Macpherson Report: Twenty-two Years On

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

Thank you, Ms McDonagh. It feels a little strange to be summing up after just one speaker, but the speech of the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) was a comprehensive one that took us on the journey that led to the need for this report. Twenty-two years on from the Macpherson report, it is clear that work remains to be done to tackle racism in society and in policing.

We wonder why people become disillusioned. I am sure that all those decades ago, when the report was published, there were many who heaved a sigh of relief—its aim, after all, was to

“increase trust and confidence in policing amongst minority ethnic communities”.

I am also sure that all those decades ago, when the aim of the report was stated to be

“the elimination of racist prejudice and disadvantage and the demonstration of fairness in all aspects of policing”,

many felt they had finally achieved progress. I am sure that everyone involved was aware that Rome was not built in a day, but had some hope, and maybe even allowed themselves a little confidence that life for those experiencing racism would soon change for the better.

The family of Stephen Lawrence, who was murdered and then denied justice because of the colour of his skin—the family in response to whom the Macpherson report came about—perhaps felt when that report was published that his death had not been completely in vain. I have met Stephen’s brother, Stuart Lawrence, and of course we all know or know of his father, Neville Lawrence, and his mother, Baroness Doreen Lawrence. Anyone who listens to Stuart or reads his book, “Silence is Not An Option”, begins to understand the catastrophic impact Stephen’s death had on everyone in his family and how they have all had to work so hard, almost every minute of every day, simply to survive.

To a lesser degree, the impact on whole communities was also devastating and life-changing. To have the hope that things would get better for other mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters when the report was published 22 years ago, and then to come to the conclusion that Doreen Lawrence reached recently, namely that

“things have become really stagnant and nothing seems to have moved”,

which is the view that prompted the Home Affairs Committee’s third report on Macpherson, must make it all the harder to keep going.

That third report recognises that there remains an awful lot to do. As we have heard, it refers to a lack of confidence in the police among black people—a belief that they will not be treated fairly by the police and a belief that they are not treated with respect. We have heard the figures about stop and search. Saddest of all, there is the belief among black people that the police will not keep them safe.

The report is about England and Wales, but Scotland, of course, is not immune to these challenges, and the Scottish Government and Police Scotland have also taken decisive action recently to try to tackle them. The Chief Constable of Police Scotland, Iain Livingstone, spoke in March of the need for

“practical, firm, progressive, visible action”.

And he also said that

“Words and good intent are not enough.”

He is right, and he also made an offer to police forces across the UK to share the insight and value that Scotland’s hard-earned lessons can provide, in order to improve policing for communities across the UK.

I am very conscious that when Scottish National party MPs talk in this place about things that we do better, or just differently, in Scotland, sometimes there is a collective rolling of eyes: “Oh, not this again”. However, I hope that colleagues will accept that, yes, sometimes we are trying to make a political point but mostly we are trying to share our experience in the hope that it can help other public bodies, in this case police forces. The SNP group is always looking to the experiences of other countries, including the other countries of the United Kingdom, to see how we can improve our own public services. So I acknowledge that this is a two-way thing. In that spirit, I will talk about a time when I believe Police Scotland got things spectacularly wrong and also got its response wrong, too.

I am talking about Sheku Bayoh. Sheku died after being stopped in the street by two police officers, who were soon joined by another seven police officers, in Kirkcaldy, in Fife, in May 2015. There is a public inquiry under way about this case right now. However, it has been seven years since Sheku died and his family, who I have met on a number of occasions, have still not had answers. How did this fit young man in his thirties—a brother, a son, a dad, a partner, a friend—who had no weapons on him end up dead after encountering the police?

I cannot answer that question and I will leave it to the inquiry, but what I will say is that in any other situation where nine people confronted one person, and the one person ends up dead, those nine people would be taken in for questioning, at the very least. They would not be allowed to discuss what had happened with each other; they certainly would not be allowed to send out press releases that were later found to have wrongly characterised the dead man and that told their side of the story before the dead man’s family even knew he had died. It simply would not happen.

Given that we know—nobody denies this—that Sheku was sat on, and given that we know that there was no question over who was with him or who was sitting on him at the moment of death, how on earth can it have taken seven years before we even start to hear what happened that day? The inquiry continues and is considering whether race was a factor in Sheku’s death.

So, Members will not hear me nor, I imagine, anyone in my party claiming that Scotland or our police force is racism-free.

However, the overall approach to policing in Scotland is a community-based approach, which is built on policing by consent. It is about reducing tensions rather than inflaming them unnecessarily. The aforementioned Chief Constable of Police Scotland has consistently made it clear that the policing tone and style must reflect the need for positive engagement.

If we look at the recent lockdowns, we see that the vast majority of people complied with the rules, and policing in Scotland was focused on engaging, explaining and encouraging. That is reflected in public confidence in the police in Scotland, with figures from last year’s crime and justice survey showing that the majority of adults in Scotland believe that the police in their local area are doing an excellent job or a good job. That majority is 55%. Clearly, we want it to be higher than that.

I agree with the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee when she says that we need technology, and that the vast majority of police officers and other police staff work tirelessly to protect and support people in communities. That majority feel as let down as the rest of us when a small minority of police officers fall short of the expected standards.

As I have already alluded to, they do not always work but there are robust processes in place to investigate misconduct. It is a matter for Police Scotland to consider any disciplinary allegation, but if there are allegations of criminality against a police officer, Police Scotland will refer the matter to the Crown Office. What matters more than anything is that there are robust, clear and transparent mechanisms in place to investigate complaints or other issues of concern. I am pleased to say that things have moved on and improved in that respect, since Sheku Bayoh’s death.

In 2018 the Scottish Government commissioned Dame Elish Angiolini to independently review police complaints handling, investigations and misconduct. Her final report was completed 2020; her review made 111 recommendations, the majority of which the Scottish Government accepted. The Scottish Government and Police Scotland are doing a lot more work on that than I have time to detail. However, some of the positives are around mainstreaming equality, diversity and inclusion, and working with diversity staff associations, such as SEMPER Scotland, which is an association that supports all minority ethnic employees in Police Scotland. The Chair of the Committee talked about recruitment targets. SEMPER has talked to me about not only recruitment but retention, and ensuring that environments are made in such a way that they retain those members of staff.

Finally, I will say a few words about the Scottish Government’s new hate crime strategy, to be published later this year. It will set out our approach to tackling hatred and prejudice in Scotland, and it will complement the implementation of a modernised hate crime legislative framework. It is vital that the legislation is implemented effectively, so that once it is in force it offers strength and protections to those targeted by hatred and prejudice. It includes rigorous safeguards on free speech; it does not prevent people from expressing controversial, challenging or offensive views, nor does it seek to stifle criticism or rigorous debate. What it does is criminalise and hold to account those who express or demonstrate their prejudice in a threatening or abusive way with the intention of stirring up hatred or committing other offences motivated by prejudice.

I hope when the Government are able to get on with their day job fully—I understand why they cannot at the moment—the Minister’s Department will look at that afresh. I echo the calls of the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, and I look forward to the Minister’s response. I will end by remembering just two of the many people failed by our systems on these islands. I think saying names out loud is important. Stephen Lawrence, rest in power. Sheku Bayoh, rest in power. You will never be forgotten.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McDonagh. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), the chair of the Home Affairs Committee, on her important contribution today. I put on the record how incredibly important the Home Affairs Committee report is, how thorough and good it was, and how important it is, 20 years on from the Macpherson report, that there is something looking back on what has been achieved and what has not.

My right hon. Friend set out very well what stage we are at, and how much more needs to be done. I am particularly pleased that during the process the Committee managed to talk to young people about their experience at the other end of a stop and search. I was talking to a Conservative police and crime commissioner the other day, who is black, and has been stopped and searched many times. I suspect that most of us in this Chamber have not had that experience because we are white. To understand what it feels like, and how intrusive it can be, I think we need to speak to people who are affected. I congratulate the Committee for thinking to do that—and for ensuring it was done.

We have been talking about racism and disproportionality in policing for decades, certainly since the Scarman report in 1981, the death of Stephen Lawrence in 1992 and then the Macpherson report in 1999. That report was a watershed moment for British policing. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North said, the national figures on public confidence show that there is a significant variation, depending on their ethnicity, in people’s confidence in the police. Confidence in the police was at 74% for white British people, 69% for black African people and 54% for black Caribbean people. The murder of Stephen Lawrence and the campaigning that has been done since has been so important in shining a light on these issues. I cannot not mention Doreen and Neville Lawrence, who have been so instrumental and gracious in the way they have tried to help us all do better when it comes to these big problems of racism.

