of the law and a more sophisticated response to protests. What has followed has been a series of escalations of more and more unnecessary legislation that the police have not asked for and that will not have an impact on the actual challenge.

We have gathered to debate public order legislation many times in this House, and while there have been numerous Ministers, I have been here every single time. For our part, we suggested a modest reset of the laws, as suggested by Her Majesty’s inspectorate, with amendments making injunctions easier for local organisations to apply for and with stronger punishment for obstructing the highway. Our sensible amendments were rejected by the Government in favour of this raft of legislation, which now finds itself in ping-pong, because the House of Lords is quite rightly saying that these proposals are not necessary.

What do the Government think their amendments to the Lords amendments will actually deliver? Their impact assessment is quite clear. Let us look, for example, at the new offence of locking on, which is going to change everything, we are told. Let me quote:

“the number of additional full custody years”—

the number of prison years that will result from this new offence—

“lies within the range of zero to one”.

That is the impact this Bill will have: zero to one years of custodial sentences.

What about the serious disruption prevention orders we are debating today? How many custodial cases will they amount to? The answer is three to five. Well, that is all worth it then! The rights to be taken away, as Conservative and Opposition Members have so eloquently described, will be for three to five cases with custodial convictions a year.

The impact assessment is extraordinary.

Matt Parr of Her Majesty’s inspectorate clearly said that there was

“a wide variation in the number of specialist officers available for protest policing throughout England and Wales”,

and that

“Non-specialist officers receive limited training in protest policing.”

He made several recommendations about increased and better training. Have the Government listened to these sensible concerns? Not a bit. Their impact assessment states that the police will need seven minutes to understand this entire new Bill and to implement it fairly—seven minutes. The truth is that they do not listen to the police and they do not listen to what is actually needed; they just want a headline.

To pause for a minute, today we have all been appalled by the offences David Carrick was guilty of in the run-up to the murder of Sarah Everard, and these appalling sexual crimes and this epidemic of violence against women and girls needs a proper response, yet the Government are prioritising this legislation over a victims Bill.

Laws already exist to tackle protest that the police use every day. Criminal damage is an offence, as are conspiracy to cause damage, trespass, aggravated trespass, public nuisance, breach of the peace and obstruction of a highway—I could go on. In April 2019, 1,148 Extinction Rebellion activists were arrested and more than 900 were charged. In October 2019, 1,800 protesters were arrested. Many have been fined, and many have gone to prison. The impact assessment for this Bill suggests a few hundred arrests; the police are already making thousands. The powers are there for the police to use.

Turning to the definition of “serious disruption”, we must be clear about the history. The Opposition asked for a definition of “serious disruption” long ago in debates on what is now the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. The Government said no, but then agreed to a definition in the Lords. It was not a very good one, and we tried to amend it. The police have asked us for greater clarity on the definition of “serious disruption” because the Government have drafted such poor legislation that it is important for them to interpret how and when they should and should not intervene. But the new definition appears to include as serious disruption situations such as if I have to step aside on a pavement to avoid a protestor. The police do not want to diminish people’s rights through this definition—they have said that time and again, and privately they think the Government are getting this wrong.

Metropolitan Police Service

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and Sarah Jones

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

May I add my condolences to the family of Zara Aleena after her horrific murder?

I am deeply disappointed with the Minister, who shared with us a statement that included none of the political attacks on the Mayor of London that we have just heard. The statement that we were sent was much shorter, and it contained not a single political attack on the Mayor of London. That is very bad form, as I am sure you would agree, Madam Deputy Speaker, and it is not how things should be done.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I interrupt the hon. Lady to say that this is unusual. I also have a slightly different statement. It is expected that the Opposition have the statement that is actually given. I say this as a reminder for future reference.

[Sarah Jones]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Many of us will have heard this morning and last night the dignified and gracious interviews with Mina Smallman following the announcement that Her Majesty's inspectorate is moving the Metropolitan police into what is called an “engage” phase. The way that the disappearance and then the deaths of Mina’s daughters were investigated, and the fact that altered images of their bodies were shared widely by some officers, have come to epitomise the problems within the Met that we, the Mayor of London and London residents have been so concerned about for some time.

We know that tens of thousands of people work in the Met and, of course, we know that so many have that sense of public duty that reflects the incredibly important job that they do. They have been let down by poor leadership, lack of resources and an acceptance of poor behaviour. It is for them, as well as for victims and the wider public, that we seek to drive forward improvements.