When the Home Affairs Committee looked at Macpherson, it did find, as has been said, that there has been positive progress in some areas and that the policing of racist hate crimes and the representation of ethnic minorities within police ranks has improved. However, it found that there are persistent, deep-rooted and unjustified racial disparities in key areas. It found a lack of confidence in the police, a lack of progress on recruitment, problems in misconduct proceedings and stark racial disparities in stop and search. Although the Committee found that policing today is very different from 22 years ago and that there have been improvements, there are persistent problems and unjustified racial disparities in a number of key areas.

Macpherson rightly called for police forces to be representative of their communities. At the current rate of recruitment, it will take 20 years until police forces are such. I represent Croydon Central. Croydon is a very diverse borough and although our police force have done some brilliant work with local communities on building trust and confidence—important work, and I praise them for it—the colour of our police officers is still not reflective of the communities that they serve. The unit that goes out and does stop and search in Croydon has about 80 people, and last time I checked there was not a single black officer among them. That absolutely has to change, and change is happening too slowly.

Black and minority ethnic police officers are more than twice as likely to be dismissed from their role than white officers. The report also found that stop and search is more disproportionate now than it was 22 years ago. We know that when it comes to stop and search, the measure of success is whether a knife or something similar is found. When the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) was Home Secretary and reduced the number of stop and searches and made it more intelligence-driven, the incidence of disproportionality fell in that period. It has got worse again with greater use of section 60 stop and search.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Just on that, does the hon. Lady agree that allowing suspicionless stop and search under the Public Order Bill will increase disproportionality rates between the different ethnicities, because now officers will not actually need an excuse to stop and search somebody who might be near a protest?

[Sarah Jones]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. We both served on the Public Order Bill Committee and it was deeply concerning to note that there has been a large increase in the use of section 60, not just to tackle violent crime and threat of harm but protest without any real consideration of how that will increase disproportionality. That is a real risk. The figures on disproportionality and ethnicity and drug use have already been given. They are really stark, and there is a lot of work to be done on stop and search in that context.

Recent high-profile cases have highlighted concerns around policing. The conduct of officers following the murder of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman was deeply shocking for everybody. The strip-searching of children such as child Q and the adultification of children, particularly black children, that seems to be commonplace, the failings in the case of the death of Richard Okorogheye and the IOPC report on that and the conduct unveiled in the IOPC’s report into the Charing Cross police station show that there are pockets in policing where progress is not happening fast enough. Those pockets seem to cover large areas, because such problems have not just been seen in the Met police; we have seen similar issues across the country, so all forces need urgently to address the deep and troubling lack of confidence among black communities in policing and the criminal justice system.

I have been working with police chiefs and the NPCC since they set up a big programme of work on disproportionality and racism in policing, and I am pleased that their action plan is significantly better than it was when first drafted. It has been beefed up and has some real legs. I am pleased to see the recommendations in there and the very honest way in which the police chiefs have articulated the problem. They have set out an ambition to identify and address disproportionality in the use of stop and search, particularly in relation to drugs and searches of children. They will have robust accountability and learning processes, based on security and supervision.

The challenge with stop and search and disproportionality across the board is that we can see the numbers but we do not know why there is an issue. We assume things about racism, but there is not proper evidence. Evidence needs to be gathered about the places where people are stopped, the interactions and what happens to people. For example, if someone driving a car is stopped and searched, recording data is now being introduced. That was not the case before, and we know that there is huge disproportionality in stop and search for people who are driving. The evidence is not there for us to pull together and find out what needs to be done.

The NPCC will review the use of the smell of cannabis as grounds for stop and search, because that increases disproportionally. It will also review the use of Tasers, section 60, intimate searches and standardised recording practices. The breadth of what it has set itself to do shows how seriously it takes this issue. It will increase the awareness and understanding of every officer and member of staff about racism, anti-racism, black history and its connection to policing, through the introduction of a mandatory programme of training for all police officers and staff. Of course, we welcome that. It is looking at reducing racial disparities in misconduct cases and the complaints process, and is improving support to black officers and staff. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North highlighted, there are pockets of good practice, but it is not across the board.

The NPCC is looking to trial and test methods for better enabling black people to have their voices heard and raise concerns. It is looking at the criminal exploitation of young black men, which we have talked about, and is working to disrupt the cycle of victims becoming offenders.

The NPCC is introducing a national standard across all recruitment and promotion processes to minimise race disparities. The Home Affairs Committee suggested targets. I am quite a fan of targets, and I have had lots of conversations with police officers about the unintended consequences of them. It is good that the NPCC has gone for a national standard.

All that work is good, but I worry that the Government do not take this issue as seriously as they should. They tend to push it out to individual police forces or to the NPCC, when it chooses to come together. I worried about the introduction of serious violence prevention orders in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 without a proper analysis of what the disproportionate impact will be on young black men. I worried about the extension of section 60 to protests without any proper consideration of disproportionality. We all worried when we read the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report, which the Government commissioned, and the lack of action in it.

I worry that the Government have a habit of waiting for the IOPC or HMIC to look at something and bring out a report, which often takes years, instead of taking action themselves. For example, the IOPC and the inspectorate looked at what happened during lockdown in London, where there was an increase in the use of stop and search. Habits formed around handcuffing people—in particular, young black men—when they were being stopped and searched, which the police are not supposed to do unless there is a threat of violence. What I think happened was that a lot of new, inexperienced police officers came in through the uplift. They were not supervised properly and they learned bad behaviour. They learned how not to do stop and search, because more experienced people were not there to do it. I worry that the Government did not see that problem and intervene to do something about it.

The Labour party has long called for improved anti-racism policies and for tougher action to increase diversity in all ranks of policing. A clear combined plan needs to be implemented by police forces, driven by the Home Office, with proper scrutiny and consequences if action falls short. Racism and bias must be tackled wherever they are found.

After child Q, we all called for new guidance on strip searches, but we still have not seen it. When it comes to the pressing issues of reforming police culture and standards, there are myriad actions that Ministers could choose to take, but they point to inquiries that have been set up and tell us that we must wait for this and wait for that, without taking action themselves. A record number of police forces are in the engage phase, a form of special measures. We need a national overhaul of training and standards. There is much to be done on leadership in the police. We need better leadership development at every rank and a new vetting system. We need to overhaul misconduct cases and new rules on social media use. All of those things would help tackle some of the disproportionality and bad culture in the Home Office. All of those issues could be led from the front, with the Home Office taking action.

A lot of these problems are in the Met. If we look at its ratio of PC to sergeant, we will see that supervision has been cut more than that of any other force, so there are not enough supervisors to make sure that the right cultures and practices are in place for PCs. Surely the Government cannot be happy with that ratio and the lack of support for the raft of new officers. There has been a hollowing out of experience. The Government cannot replace the 21,000 experienced officers they have cut without losing all their helpful experience.

The report is very important. It highlights that progress has been made, but there is lots more to be done. I congratulate the police leaders and the NPCC who are independently pushing new proposals to improve things, but without Government intervention and leadership I do not think we will go fast enough. The suggestion that it will take 20 years to have a police service that is reflective of the communities they serve is a stark example of that.

The policing style in Britain is one of consent. The public have to trust the police for the system to work, and at the moment some communities, particularly black communities, do not. The public need to trust the police. Victims need to get the justice they deserve, regardless of the colour of their skin, and our officers deserve to work in a police force that has high standards and a respectful culture.

Given the chaos around us, the Minister does not have this power right now, but the new Government could choose to drive up standards. They could insist on the recruitment of more black officers, tackle disproportionality and increase professionalism in policing, instead of saying, time and again, as the former Policing Minister always did, that there is an inquiry into this, a report on that, and that we would just have to wait and see. Tackling racism is an active job. As one of the resigning Ministers, the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), said yesterday:

“not doing something is an active decision.”—[Official Report, 6 July 2022; Vol. 717, c. 876.]

Windrush Review

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Ms McVey. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) and other Members present who have been so tenacious in pursuing this issue, and I guarantee they will continue if it is not resolved.

The key point here is that after a dreadful, shameful thing happened, there was an inquiry led by Wendy Williams and a report. The Government accepted the recommendations of that report, but today, some five years after the scandal unfolded and two years after accepting those 30 recommendations, they have only implemented eight of them. When promising to implement those recommendations, the Home Secretary said that there would be

“a total transformation of our culture.”

That has not happened, but let us remind ourselves why it was so necessary to transform that culture. What had it led to? What was so scandalous about the Windrush scandal?

As we have heard from others today, people’s lives were turned upside down through no fault of their own. The hon. Member for Edmonton talked about the gentleman who got further and further into debt through no fault of his own, but through the fault of the Government—so much so that when his son tragically died he could not even pay for his funeral. Let us think about that. How must that have made him feel?

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) rightly said that many of the people had never even set foot outside of the UK. These are people we should be celebrating. As the hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) said, these people transformed our culture with, for example, music and food. On her idea that the 75th anniversary of the Windrush celebrations should happen across these islands next year, I guarantee that Glasgow and Scotland will be up for that. I will, as a board member of Flag Up Scotland Jamaica, make sure that it happens in Glasgow at least.

When the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mrs Hamilton) made her speech, I was very interested to listen to the memories evoked by the festival. I can tell her that my Jamaican partner has amassed a very large collection of whisky and I am trying to persuade him to get a cocktail cabinet. He, the Jamaican, is not up for it, but I will get one, anyway.

How was the scandal able to happen? It is as the Home Secretary acknowledged when she pledged a total transformation of culture in the Home Office. The culture there is what allowed it to happen. Its own internal report, the one that it hoped to suppress but which was leaked to The Guardian, said as much. The hon. Member for Streatham alluded to it. The leaked Home Office report stated:

“Every single piece of immigration or citizenship legislation between 1950 and 1981 was designed, at least in part, to reduce the number of black or brown people permitted to live and work in the UK.”

How utterly scandalous is that? As the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) said, the case is proven and that quote is proof.

I say to the Home Secretary through the Minister that she should not suppress the report. It is empowering and freeing to own up to the truth. I speak as someone who was involved in a campaign and subsequently a major theatre production called “Emancipation Acts”, which was aimed at getting the people of Scotland to own up to our past connections to slavery. It worked because people like the truth and they like honesty. It is now widely accepted in Scotland that we were just as culpable as other countries for the Caribbean slave trade. Organisations from the University of Glasgow to Glasgow City Council and many more besides are saying sorry and making reparations, and people respect that.

The Home Secretary was not in her position in the years I mentioned previously. She is not personally responsible for what happened then, so why not publish the report, admit how awful the situation was and get on with making the promised reparations? As we have heard, there are multiple failings in following through on Wendy Williams’ recommendations. The vast majority of people do not have their compensation. People have died waiting for justice. People do not trust the process, and I do not blame them. They talk of being treated with scepticism by officials. As the Home Affairs Committee reported, the burden of proof on applicants is too great.

We heard from the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) about the extortionate legal fees that people have to pay and about the tens of thousands of cases not yet allocated to a caseworker. On the point about caseworkers not reflecting the Windrush communities, I get that. I did not always get that, but I do now. If the Minister does not, there is a room full of experts here who can explain it to him.

Given that the scheme is too slow, that people are still treated with scepticism, that applicants do not trust officials, and that the Home Office is not keeping up with the rest of its work—for example, my constituents seeking asylum are now waiting exceptionally long times for their initial interview—will the Minister not finally accept the recommendation of the Home Affairs Committee that the scheme be transferred to an independent organisation? It would resolve those issues and free up valuable Home Office time.

The Government do not mind outsourcing all manner of other jobs to all manner of other companies—Mears and Atos, to name but two—so why can they not do the same with the Windrush compensation scheme? Nobody is looking to get rich. One reason is that an independent organisation might act more fairly and might offer decent compensation. If someone is offered less than the scandal has cost them, surely that is theft—there is no other word for it. The other reason the Government do not want an independent company to administer the scheme is that, put simply, stalling, making people jump through hoops and letting them die while they wait is all part of the doubling down on the hostile environment to which they are so wedded.

As the hon. Members for Streatham and for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) both noted, we only have to look at the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 to know that nothing has been learned. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam made a great point about the equality impact assessments being completely ignored. We only have to think about the plan to send asylum seekers thousands of miles to Rwanda—a country whose human rights record means that its own people flee to seek asylum with us—to know that the hostility continues. We only need to remember the Government’s announcement last week of the pilot scheme, which will tag asylum seekers as if they were wild dogs, to know that they simply do not care. If they did care, they would not be doing those things, and they would do a very simple but effective thing by outsourcing the compensation scheme to an independent organisation that would treat people—who, let us not forget, the Government have traumatised—with care and compassion. People would feel comfortable approaching this organisation, which would expedite their claims and ensure that the victims of the Windrush scandal were treated with respect.

Like the hon. Member for Battersea and the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, my partner has family members who came here from Jamaica to rebuild this country. His father arrived from Jamaica before Windrush. Had he been caught up in the scandal, I would be at the Minister’s door every single day until he got justice. Even the thought of it is distressing to me, and I cannot imagine the distress not just to the victims but to their families, their friends and the West Indian community as a whole.

Again, I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Edmonton and others—including Members who are not present but who have continued to be part of the effort to get justice—for their tenacity and for their refusal to let the Government off the hook. I pay tribute to all my fellow citizens out there whose lives were turned upside down by the Windrush scandal. I hope some are watching, so that they will know we will always fight for them, given everything they have been through. They are still standing, and we are proud to stand with them.

I have lost count of the number of debates and meetings that have been held in this place to discuss the Windrush scandal. Why will the Minister not just get it sorted and let us move on to other matters? More importantly, we need to let the people who are caught up in this move on with their lives. As frustrating as I find it to constantly have to revisit these matters, the Government are wrong if they think that their procrastination will lead to us eventually giving up. We will have as much energy as it takes, and we will not walk away from people. We will keep on fighting for what, after all, are their rights.

Public Order Bill (Second sitting)

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 9th June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Mohindra]

Thank you. Steve, is there anything from you?

Steve Griffiths: No, nothing to add from me, thank you.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

Q Much of what you have both described does sound extremely challenging. I understand that, but I am wondering whether you understand that many protesters are protesting because they have firmly held beliefs. I think we all agree that they should have the right to protest. Environmental campaigners’ concerns, for example, are that both your industries contribute to the climate crisis and, if more is not done more quickly, there will be no oil and no airports for them to protest at or for you to manage. If we all understand that, what would you suggest they could do to protest in a way that is safe and non-disruptive but also impactful, because there is no point in protest if it makes no impact? What is the middle ground? What is the compromise?

Elizabeth de Jong: Steve, you have said, and I would agree, that we absolutely support the right to peaceful protest. We absolutely support the right to free speech. That is really important to us as a trade association. Free speech—debate—is very important for you as well. However, what we are looking at here is the impact on people’s safety. That is also very important.

[Anne McLaughlin]

I understand that, but I am asking about—

Elizabeth de Jong: Yes, I promise I will try to answer that. Our industry is vital to achieving net zero, and there is lots the oil industry is already doing, and is wanting to invest in, to be part of the solution. We are producing more low-carbon biofuels. We are delivering and manufacturing sustainable aviation fuels. We are running some of the biggest hydrogen and carbon capture projects in the country. We are delivering the electric vehicle charging network; we are producing lubricants for electric vehicles as well. Personally, we think dialogue is very important. That is the essence of our democracy. But we also support peaceful protests and free speech in all ways. But if we are focused on dealing with protests and spending money on protests, that money arguably could instead help continue the work that we are doing to achieve net zero.

Steve Griffiths: I would echo everything that Elizabeth has said. It is obviously important, from the perspective of the aviation industry, that the Government have set out a plan to achieve net zero carbon by 2050. That is a plan that all of the industry has signed up to. As the largest airport group in the UK, MAG has a plan to achieve that by 2038, which is 12 years ahead of the Government target. Again, contributions to further advancing that would only help our industry, and that is what we will be looking for. As we have said, we have no objections about the right to protest, but it should be done peacefully.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Q Thank you both for your answers. I am glad that you accept that there should be a right to protest peacefully, but what you both seem to be saying is, “They’re wrong; we are contributing to the solution.” I have no doubt that that is partly the case, but their firmly held beliefs are that you are not doing enough quick enough. They obviously have the right to protest about that. Other than just simply agreeing with you, what can they do to get their point across to encourage you to go faster? What can they do that would make an impact without disrupting and causing safety concerns? How could they do that?

[The Chair]

I think we are straying into the debate around net zero rather than the issue in hand.

[Anne McLaughlin]

What I am really trying to say is that they disagree with the answers that you have given me; if they have a different view, they must have the right to protest. How can they do that and make an impact, while dealing with the safety and disruption concerns we have talked about?