The announcement yesterday comes after a long list of serious conduct failures from the Metropolitan police: the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Met officer, the conduct of officers following the murder of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, the strip-searching of children such as Child Q, the conduct unveiled in the report of the Independent Office for Police Conduct into the Charing Cross police station and the

“seemingly incomprehensible failures to recognise and treat appropriately a series of suspicious deaths in the Stephen Port case”.

The list of failings from the inspectorate makes for grim reading and goes way beyond those more high-profile cases: it includes performance falling far short of national standards, a barely adequate standard of crime recording and the quality of basic supervision to officers. All that has undermined public trust, and we all have a role to play in building that trust back up. As the Mayor of London has said, a first and crucial step for the new commissioner will be to start rebuilding trust and credibility in our communities.

The Minister’s announcement about what needs to be done is incredibly weak. He talks about support for victims, but where is the victims’ law that the Government have been promising for years? We know there is a massive increase across the country in the number of cases collapsing because victims drop out—on his watch. He talks about reform to comprehensively address the strip searches on children, but he has totally failed to bring forward the new guidance on strip searches that we have been calling for for months. He talks about reforming culture, but he only refers to two long-term inquiries that may not provide answers, even though we know that action is needed now.

The Minister is right that the system for holding forces to account has worked in this case, but we need change to follow. We need a national overhaul of police training and standards. There is much to be done on leadership. We need a new vetting system. We need to overhaul misconduct cases, with time limits on cases. We need new rules on social media use. We need robust structures for internal reporting to be made and taken seriously, and we need new expected standards on support for victims, investigation of crimes, and internal culture and management. That is for the Home Office to lead.

The Met cut its police constable to sergeant supervision ratio after the Conservatives cut policing, and after the Olympics—when the Minister was deputy mayor—it was cut more than any other force. A police sergeant said this morning:

“I do not have a single officer that I supervise that has over 3 years’ service, so not a single officer that policed pre Covid.”

Does the Minister now accept that, no matter how much he promises in terms of new, young and inexperienced officers right now, the Met and forces across the country are still suffering from the loss of 20,000 experienced officers that his Government cut?

Policing should be an example to the rest of society, and supporting our police means holding officers and forces to the highest possible standards. The concerns today are about the Met, but we know there are problems in other forces, too. Can the Minister confirm how many other forces are in this “engage” phase, and which forces they are? Can he outline what the steps the Home Office is taking now to drive up standards in the police across the country?

The British style of policing depends on public trust. The public deserve a police service that they not only trust, but can be proud of. Victims need an efficient and effective force to get them justice. Our officers deserve to work in a climate without bullying, toxic cultures. We need to see urgent reforms. The Government can no longer leave our police facing a perfect storm of challenges and fail to lead that change.

Public Order Bill

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and Sarah Jones

2nd reading
Monday 23rd May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I am not sure that today is the right day to be talking about people who have broken lockdown rules. Perhaps the hon. Member has not seen some of the pictures that the rest of us have been looking at this afternoon.

We believe that some of the provisions in this Bill effectively replicate laws already in place that the police can and already do use. There is already an offence of wilfully obstructing the highway. There is already an offence of criminal damage or conspiracy to cause criminal damage. There is already an offence of aggravated trespass. There is already an offence of public nuisance. More than 20 people were arrested for criminal damage and aggravated trespass at Just Stop Oil protests in Surrey. Injunctions were granted at Kingsbury oil terminal following more than 100 arrests, and there were arrests for breaching those injunctions, which are punishable by up to two years in prison—nine people were charged. When Extinction Rebellion dumped tonnes of fertiliser outside newspaper offices, five people were arrested. Earlier this year, six Extinction Rebellion activists were charged with criminal damage in Cambridge. In February this year, five Insulate Britain campaigners were jailed for breaching their injunctions. In November, we saw nine Insulate Britain activists jailed for breaching injunctions to prevent road blockades.

Removing people who are locking on can take a long time and require specialist teams, but a new offence of locking on will not make the process of removing protesters any faster. The Government should look at the HMICFRS report and focus on improving training and guidance, and they should look to injunctions.

I cannot but attack the issue of stop and search and SDPOs. This Bill gives the police wide-ranging powers to stop and search anyone in the vicinity of a protest, such as shoppers passing a protest against a library closure. The Home Secretary said the inspectorate supports these new powers, but the inspectorate’s comments were very qualified and talked of, for example, the powers’ potential “chilling effect”.