Steve Griffiths: I can only comment in a limited way on this. Advancing this subject is really about innovation, technology and research and development. Obviously, we have to be realistic about the step changes that we can make, which is why in the industry that I work in the Government have set out a very clear plan. I know that all parts of the industry are looking at ways to achieve that a lot earlier. At the heart will be design, research, innovation and technology—that will drive it. Those elements have to be at the top of the industry’s and the Government’s agenda if we are to achieve that.

Elizabeth de Jong: And creating the right investment environment for the investments and the innovation as well. It is that type of dialogue that can speed this along. Some 96% of energy used in the transport sector currently comes from oil, so to just stop oil would have quite catastrophic impacts on society and the economy, but there are plenty of ways to debate this and to look at the policies that are needed.

[Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)]

Q All the measures in the Bill aim to end the behaviour as quickly as possible when there is an incident and to deter people from coming back and having another go. When you think about the hardened, seasoned protesters in this field, who have plenty time on their hands to go gluing themselves to things on a regular basis, do you think they are sensitive to fines or do you think it is important that we look more towards custodial sentences for those hardened repeat offenders as part of the mix?

Elizabeth de Jong: I am afraid I am going to have to leave that for the police and those who work in that area who have studied what the best incentives are for people. We are definitely focused on how to make things safe in our industry and how our society can work more efficiently and effectively.

Steve Griffiths: I cannot really comment on that. It is really for the police to determine, but we obviously support their having the right tools because, at the heart of this, as Elizabeth has said, is the safety of the protesters, the general public and customers, as well as our colleagues. That is really important.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

Q My only point is that it would have sped things up if that delay, which you pointed out at the start, had not happened. You could have got things moving quicker, so that needs addressing.

David Dinsmore: Indeed.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Q As MPs, we have the opportunity every day to express our views, and the media has an even greater opportunity to do that. You have said yourself that you are a proponent of freedom of speech, so how should the ordinary woman or man in the street make their views known? These might be views about the Black Lives Matter demonstrations or about the fact that black women are four times more likely to die in or just after childbirth, and environmentalists are worried about the very future of the planet—

[The Chair]

We cannot go into the detail. The concept of how a protest can be taken forward is, however, a legitimate question.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Q How can those people and others make their views known without being criminalised?

David Dinsmore: News brands are a very good channel for campaigning. We would see ourselves as giving a voice to the voiceless. One of the ironies of this particular protest was that on page 10 of The Sun that day, there was a piece from David Attenborough about exactly what Extinction Rebellion were campaigning on. They were going after one of the vessels that would probably be a good way of disseminating protest and counter-voices. Newspapers have campaigned legally and peacefully for centuries on many issues successfully and got law changes. If we want to go into the details of the great Sunday Times investigation campaign on thalidomide, I think there are many routes through which you can get outcomes that do not require the law to be broken.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Q I am not sure that your organisation is known for campaigning alongside Black Lives Matter people, for example. However, are you suggesting that the only legitimate way for the people that I mentioned to protest is either through us as MPs or through yourselves as media outlets? Let us face it: that means that you have to agree with them or we have to agree with them. How do they make their own voices heard? How do we empower them without causing the disruption that you talked about so that they can make an impact?

David Dinsmore: On the Black Lives Matter issue, we have, as an organisation, carried a huge amount of coverage. We have done things explicitly and internally on diversity. It is something that we do take very seriously. The Sun has recently run a series on Black History Month, et cetera, et cetera. I will not go into the detail, but I can give you much more on what we do as an organisation on those kinds of issues.

There are many, many routes to protest in this country. I am just giving you the specifics around our particular route. There are petitions and social media. There are many ways in which you can get a story, a campaign or a point of view across without disruption and breaking the law.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Q To be provocative, this is a Bill to protect national infrastructure such as fuel terminals, roads, railways and airports, and I am giving you a platform to make a pitch. Why is your industry worthy of this protection and not people who deliver bread, milk or toilet rolls? Why your industry?

David Dinsmore: I think the best example we have got is the pandemic we have just lived through and the requirement for quality, trustworthy information. That showed how vital and valuable that is. We, as professional journalists, provide that information on what used to be a daily basis and is now a minute-by-minute basis, and the public need that more than ever.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

It is good to have you. We will begin with a question from Anne McLaughlin.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Q Good afternoon and thank you for coming. This rehash of the protest parts of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that did not get through Parliament seems to me to be more about reacting to issues that this Government disagree with and to protesters they do not like, such as environmental protesters and Black Lives Matter protesters. Regardless of whether that is the case, this Bill affects everyone, including the one group of people whom surely no one can get upset about, and that is the WASPI campaigners—I have just remembered, I am not supposed to talk about that. We have heard about disruption to people’s lives from protests, albeit we are talking about protests that are very short-lived and last only a few hours, as Sir Peter Fahy just said. Ideally, we would all live in complete harmony with no disruption to anyone’s life, but we do not. In your view, what will cause the most severe damage, the longest term damage and the damage to the most people—racism, environmental damage, people losing their pensions, or people staging protests?

Martha Spurrier: There can be little doubt that a Government should spend time looking at the root causes of a protest, whether that is the climate crisis rather than climate protesters, or racism rather than Black Lives Matter protesters. Of course, it is not news to say that protest is a foundational right, and that it is an article of faith in any democratic country that if there is something you disagree with, you can take to the streets to make your voice heard. It is of great concern to Liberty and those of us who work in this area—I am a lawyer, and I have been working in this area for the best part of 15 years—to see provisions in a Bill that not only have been rejected by Parliament once, but significantly expand police powers, often doing so in a very over-broad and imprecise way, such that it is difficult to see how they will be effectively implemented.

We would expect a disproportionate impact on marginalised communities from the exercise of those powers. We would also expect that they will fundamentally undermine the right to protest, and will not do what they are purported to do—deal with a hard core of some supposedly extremely disruptive protesters—but will in fact have a dragnet effect of chilling people’s right to protest and free expression, and deter ordinary people from exercising their fundamental rights. There is a whole range of examples in the Bill that we could talk about where it is very difficult to see why those measures are proportionate and justified ways of dealing with the perceived problem, let alone whether there is a problem as articulated.

Olly Sprague: I echo what Martha said. For an organisation such as Amnesty, it is not a case of either/or: we do not want to balance the harm that might be caused by climate change versus the positive duty that all states have to uphold the right to freedom of assembly and association and the right to protest. You have to manage all things.

One of the things that we bring here is that we are an international human rights monitoring organisation: we look at human rights internationally, and we look at where the UK is on the standards, obligations and legal frameworks that exist. It is worrying to say that for most of the provisions in the Bill, we see a clear gap between what the international standards require of the UK and what the UK proposes here, and it is the wrong gap. The UK is on the wrong side of where it should be. I am sure we will have the opportunity to go into why we think that and the areas where we think that is the case, but that is a very worrying direction of travel, especially when in terms of its foreign, defence and security policy aspirations, the UK sees itself very much as a champion of civil society space. It sees and acknowledges the fact that the world is becoming increasingly authoritarian, and wants to do things to stop that.

As a quick example, in April this year, Lord Ahmad—a Government Minister from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office—was giving his closing remarks to the 49th session of the Human Rights Council. In that, he made specific reference to a very important resolution about the need to promote and respect the rights of human rights defenders around the world. It was a resolution that was welcomed and strongly supported by the UK Government; it was a very important resolution. That resolution essentially requires that all states refrain from measures that excessively criminalise human rights defenders and their rights to freedom of expression, so you have a bit of a disconnect here between the statements that the UK puts out internationally and the role we see ourselves playing in the world community, and the kinds of measures we are putting in place on our own domestic legislative front. They are out of step with each other, and it is not joined up.

Stephanie Needleman: I completely agree with what Martha and Olly have said. Picking up on something that Olly said about the disconnect between what the UK is doing internationally and what we are doing domestically, there is also an internal disconnect in what we are doing domestically in the UK. The right to protest is an element of the right to freedom of expression and assembly. On the one hand, that is being championed under the Bill of Rights consultation and the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, but on the other hand, it is being severely restricted in this Bill, so there is an internal inconsistency there as well.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q May I ask about the serious disruption prevention orders in clause 12? As I understand it, there could be an application to the court by the authorities to prevent somebody from taking part in protests, even if they had not been convicted of something but are deemed to have been involved in disruption. I did have further details, but I did not realise I would be called so quickly; I have given the general gist of my point. Do you have a clear idea of how much would have to be proved? If you are applying for an order on the basis that someone has been involved in something but they have never been convicted of it—let us assume they have not been taken to court and acquitted of it—I guess the idea is that they would be known to the police as having been involved in previous protests. How would you see that panning out? Could they find themselves being subjected to this process just because they have been photographed at previous protests at which other people committed disruptive acts? To what extent is it a collective thing? Or would it have to be proved that an individual had done something?

“Disruption” is such a vague term. What would a person have to have done for the police to be able to go down this route? I should probably ask the Minister, because I think the answer at the moment is that we do not really know, but how do you see this panning out?

Stephanie Needleman: I cannot see if Martha and Ollie are indicating that they will answer, but I can kick off, if that is helpful.

I think you have hit the nail on the head in raising the vagueness of when these serious disruption prevention orders can be imposed. They can be imposed not necessarily on conviction, as you said. The orders can cover an incredibly broad range of circumstances. Under clause 13(2)(a)(v), all you need to prove is that on two separate occasions somebody

“caused or contributed to the carrying out by any other person”—

they do not even have to have done the act even themselves; it could be done by someone else—

“activities related to a protest that resulted in, or were likely to result in, serious disruption”.

You do not need to have carried out the

“activities related to a protest”;

you just have to have “caused or contributed” to them. Those are incredibly vague and broad terms; they could cover almost anything done to assist someone doing anything related to a protest. For example, it could be driving somebody to a protest, or to shops selling paint or glue, if the person the glue is sold to subsequently glues themselves to something.

Linked to that, there does not seem to be any requirement for the person to have had knowledge that the protest activities were going to cause serious disruption when they “caused or contributed” to the carrying out of those activities. That could capture a vast range of behaviour.

Public Order Bill (First sitting)

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 9th June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Anne McLaughlin and, if there is time, Rupa Huq, but we have to finish at 12.15 pm.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

Q Thank you, and good afternoon. I had four questions, but I will keep it to two. I want to look at the offence of being equipped to lock on, which the Bill creates. That is where an individual has an object connected with locking on. How will the police decide what objects are connected with locking on, and could you give me some less obvious examples? A big chain with a padlock is fairly obvious, but there are more everyday items that people could have for legitimate purposes or for locking on. What are they, and how does a police officer decide?

Chris Noble: I do not want to broadcast too easily what people might want to use, but it is a good challenge. There will be very obvious elements, such as bamboo poles or scaffolding, which would probably give us a bit of a hint. But you are right: there are other, more innocuous items, such as bicycle locks—clearly, there are many cyclists around—glue and so forth. It will have to be very context-specific. It may well be relevant to other behaviours at the time—what else is going on, and have we picked up something on social media? It will be down to individual discretion. Again, this is not about criminalising people. The outcome we are looking for is minimising disruption, so the policing focus will be around how we do that, as opposed to how we criminalise someone for having an item that can be very difficult to prove exactly what it is for.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Q I would love to follow on from that, but I will not. The next thing I want to ask about are serious disruption prevention orders. The HMICFRS report said:

“We agree with the police and Home Office that such orders would neither be compatible with human rights legislation nor create an effective deterrent.”

Do you agree with that? If not, could you say why, and how issuing one of these to someone without any criminal conviction is compatible with human rights legislation?

Chris Noble: The language is slightly different, albeit the concept is broadly similar—HMICFRS was looking at and discussing protest banning orders. From a policing point of view, unless we knew the exact circumstances of the individual it would be hard to say how exactly the orders could be justified. As I alluded to earlier, we would see them as potentially being relevant to more persistent and reckless offenders when other methods of intervening were not seen as successful or were not capable. The standard tests on proportionality would be applied, and ultimately it would be a matter for the relevant judge to make a decision as to how they could be justified or not. I would not rule out them ever being used—I see it very much as a top-end tactic or power—but I would not want to preclude the creativity and ingenuity of protesters meaning the orders might well be the only thing left open to us.

[The Chair]

Mr Noble, I wanted to allow you to finish that answer, but that brings us to the end of our allotted time. Thank you.

Examination of Witnesses

John Groves and Nicola Bell gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

Thank you.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Q Good afternoon to both of you. My question is for John. In your written evidence, you stress several times that the protests that you face are often unlawful. If Nicola agrees, I am happy for her to answer as well. If they are unlawful, that means that the legislation already exists to prevent or stop these protests, otherwise they would not be considered unlawful. In your view, what is it that stops those existing laws being implemented, and what is it about this proposed legislation that will make it more likely to be implemented?

John Groves: I come back to the tunnel point I made earlier. I assume that those that participate in going on to land and trespassing on land and digging tunnels know that they are breaking the law. but they do not see the current law as a significant deterrent to stop them from doing that. The police will always seek the balance between lawful protest and the rights of the landowner or whoever. Invariably, that often means issues with access to sites.

Access to some of our sites has been delayed for about eight hours. We cannot do any work. We cannot move vehicles in or out of our sites, because protesters are sat down outside at the access point, sometimes locked on, sometimes not. The police are there but they will not take action because they are allowing the right to protest. Because the protestors are not on HS2 land, we cannot do anything about that. We cannot move them on—on the public highway, only the police can move them on.

My sense is that this Bill, if enacted, will provide a deterrent effect for the protestors. I come back to the safety point—I am sorry to keep going on about tunnelling. Four people in a tunnel is such a serious thing; I am concerned that we will have a fatality at some point in the future. We have been really lucky. We have had four or five tunnel incidents and we have yet to have any serious injury, but I suspect it will come one day, if it continues in the way it is going. If we look at our data, we are seeing protestors turning to tunnelling more readily. In the operation we have just run, there were four shafts on one piece of land; they moved on to another piece of land very quickly and they started to dig a tunnel. We were able to get in quickly and move them on. That is my principal concern.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Do you want to respond, Nicola? You do not have to.

Nicola Bell: No, it is the same as what I was talking about before. It is about the fact that the police recognised that there was nothing that would stop somebody just keeping on doing this. They could arrest them, but it was a low-level criminal offence and ultimately that was not going to deter what we were seeing, which was pretty unprecedented, really—that level of protest in the south-east of England over the tail end of last year.

[Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Q My question is to Nicola Bell. The Bill intends to make deliberate interference with key national infrastructure a criminal offence. As we have just touched on, Dover has several pieces of key infrastructure, such as the national strategic road network, the M2/A2 and the M20/A20, and the port of Dover itself, which transits about a fifth of all our goods. In recent years, the port and the strategic road network have been targeted by extremists on several occasions. We have mentioned the 2021 incident, which saw people gluing themselves to tankers and closed down the port and the M2 and M20. Going right back to September 2019, we had a similar incident with extreme protestors that saw the port completely shut down and disruption to and closure of the A20 and M20.

I was hoping you could expand on your earlier answer to give the Committee more of a feel for the impact of this kind of traffic disruption on the Kent and Dover economy and its importance to the strategic network for the nation, and for some of the safety and other challenges in dealing with these incidents that are different from the ordinary traffic disruption that your team deal with on a more regular basis.

Nicola Bell: The bounds of my responsibility would be, for example, the traffic officers that you see as they patrol the network. On the day of a protest, our role would be to try and create a safe space for the police to then get in and do their job. For example, on the day that they protested down in Dover, that was about protecting the area to allow the police to get specialist people in to get protestors off the top of the tanker and to therefore get the port open again and get things running.

On your point about the economy, as I mentioned earlier, 80% of domestic freight still uses road, so that is a pretty big impact on the economy. We know that most of our goods come in and out of the port of Dover, so therefore the roads they take—the M20, the A20 and the A2—are very significant indeed. Ultimately, the cost also relates to people not getting to where they need to be on time—whether that is missed appointments or freight not getting to where it needs to get to on time. I do not have an exact figure for the impact on the economy. I know that some of that has been worked on, and we can perhaps provide that to the Committee in writing afterwards.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Bridgen]

Q My questions are for Mr Groves. I will declare that I am no fan of HS2. Indeed, I voted against it at every opportunity I had in the House. However, as we all know, the majority of the House approved the project. Many of my concerns are about the spiralling cost of HS2. Could you tell the Committee again the costs of security measures for HS2 and removing protesters? Do you have any estimate of what the savings would be to the taxpayer if the Bill is enacted?

John Groves: It is not just standard security for a site, which you would expect to see anywhere. The direct costs of protester activity to the taxpayer up to the end of March were £126 million. We estimate that by the end of next year, that could in a worst-case scenario reach £200 million.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Q My question is for Mr Groves. If tunnelling is the biggest issue for HS2, are you surprised that it has just been added on as an amendment, given that it is so important? What that does is cut out the consultation—there has been no consultation on it —so are you surprised that it has just been added on?