Many of my hon. and right hon. Friends talked of the serious problem of disproportionality, as did the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire, and talked of how these powers were initially rejected by the Home Office because of their impact. Members who have spent many years campaigning on these issues, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), pointed to the risk of these deeply concerning provisions increasing disproportionality, bringing peaceful protesters unnecessarily into the criminal justice system and undermining public trust in the police who are trying to do their job.

Our national infrastructure needs protecting. We hear the anger, irritation and upset when critical appointments are missed, when children cannot get to school and when laws are broken. As our reasoned amendment makes clear, we would support some amended aspects of the Bill, but we cannot accept the Bill as it currently stands. The proposals on suspicion-less stop and search, and applying similar orders to protesters as we do to terrorists and violent criminals, are unhelpful and will not work. The police already have an array of powers to deal with such protests, and injunctions would be a better tool to use. We will not and cannot stand by as the Government try to ram through yet another unthought-through Bill in search of a purpose.

I urge all reasonable Members to support Labour’s reasoned amendment, and I urge the Government to focus instead on their woeful record on crime.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before I call the Minister, I remind colleagues that it is extremely discourteous to both Front Benchers not to get back in good time for the wind-ups. It is also extremely discourteous to spend long periods of a debate out of the Chamber. It is important to hear what other people have to say; those who give speeches and then disappear for hours ought to listen to others. That would be the courteous thing to do.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and Sarah Jones

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 25th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

I am sorry that the Minister finds himself bored by the democratic process, but this is the process, and sadly he has to come to the Dispatch Box to engage in this debate. There is one—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The hon. Lady is giving a speech. Carry on, Sarah Jones.

[Sarah Jones]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I do not mind how noisy the Minister is; I do not want to curtail his right to be as noisy as he likes.

We are debating one topic: the right to protest and make noise. We have indeed debated it several times. Members from across the House have spoken passionately about why this issue matters, and why the Government have got this so wrong. One might think that, with crime up 14%, the arrest rate having halved since 2010, and prosecution rates at an all-time low, the Government might spend their time on the bread-and-butter issues of law and order, such as fighting criminals. Instead, they seem intent on criminalising singing at peaceful protests. That suggests that the Government are tired, out of ideas and have no plan, and are searching round for anything eye-catching to distract from their years of failure.

The Lords responded to the Minister’s defence of his policy by voting against it again. Lords amendments 73 and 87 remove the Government’s proposed noise trigger, which would allow the police to put conditions on marches or one-person protests that are “too noisy”. Labour agrees with the Lords, and we support Lords amendment 80, which removes clause 56 from the Bill altogether. As with most Government policies thought up on the hoof, there are many questions about how the proposed powers would work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

The right hon. Member brings a lot of experience to the House, and I listen to him carefully. I agree with him about noisy neighbours, which are a distressing part of my case load because we often struggle hard to do something about it. However, the Bill does not do anything on that; it is about protests. We need to be clear that those are two completely different things. There are rules on antisocial behaviour and neighbours, and local authorities and the police have powers to deal with that—sadly, often those cases do not get dealt with—but that is not what we are arguing about.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. May I give a little reminder that interventions should be quite brief?

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and Sarah Jones

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. We have very limited time, so after the next speaker from the Opposition Front Bench there will be a time limit of five minutes. I suspect that that may have to come down during the course of the debate. Priority will be given to people who have not spoken previously.

[Sarah Jones]

I want to begin by making a comment in this House on the Government’s procedure in the other place. The Government tried to sideline the Commons from its role in the democratic process by bringing into the Lords substantial but last-minute amendments on protests that would have had a fundamental impact on our rights. The Lords had very little time to scrutinise them and that is generally considered to be very poor form. Instead of chasing headlines and rushing in last-minute sweeping amendments clearly not thought through, they should be focusing on driving up prosecution rates, improving their woeful record on crime and dealing with the problems that really matter to the British people.

Labour voted against the Bill in its entirety on Second Reading and Third Reading because of parts 3 and 4, which represent a power grab that effectively bans peaceful protests and will compound the inequalities experienced by Gypsies and Travellers. I want to pay particular thanks to colleagues in the other place who have stood up for democracy and prevented the draconian provisions on protests that the Government tried to get through at the last minute.