John Groves: Certainly, looking at the Bill when it was published, the things we have seen and discussed today are important. The introduction of the tunnelling amendment is very positive from our perspective. I have not got any comment on the timing of it.

[Anne McLaughlin]

I suppose that is a question for the Minister, but I am not allowed to ask the Minister.

[The Chair]

We are questioning the witnesses at this stage. In due course, I am sure you will have the opportunity to question the Minister.

Public Order Bill

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 23rd May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

“A little inconvenience is more acceptable than a police state”—not my words, but those of a police officer consulted by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services on proposals in the Bill. I agree with the sentiment.

People are fleeing war in Ukraine and multiple other countries. The Home Secretary could be focused on sorting out the dangerously long time it is taking to get them to safety. She could be putting her energy into fixing the chaos at the Passport Office. She could be using her power to solve the supply chain issues that are pushing up food prices, which have made things unaffordable for many on these islands. Instead, she is bringing back populist—according to YouGov and Daily Express polls, at least—draconian, anti-human rights policies that were rejected only a matter of weeks ago in the other place. The reason for that is anyone’s guess. Is it to distract from the aforementioned failings of her Department? To raise her profile for when the Prime Minister surely, inevitably, has to stand down? Or just because she can?

Make no mistake: this, to quote Liberty, is

“a staggering escalation of the Government’s clampdown on dissent”.

It is at odds with people’s right to freedom of thought, belief and religion; freedom of expression; and freedom of assembly and association. For some, it will also lead to a clampdown on their right to respect for private and family life. Those are all rights we enjoy through the Human Rights Act 1998, but I do not expect this Government or many of their Back Benchers to care, because they want to tear that Act up and define the rights that they think we should enjoy.

However, I think that the people out there, who after all elected us, have the right to know that this Government want to control what they think, believe and say. This Bill allows the state to stop and search people who are not suspected of a single wrongdoing. It could lead to someone who has committed no crime having to report to certain places at certain times. I would be interested to hear who they will report to in Scotland, and what consultation has taken place with the Scottish Government on that. The Bill could mean people out there, again having committed no offence, having to wear an electronic tag, and having every single move they make monitored 24/7. That is sinister. The Home Secretary did not like it when the Opposition said this, but it bears striking similarities to what happens in Russia and Belarus. It is all about oppressing and controlling people. It is the stuff of conspiracy theories no more; this is the menacing new reality if you do not agree with the Conservative Government.

Big Brother Watch is concerned that the Bill takes us one step closer to becoming a surveillance state. That may be ideologically in line with this Government’s desire to control the people, but is it necessary? Will it work?

[Kit Malthouse]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Anne McLaughlin]

No, I am not giving way. There is widespread acceptance that the answer to both of those questions is no. Again,

“a little inconvenience is more acceptable than a police state”.

It is not just the one police officer who felt that way. Her Majesty’s inspectorate consulted widely on these powers as early as 2020 and they were rejected across the board, not just because they were incompatible with human rights legislation, but because police concluded that they would not be an effective deterrent. So what is the point?

Existing legislation is already heavily weighted in favour of the authorities, and the 2022 Act has made that even more the case. The former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), said in 2018 that,

“it is a long-standing tradition that people are free to gather together and to demonstrate their views. This is something to be rightly proud of.”

He was right: it was something to be rightly proud of. Where a crime is committed, the police already have the powers to act so that people feel protected. Where there is a clear need to protect critical infrastructure or transport hubs, the UK already has an array of legislation that allows that to happen, as the former Home Secretary said. The Public Order Act 1986 gives the police powers to place restrictions on protests and, in some cases, prohibit those that threaten to cause serious disruption to public order. There is an array of criminal offences that could apply to protesters, including aggravated trespass or obstruction of a highway.

Despite that, the Government waited until the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill had completed its passage through this House to slip much of what we have before us today into that Bill at the last minute, when it was in the House of Lords—and the Lords roundly rejected it. Instead of accepting the defeat, one week later, the Government regurgitated most of the measures into the Bill before us today. The Home Secretary should accept that these draconian measures have already been rejected by Parliament and respect the democratic process. After all, this Government keep telling Scotland to do likewise, although the issue we intend to revisit—the matter of Scotland’s independence—was last put before the people eight years ago, not just last month.

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

We must remember that at the time of the Scottish referendum, the SNP leadership promised that it was a once-in-a-generation referendum. The passage of eight years can hardly be regarded as that, can it?

[Anne McLaughlin]

What we have here is a once-in-a-fortnight opportunity to bring back legislation that has been rejected in this place. The Government expect us to accept the result of the referendum eight years ago, despite having tested the alternative and despite a series of promises being broken subsequent to Scotland voting no. Why is it acceptable for them to repackage measures a week after they were rejected, even though there has been no time to assess the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 for effectiveness, human rights compatibility, or the police’s ability to manage those extensive new powers?

On the matter of Scotland, yes, the Bill and its powers apply to events taking place in here in England and in Wales, but as I said repeatedly throughout proceedings on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, I and every SNP Member will defend the right of the people of Scotland to peacefully protest against decisions made on our behalf by another Government, in another country, who were not elected by the people of Scotland. Crucially, we will defend the right of the people of Scotland to protest where that Government sit—right here, at the seat of power. The people of Scotland have come to London many times in their thousands to protest against the illegal invasion of Iraq, the billions squandered on nuclear weapons stationed without our permission on the west coast of Scotland, and the daylight robbery foisted on the women who, when they reached state pension age, discovered that the age had gone up and they would not be receiving their state pension after all. We can stand in the middle of Glasgow or outside the Scottish Parliament all we like—and we do—but the Scottish Parliament cannot change any of those things, no matter whether they want to or not.

I will defend the right of my constituents to stand outside this place and make their voices heard, and I will defend their right to not be subjected to the outrageous measures proposed here today—measures such as the serious disruption prevention orders, which can be imposed on people whether or not they have committed an offence. It is these orders that allow for reporting and for GPS monitoring. Remember, an individual does not have to have committed an offence to be subject to one of these orders, and anyone who fails to fulfil one of the obligations can be criminalised and subjected to imprisonment for up to 51 weeks. Similar legislation in Belarus allows sentences of up three years, so no doubt the Government will tell us to think ourselves lucky.

There are also the locking-on measures. My constituent Christine lives in Springburn, and she is a campaigner in the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign. She never wanted to be any kind of campaigner, but her state pension was taken from her and she felt compelled to act. If she and other WASPI women come to London to protest, or even just to visit London, and she has glue in her bag because she is a crafter but does not use it, can she be charged? Could she go to jail for 51 weeks? Can the Home Secretary guarantee that she would not? No, she cannot. And how would the glue be found in the first place? It would be found because the Bill also has measures such as suspicionless stop and search. Christine, in her mid-60s and a model citizen, could be stopped and searched regardless of suspicion, just because of where she is and where they think she might go and what she might do—but Christine is not the target, is she?

We already know that stop and search has a disproportionate impact on people who are black; they are seven times more likely to be stopped and searched. But when it comes to suspicionless stop and search, they are 14 times more likely to be stopped and searched. Is it a coincidence that all this legislation to stop people protesting came on the back of an uprising of movements like the Black Lives Matter movement? The important thing about Black Lives Matter is that it was not led by well-meaning white allies like me; it was and is led by campaigners who are black—those whose lives are devastated by those who do not believe that their lives matter as much as the lives of white people.

My partner was the founder of Black Lives Matter Scotland. I have been taken aback by the number of people who, over the past couple of years, have approached him and told him that they never spoke of what they experienced as a black person on these islands until Black Lives Matter. Some of them living in remote areas said that, at times, they thought they might be the only black person in Scotland, but suddenly they found a community who got it, and it transformed their lives and the way they thought about themselves. That is why it is so important to encourage movements like that, but that, along with the nerve of environmental campaigners—trying to save the planet, for goodness’ sake; how dare they—is likely one of the reasons why they annoy this Government so much. If not, what is the excuse for suspicionless stop and search, which the Government know will disproportionately impact black people?

Other than the morality or immorality of this Bill, as with other Bills I have worked on, I am concerned that the terms used are not sufficiently precise. It is all left to be defined by the Secretary of State, which is worrying, given the length of debate on “serious disruption” in the Police, Crime and Sentencing Bill. There is so much uncertainty about where the threshold for serious disruption lies—legal uncertainty being the opposite of what we should be striving for if we are to respect the rule of law.

The Bill is also excessively broad and the pre-emptive nature of it is disturbing. Have you ever watched a film called “Minority Report”, Madam Deputy Speaker? It had pre-cogs who could see into the future, and people would be arrested before they committed a crime. It sounds ridiculous—[Interruption.] I hear a Conservative Back Bencher say, “Good idea.” It sounds ridiculous and so does he. It sounds far-fetched, but in reality if this Bill passes you could be arrested, Madam Deputy Speaker, you could be charged, and you could end up in prison for something that you might have done.

I have barely touched the surface in these remarks, but I will make one final point, which was raised by Justice. Referring to clause 10, Justice points out that, while the clause creates an offence if a person

“intentionally obstructs a constable in the exercise of the constable’s powers”

of stop and search, with or without suspicion, the Met’s own guidance following the tragic murder of Sarah Everard is that people ask “very searching questions” of the officer, and notes that

“it is entirely reasonable for you to seek further reassurance of that officer’s identity and intentions”.

Anyone who did that at or near a designated protest area, as defined by the police, could end up getting 51 weeks in prison, a fine, or both.

The right to protest is the lifeblood of any democracy. It allows us to hold the powerful to account, which is precisely why they do not want it. It allows us to actively participate and to organise in our communities. History shows us that it is protest that often underpins political, economic and social change. Some of the most fundamental freedoms that we now have were won in spite of Governments. I will end by repeating what I said at the start: this Bill is all about oppressing and controlling the people out there, and they need to know about it. The stuff of conspiracy theories no more; this is the menacing new reality for those who do not agree with the Conservative Government. We should all be very afraid.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Gullis]

My right hon. Friend makes a fantastic point. Let us think about the people who were not able to get to their cancer screening appointment; the children who were not able to be in school because of lockdown and who are having their education in the classroom—with their expert classroom teacher—further delayed; the emergency services trying to go about their jobs, having to deal with protesters; and the police from as far away as Scotland coming down to London, meaning that they are not on the streets of the local areas that they should be serving, allowing criminals potentially to run wild there because of some selfish individuals.

[Anne McLaughlin]

The hon. Gentleman keeps going on about criminals, saying “We’ve got to get rid of these criminals” and “We’ve got to do something about these criminals.” He is characterising an awful lot of people as criminals. If they are already criminals, that means that they have committed a crime and have already been charged and found guilty—or he thinks that they should have been, so why have they not been? Incidentally, the Bill creates an awful lot of civil offences. Those are not criminal either, so why and on what basis is he calling such people criminals?

[Jonathan Gullis]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. She says that I talk about criminals. She referred earlier to the Black Lives Matter protest, and I have absolutely no issue with having that important debate about racial inequality in society and looking at what more can be done. However, when a particular individual went up on the Cenotaph and tried to set alight the Union flag, as though it was somehow making some sort of demonstration—this is a memorial to our glorious dead who made the ultimate sacrifice and gave their tomorrow for our today—that was criminal behaviour. That is why that needs to be called out and why I introduced the Desecration of War Memorials Bill, which was accepted by the Government and became part of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. I did so despite the sniping from the Labour party, which claimed that I was more interested in protecting statues—it was not statues; it was war memorials to the glorious dead and war graves so that every village, every town and every city of our country remembers those who made those important sacrifices. I am someone who lost a friend when he was serving his nation in Afghanistan. That is why I felt so incensed by those disgusting, vile scenes that I saw up on the Cenotaph.

That is why any Opposition Member who does not understand why this Bill is important is seriously out of touch with the people of this country. It is the silent majority, time and again. The problem is that the Labour party is obsessed with Twitter being somehow the mouthpiece of Britain, or with any other woke, virtue-signalling thing such as Channel 4 that Labour seems to believe must be right on every single issue. That is the problem with the Labour party and why it was so overwhelmingly rejected by the people of Stoke-on-Trent—in Stoke-on-Trent North, Stoke-on-Trent Central and Stoke-on-Trent South, for the first time.

If Labour Members want any more proof, they should look at the May local elections in Newcastle-under-Lyme. Labour was touted to take control of that council in every single national poll and every single national newspaper. The Labour party was openly briefing that it would win that council. The Labour leader of the group at that time openly said at the count that that was their No. 1 target council, and that Labour had thrown all the extra money and resources at it. What happened? The Conservatives took that council with seven gains. They took it from no overall control to being Conservative-led for the first time in that council’s history, while Labour went backwards. If that is not a wake-up signal, I do not know what is.

Foreign National Offender Removal Flights

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

My hon. Friend is right to raise that point. It will of course be known to her that I am a Minister who spans both the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. I am having discussions with the Minister with responsibility for prisons on what more we can do to ensure that individuals who should not be in our country are no longer here for any longer than is absolutely necessary, and that we create greater awareness around release from prison, and removal and deportation from our country where appropriate for the circumstances of individual cases.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

May I say how disrespectful it is that Conservative Members keep talking about lawyers who are, after all, simply protecting people under the laws of this country? It is childish in the extreme that every time we mention that all we hear is, “Lefty lawyers, lefty lawyers.” Who cares what their politics are? They protect people according to the law. One of the people who was taken off the flight because they were protected by a lawyer has severe learning disabilities. In his original trial the judge said he was not a ringleader but had in fact been dragged into it by the ringleader, so he should be protected. Does the Minister class him as dangerous? Does he think that the lawyer was wrong? Does he think the law was wrong to allow that man to stay here? Will he join me in condemning these childish attacks on a very proud profession?

[Tom Pursglove]

As I alluded to in answering an earlier question, there is a proper process in place that checks for vulnerability and ensures that those cases are dealt with appropriately. I, of course, think it is right and proper that people have access to legal advice and, of course, the legal profession and due process are absolutely crucial to ensuring that these matters are handled sensitively, appropriately and correctly in accordance with the law. We cannot continue to have a completely unbalanced situation where we see abuses of the system and we see that behaviour rewarded. I have to say to you, Mr Speaker, that my eyes water when I see some of the case studies that are put in front of me and some of the instances we are dealing with in the system. It is not acceptable. It is not okay. There is a need for action and that is why we are taking the steps we are.

Preventing Crime and Delivering Justice

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

Nobody should feel unsafe on the streets or in their home, which is why preventing crime is probably the most important part of this Queen’s Speech. Each time we debate the subject in this place, the Labour party seems to side with the criminals. I am not sure why that is, but it seems to happen every single time. The Queen’s Speech serves as a reminder to everyone that the Conservatives are the only party that is serious about law and order in the UK.

The vast majority of decent, hard-working people in this country will welcome the new public order Bill. Every week we see mindless people who have nothing better to do than wreak havoc on our streets, motorways and petrol stations. Frankly, the hard-working people of this country are fed up to the back teeth of these people disrupting lives and destroying property.

When I have been out and about, I have seen people gluing themselves to property, digging up lawns, throwing paint and performing zombie-like dances in the middle of the road with no regard for the decent, hard-working people of this country. [Interruption.] Zombie dances, a bit like Strangers Bar at night with my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis). These people have no regard for the decent, hard-working people of this country, and their guerrilla tactics are disrupting emergency workers and putting lives at risk. The public have had enough.

We were pretty good at handing out fines during lockdown. We dished out big fines, some justified and some not, and I hope the Government will consider handing out bigger fines to these public nuisances who think it is a good idea to damage petrol stations. I suggest a £10,000 fine, going up to 20 grand. That will teach them. Going back to their mum and dad with a 10 grand fine might be the deterrent they need.

Let us remind ourselves of what the Conservative party has been up to in government. We are recruiting 20,000 new police officers, and there are already more than 13,000 new police officers on our streets, making our streets safer. We have enshrined the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 in law, giving the police extra powers to prevent crime and keep dangerous criminals off our streets. The Act stops the automatic early release of dangerous, violent and sexual offenders, widens the scope of police powers such as stop and search, and places a legal duty on local authorities to work together with fire and rescue services, the police and criminal justice agencies. Labour voted against the Act, and I will tell the House what else Labour voted against: everything in the Act.

In Ashfield we are really benefiting from a Conservative Government. We have just had £550,000 from the safer streets fund, with which we are putting up CCTV in some really dodgy areas of my town. This will make women and young girls feel safe. There will be safe hotspots where they can reach out for help. It is wonderful news for one of the most deprived areas of my constituency. We are using the fund to put up new security gates to secure alleyways, which are antisocial behaviour hotspots. The funding is making residents feel safe in their own home. It is real action. On top of that, we have new police officers in the Operation Reacher teams in Eastwood and Ashfield, which are going out to take the most undesirable people off our streets and lock them up.