Before I come to the protest amendments, I want briefly to touch on the other amendments in this grouping. First, we are grateful that the Government have listened to reason on so many of our amendments. I want to mention two in this grouping in particular. I pay tribute to the hard work of Lord Bassam in pressuring the Government to extend football banning orders to online racist abuse in Lords amendments 148, 118, 119 and 120. Racists who abuse football players do not deserve to be anywhere near a game of football. The amendments send a strong message that disgraceful racist behaviour has no place in the world of football, online or in person.

We are also glad that Lords amendment 89, which will repeal the Vagrancy Act 1824, has been accepted by the Government and that they have finally decided to act. No one should be criminalised simply for sleeping rough. But I hope the Minister can provide some reassurance to the House that this crucial change will not be kicked into the long grass and that the new legislation will be brought in at the earliest opportunity.

I want to touch on Lords amendment 71. The Government are refusing to introduce a duty of candour on police officers at this stage to co-operate with inquiries. The Minister claimed that the existing schedule on standards of professional behaviour is sufficient, but we do not believe that it is. It states that police officers must act with honesty and integrity, which of course they should, but the amendment passed in the Lords goes significantly further to ensure that where the police are required to provide information to inquiries or other such proceedings, they must have regard to the pleadings allegations terms of reference and parameters of the relevant proceedings, but not be limited by them, in particular where they hold information that might change the ambit of the proceedings inquiry or investigation. That is a really important distinction. The Lords amendment goes significantly further than the statutory duty of co-operation.

In June 2021, the Daniel Morgan independent panel, which took eight years to report, recommended the creation of a statutory duty of candour to be owed by all law enforcement agencies to those whom they serve. It is time for decisions to be made and for actions to be taken to restore public confidence in the police service.

Part 4 of the Bill represents an attack on the Gypsy, Traveller and Roma communities, even though the police have made it clear that they neither want nor need these powers. The Government have rejected our calls to remove part 4, and that is one of the major reasons why we voted against the Bill in its entirety. Although Lords amendments 91 to 93 are very small technical amendments, they confirm the principles around the powers of seizure of property that we Opposition Members believe are unfair.

The problem that many Government Members seem to articulate whenever we debate this issue is actually one of antisocial behaviour. The solution to antisocial behaviour, wherever it comes, is tougher antisocial behaviour action. Under this Government, we saw 1.7 million incidents in the year to September 2021 and nothing has been done. Marginalising an entire minority is not the answer to antisocial behaviour. We need to distinguish between the two and not criminalise a minority.

I turn to the Lords amendments on protest. Over the past five days, thousands of people have been arrested and detained at anti-war protests across Russia. We would all defend their right to protest and yet here we are, in the mother of all democracies, debating an amendment to a Bill that would criminalise singing at a peaceful protest in this country. Britain has a long-standing and important democratic freedom to gather and to speak or to protest. The Minister quoted an HMICFRS report, but he misunderstood its conclusions. The report said that we need a

“modest reset of the scales”

because police forces are usually good at planning protests but the “balance may tip”. The report’s recommendations were not legislative; they were to update and improve guidance to senior police officers, to improve the way in which the police assess the impact of protests, to improve police intelligence and to improve debrief processes, all of which are very sensible.

The Government asked the HMICFRS to look at some legislative options, which it did, and it gave some qualified support to some of them, but at no point was noise any part of that conversation. I have spoken to many senior police officers and at no point have any of them asked for any changes to the law on noise. The Bill goes way beyond the right balance between the right to protest and the right for others, which we agree with, to go about their daily lives.

Fire Safety Bill

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and Sarah Jones

Consideration of Lords message
Tuesday 27th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before I call the shadow Minister, may I reiterate that this is a very short debate with a long list of speakers, which is why I have put a three-minute limit on Back Benchers? Obviously, if colleagues can be shorter than that, we might actually get everybody in.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

The Sunday Times reported two days ago that the Bank of England is worried that

“Britain’s building safety scandal could cause a new financial crisis.”

The Bank is worried about the scandal’s impact on property values, as new data from the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership shows that fire-risk flats can sell for as little as one third of their purchase price. That is devastating and requires an immediate response from the Government.

The Government surely should not need reminding that a collapse in house prices triggered the global financial crisis in 2007, but it seems that they do, and it seems that they also need reminding of the misery that this crisis is causing hundreds of thousands of people. The safety scandal that has unravelled in the wake of inaction and indecision since the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 has left up to 1.3 million flats unmortgageable and affects thousands of recently built houses. As many as 3 million people face a wait of up to a decade to sell or get a new mortgage because they cannot prove that their homes are safe, and we have leaseholders who face repair bills of up to £75,000 for flaws such as flammable cladding and balconies, and missing fire breaks.

We stand here today while thousands watch this debate and suffer, worrying about their futures, getting into debt and facing bankruptcy. We have to ask ourselves what the Government actually care about. They do not appear to care that the Bank of England thinks that we are heading for a financial crisis. They do not appear to care that thousands and thousands are living with anxiety, fear and debt. They do not seem to care that the vague and undefined loan scheme that they have hailed as the answer—despite having promised many times that leaseholders will not have to pay—will damage people’s property prices and will not actually be in place, as we hear today, for at least two years, leaving thousands to pay mounting waking watch bills and stuck in properties that they cannot sell.

Participation in Debates

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and Sarah Jones

Monday 16th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I now call Sarah Jones.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab) [V]]

May I recommend that the Leader of the House read the gov.uk guidance? The guidance is different this time from last time: it is just really clear that people need to stay at home and only go to work if they cannot work from home. We can work from home, and to show an example to the rest of the country, we should do that. I have been self-isolating for the last nine days, because the covid app told me to. I really wanted to raise a campaign that I and my constituents were doing to try and honour the 34 people in Croydon who have lost their lives in conflict since the second world war. I had wanted to raise that in the Armistice Day debate and I was not able to do so. Given that the technology is available and that thousands of key workers, including my husband, are working perfectly well from home, why did the Leader of the House think it was right to exclude me from that debate last week?

Fire Safety Bill

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and Sarah Jones

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 2—Accreditation of fire risk assessors—

‘The relevant authority must by regulations amend the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (SI 2005/1541) to require fire risk assessors for any building which contains two or more sets of domestic premises to be accredited.’

This new clause would require fire risk assessors to be accredited.

New clause 3—Inspectors: prioritisation—

‘In discharging their duties under article 27 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (SI 2005/1541) (powers of inspectors) in relation to any building which contains two or more sets of domestic premises, an inspector must prioritise the premises which they consider to be at most risk.’

This new clause would require the schedule for inspecting buildings to be based on a prioritisation of risk, not an arbitrary distinction of types of buildings.

New clause 4—Meaning of responsible person—

‘In article 3 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (SI 2005/1541) (“meaning of responsible person”), at the end of paragraph (b)(ii) insert—

“(2) Where a building contains two or more sets of domestic premises, a leaseholder shall not be considered a responsible person unless they are also the owner or part owner of the freehold.”’

This new clause aims to clarify the definition of ‘responsible person’ to ensure leaseholders are not considered a responsible person unless they are also the owner or part owner of the freehold.

New clause 5—Waking watch—

‘The relevant authority must by regulations amend the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (SI 2005/1541) to specify when a waking watch must be in place for any building which contains two or more sets of domestic premises and which has been found to have fire safety failings.’

This new clause would require the UK Government (for England) and the Welsh Government (for Wales) to specify when a waking watch must be in place for buildings with fire safety failures.

Amendment 1, page 1, line 16, at end insert—

‘(1C) Where a building contains two or more sets of domestic premises, the things to which this order applies includes electrical appliances.

(1D) The reference to electrical appliances means any appliances specified by Order made by the relevant authority.

(1E) Schedule 1 of the Fire Safety Act 2020 shall apply to paragraphs (1C) and (1D).’

This amendment would clarify that the Fire Safety Order applies to electrical appliances.

New schedule 1—

‘1 The relevant authority must, no later than 12 months after the date on which this Act is passed, make regulations specifying the electrical appliances covered by paragraph (1D) of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.

2 The relevant authority must, no later than 12 months after the date on which this Act is passed, make regulations to amend the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (“the Order”) as follows—

(a) to require the responsible person for premises to which the Order applies to—

(i) carry out electrical safety checks of such type as may be prescribed by the Order at such frequency as may be so prescribed (being no less frequently than every 5 years) at each set of domestic premises, regardless of whether the occupier is a tenant of the responsible person;

(ii) keep records of the checks for such period as may be prescribed by the Order and make them available upon request to such persons as may be so prescribed;

(iii) keep a register of such kinds of electrical appliances as may be prescribed by the Order that are kept in each set of domestic premises, regardless of whether the occupier is a tenant of the responsible person;

(iv) check whether those electrical appliances are the subject of a recall notice under paragraph 12 of the Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 2016.

(b) to require occupiers of such premises to—

(i) provide access to premises and allow action to remedy any failure to meet safety standards identified in a safety check carried out in accordance with sub-paragraph (a)(i);

(ii) provide the relevant responsible person with information about electrical appliances prescribed in accordance with sub-paragraph (a)(iii) and kept in the premises;

(iii) comply with any reasonable requirement made by the responsible person in relation to electrical appliances which the responsible person has reason to believe are the subject of a recall notice under paragraph 12 of the Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 2016.

3 Regulations made under paragraph 2 may—

(a) confer a power to enter premises on such persons as may be prescribed in the Order for such purposes connected with the requirements imposed under the regulations as may be so prescribed.

(b) create offences;

(c) amend the definition of “responsible person” in article 6 of the Order;

(d) make such consequential, supplementary or incidental provision by way of amendments to the Order as the relevant authority considers appropriate.

4 Regulations made under paragraph 2 must provide that any power to enter domestic premises is not to be exercisable unless—

(a) at a reasonable time and with the consent of the occupier of the premises; or

(b) under the authority of a warrant issued by a justice of the peace.”

5 In this schedule the term “relevant authority” has the same meaning as in the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.’

This new schedule would require the Government to make regulations specifying the electrical appliances to which the Fire Safety Order applies. It would also require the Government to amend the Order to impose additional duties on the responsible person and on occupiers. It is consequential on Amendment 1.

[Sarah Jones]

Let me begin, as I have at every stage of this Bill, by saying that we on the Opposition Benches support the Bill. The Minister knows that. We are keen to be as supportive as possible, but let me reiterate the point that I have also made at every stage, which is that this Bill is a shamefully inadequate response to the multiple problems for fire safety, which were so tragically brought to the fore when 72 lives were lost in the Grenfell Tower fire. The Bill—all three clauses of it—goes nowhere near far enough to prevent a tragedy like Grenfell from happening again.

The Government said that the introduction of the Fire Safety Bill would take them a step further in delivering the inquiry’s recommendations and recently cited the Bill as one of their key priorities in response to a deeply frustrated letter from Grenfell survivors. Yet the Bill does not even include provisions for any of the measures called for by the first phase of the inquiry.

The Grenfell community were failed by a system that did not listen to them. We must never forget that failure. I pay tribute to Grenfell United, the families and the whole community for continuing to tirelessly fight for justice. They should not have had to fight so hard, and hundreds of thousands of people across the country are now being failed by a system that does not listen to them—those stuck in buildings with flammable cladding, those using their income to fund waking watch and other safety measures, and those who cannot buy or sell their flats because the mortgage market has been ground to a halt by confusion and lack of Government leadership.

Coronavirus Bill

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and Sarah Jones

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 23rd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

First, I pay tribute to civil servants across Government, who have worked incredibly hard to put this legislation together. I welcome the content of the Bill and the work that the Government are undertaking. But I want to focus my remarks on housing, because there are massive holes in today’s proposed legislation when it comes to protections for the millions of people who rent, not own, their home. I am basing my remarks on the amendments that have, in the last 15 minutes, been published by the Government. We have absolutely no time properly to scrutinise them.

These are very difficult times for all of us in this country, but the risk of losing one’s home is surely too much to ask anyone to bear at this time, on top of everything else. The Government themselves have acknowledged that with their action on mortgage holidays. The Labour party, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) in particular, published draft legislation last week to protect renters, which would have gone much further than the Government have gone today. There is an overwhelming case for action: 20 million people in England rent, 6 million of whom have no savings whatsoever.

Last week, Shelter estimated that 50,000 households could face eviction through the courts in the next six months, and those evictions do not include large numbers of section 21 no-fault evictions. We have heard of landlords threatening to evict health workers because of the risk of their exposing others to the virus. More alarmingly, some of the 1.5 million people the Government have written to and told to stay at home for 12 weeks could face eviction notices over the coming weeks.

Astonishingly, today’s amendments do not get us to what the Government promised last week, which is a three-month ban. They simply extend the notice period for evictions by one month. That means that, over this entire period, eviction notices will still be landing on people’s doormats. They simply will not be evicted until June instead of May. It is really clear what we need. We need three things: a real ban on evictions for six months; suspension of rents to defer rental payments and allow repayment over a further manageable period; and a substantial increase in support for rental costs through the social security system.

Although I broadly welcome the work that the Government are doing, it would be frankly disgraceful for Ministers to have promised one thing last week and to have misled renters with a promise to ban evictions, when the reality is nothing like that. Will the Minister please tell us what he will do for the thousands of families who could be evicted in the middle of this lockdown? Will we see an immediate suspension of all possession cases? Shelter has draft legislation in place. Will the Minister also protect those families in temporary accommodation and bed and breakfasts and listen to the Children’s Commissioner’s call and pay attention—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I call Peter Aldous.

Rough Sleeping

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and Sarah Jones

Thursday 27th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. Rough sleeping is not inevitable in a country as decent and well off as ours. The cost of a decade of austerity has been over 700 deaths last year on our streets and huge numbers of children and families in bed-and-breakfast and temporary accommodation. It is the defining mark of this Conservative Government. Any improvement on that record is welcome, but today’s figures show that the number of people sleeping rough in shop doorways and on park benches is more than double what it was when Labour left government. That shames us all and it shames Conservative Ministers most of all. It must end.

Today’s figures come with a big health warning: everyone, from the Secretary of State to homelessness charities, knows that these statistics are an unreliable undercount of the true scale of the problem. The figures have been refused national statistics status—a mark of

“trustworthiness, quality and public value”

Yesterday, Labour’s shadow Housing Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), wrote to the UK Statistics Authority to ask it to investigate their accuracy.

That follows new data obtained by the BBC under the Freedom of Information Act, showing that Ministers have been dramatically under-reporting the scale of rough sleeping. The BBC revealed that 25,000 people are sleeping rough in England—five times the number recorded by the Government’s statistics. Even on today’s unreliable figures, the Government are set to break their pledge to end rough sleeping by the end of the Parliament. At the current rate of progress, they will not end rough sleeping until 2037, so while the Secretary of State’s ambitious words are welcome, how does he intend to reach his target without further investment?

The announcement today that the Government will go some way towards following Labour’s proposals and fund housing for rough sleepers following the Housing First model is welcome, but we remember that the Secretary of State’s party promised 200,000 starter homes and did not build a single one. When the Prime Minster was Mayor of London, he promised to end rough sleeping in the capital by 2012, but rough sleeping doubled. We are right to be sceptical and ask the Secretary of State to clarify: by what date will these homes will be made available? How will the locations be determined? And is the funding genuinely extra, as he claims, or has it been diverted from other programmes in the Department’s budget?

It is not just that the Government have turned a blind eye to the homelessness crisis for so long—which they have—but they have refused to face up to the fact that they actively created the crisis. They have cut £1 billion a year from local homelessness reduction budgets and there is no commitment to reverse that. They have cut investment in new homes for social rent to record levels, with no commitment to reverse that, and they have failed to deliver on their pledge to end unfair evictions—the leading cause of homelessness.

Much like other symptoms of the housing crisis, such as the spiralling housing benefit bill, the funding needed to tackle rough sleeping will continue to rise if we do not invest in addressing the root causes of the housing crisis. That means more than warm words about bringing health and housing together; it means facing up to the impact of deep cuts to welfare, mental health support and addiction services since 2010. However, the Government are in denial about the root causes of homelessness. Perhaps that is why the Housing Secretary chose to appoint someone as his Parliamentary Private Secretary, with specific responsibility for rough sleeping, who thinks that sleeping rough is a lifestyle choice and who claimed that

“many people choose to be on the street”—[Official Report, 29 January 2020; Vol. 670, c. 858.]

He also claimed that it is more comfortable than going on exercise in the Army— [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order.

[Sarah Jones]

That is particularly insulting to the hundreds of our armed forces veterans who are sleeping rough, who this Government have abandoned despite their years of service to our country.

As the first snow of the new decade falls on our streets outside, we must face up to the human cost of this Conservative Government: two people a day are dying on our streets; 127,000 children are homeless in temporary accommodation; and the rough sleeping figures are five times higher than the official statistics. Homelessness was tackled by the last Labour Government when we inherited a similar scale of crisis. We reduced rough sleeping by three quarters. The Secretary of State’s announcements today will not go far enough to deliver on his targets. To quote Louise Casey:

“We have gone from a beacon of success to an international example of failure”,

and we

“must not allow this issue to be ignored, we must feel its impact and act as the country we are proud to be.”