The police had always been a little frustrated that the sentencing has not been enough for these criminals, but we have sorted that with the 2022 Act. People will be locked up for longer, and so they should be. It makes people in Ashfield and Eastwood feel safer, it makes me feel safer and it makes my family feel safer. When these criminals are arrested and taken through the court system, it is only right that they should be put away for as long as possible to make us all feel safe.

Labour also has no ideas about the illegal crossings by dinghies and boats coming over the channel. Labour Members seem to be confused, as they do not know the difference between an economic migrant and a genuine asylum seeker, which is a shame. My constituents in Ashfield would put them right. If Labour Members come up to my Wetherspoons in Kirkby, my constituents will tell them the difference—they are pretty good at it.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

If, as the hon. Gentleman says, Opposition Members do not know the difference between economic migrants and, as he calls them, genuine asylum seekers, the Home Office does not, either. The Home Office has concluded that the vast majority of people in those boats are refugees and should be recognised as such. What does he have to say to the Home Secretary?

[Lee Anderson]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention and I think that what she describes is the fault of the old, failing asylum system; when people get here, they know how to fill the forms out and they have these lefty lawyers who say, “Put this, this and this.” So they fill the forms out and, hey presto, about 80% get asylum status, and it is wrong. It is a burden on the taxpayer, these people are abusing the system. It is a bit like some benefit cheats—they do it, don’t they? They abuse the system, saying that they are disabled when they are not. [Interruption.] Yes, they do. Come on, let’s be right about it.

Make no mistake: if that lot on the Opposition Benches got in power, perish the thought, this Rwanda plan would be scrapped within five minutes. They want to see open borders. They want to let anybody in. [Interruption.] However, I welcome the sensible comments on food bank use made by the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), who is not in his place. I would welcome any Opposition Member coming to visit my local food bank in Ashfield, where I help out on a regular basis. We have a great project in place at the moment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

It seems only a matter of weeks since we were in this place fighting against the UK Government’s now-successful attempts to restrict some of our most precious and long-held fundamental rights. It seems only a matter of weeks because it is. In the previous Session, we battled against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which will strip people of their right to protest, among other terrifying measures; the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022, which has serious implications for access to justice and the accountability of public bodies; and, finally, the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, which is set to treat asylum seekers and refugees in ways that I can describe only as nightmarish. It is exhausting to stand here today facing an almost identical set of challenges in the new legislative programme. Rather than see the Queen’s Speech as a unique opportunity to help people to tackle the cost of living crisis and put some compassion back into the system, the UK Government are just adding to their attacks on people’s rights.

A constituent and friend of mine, Joanna, is a cleaner. On Monday, she said:

“So wages have gone up and my company added a wee bit extra, so not too bad. But today I got my wage slip and my national insurance contribution is now more than my income tax contribution, and it’s taken me back to exactly what I was earning before.”

What in the Queen’s Speech will tackle the issues that everyone out there is worrying about? Energy bills are spiralling out of control, the cost of the weekly shop is absolutely skyrocketing and the impending climate crisis is ever-present. There is nothing in the Queen’s Speech to tackle any of that. It is being left to the likes of my constituent Mandy Morgan, who dreamed up the Scottish Pantry Network and has opened nine shops in the past year. The network charges people a £2.50 membership fee for £15-worth of food, and that food is fresh fruit and vegetables and fresh meat and fish. The network is not just for poor people; it was set up for environmental reasons as well and tackles food waste. When people go into the network’s beautiful shops, they do not have to worry that somebody is going to know that they are on their uppers. I pay tribute to Mandy Morgan for everything she has done and to all the volunteers and staff who work for the network. There are, though, troubles ahead for them, because they are struggling to access the food that they need, and an increasing number of people need their help.

Instead of tackling such issues, the Government are attacking people’s rights. We know the old saying about divide and conquer: who do the Government want people out there to blame for all this? As usual, it is those who are already the least powerful and often completely voiceless. This Government thought it was perfectly acceptable to mention, alongside reference to those poor, desperate refugees who are forced to cross the channel in the most perilous of conditions, what they say are plans to help the police to make the streets safer—in the same paragraph of the Queen’s Speech. That is a consciously cynical ploy to conflate the two in people’s minds. It is a deliberate attack on asylum seekers and refugees.

This Tory Government’s shameless propaganda says that anyone who flees persecution and tries to get to safety on these islands is a criminal. And it is working: many people on these islands are doing everything they can to welcome and support refugees—I thank and pay tribute to them, and I thank God for them—but many people repeat the tropes that the Government have so cynically created. It is cynical, deliberate and strategic. We need only to listen back to some of the similarly worded interventions in the last debate on the Nationality and Borders Bill from Government Back Benchers who had never previously shown an interest.

Today, the attacks have moved to those of us who support refugees. I was disgusted to hear the Home Secretary refer to those of us on the Opposition Benches as defenders of “murderers” and “paedophiles”. I understand that it is apparently okay to do that in this place as long as it is not directed at an individual, so I will be writing to her and asking her whether she believes me to be a defender of murderers and paedophiles. I encourage everyone in here to do the same because we deserve an answer.

This Queen’s Speech was primed to reinvigorate the Brexit vote, but perpetuating the myth that Brexit is somehow reclaiming our sovereignty is just ridiculous. Doing it at the cost of trashing our rights is plain scary.

I wish to talk briefly on three of the many Bills that I feel most concerned about in this Queen’s Speech. The first is the Bill of Rights. It is no secret that the Justice Secretary has a long-held disdain for human rights, or, to put it another way, for people having rights. His book, “The Assault on Liberty: What Went Wrong with Rights” is illuminating if not wholly depressing. Let me give one quote from it:

“The spread of rights has become contagious”—

well we can’t have that—

“and, since the Human Rights Act, opened the door to vast new categories of claims, which can be judicially enforced against the government through the courts”.

Let us not forget the footage from the same year, 13 years ago, which saw him look into the camera and say:

“I don’t support the Human Rights Act and I don’t believe in economic and social rights.”

Well, I do, as does my party, which is why human rights are entrenched in Scots law. I thank my lucky stars that we have them, more so now than ever. They make sure that, to some extent, we can all stand shoulder to shoulder in society, that we share some of the same rights of access to justice, and that we can all call out the Government—whether it be this one, the Welsh Government, the Scottish Government, past Labour Governments, future Labour Governments or any public body—when they act in a way that undermines our rights. Who on earth would want to do away with that? These are not some legal concepts out of reach for most; they are entrenched in our modern psyche, and people know that they can rely on them to protect them at their most vulnerable moments, or when they need to face the might of the state. That is what the Tories do not like. They do not want people to know that they can be held to account in the courts, and they do not want to be scrutinised. I predict that, when they are out of office, they will perform a complete U-turn on this.

I do love the positive spin though—the Bill of Rights will defend our freedom of speech. Really? That is just as long as we are not outside this place with a megaphone, or stood at the gates of a fracking site. Our freedom of speech will end right there if Government Members get their way. It is nonsense to imply that the perfectly functioning Human Rights Act has somehow stifled our freedom of speech when it has in fact codified protections for freedom of both speech and assembly under articles 10 and 11 of the European convention on human rights. As with so much legislation forced through this place, there is little evidence to support much of what the Government claim in respect of reform of the Human Rights Act. There is an agenda; there are facts, and then there are Government Ministers determined to bend, manipulate and skew the evidence to fit.

Why should the Government be allowed to dictate who can access justice? That is completely at odds with the rule of law and our international obligations to anyone who seeks refuge on these islands. When will the Government realise that this is not what people want? People are lying under immigration control vans to stop deportations. People are physically running to gather together to protect others from Border Force officers. We all know about Kenmure Street in Pollokshields, but last week, on the day of the council elections, SNP council candidates Marianne Mwiki and now Councillor Simita Kumar, stopped campaigning for themselves and staged their own Kenmure Street protest, along with activists from Edinburgh SNP and hundreds of their fellow citizens from all parties and none, when Border Force vans came looking for someone. We just have to look at the number of emails that have come flooding into our inboxes on the Rwanda plan to know that this is not what our constituents want.

Of obvious concern to anyone in Scotland is the adverse effect that this Bill will have on the devolution settlement. The rights enshrined in the Human Rights Act are at the very core of the settlement and, as Scotland’s Equalities Minister Christina McKelvie MSP said this morning:

“Changes must not be made without the explicit consent of the Scottish Parliament.”

The Scottish Government want to enhance and extend rights protection, but the UK Government want the opposite. What could the solution possibly be? We will no doubt be debating this for many months and, although we may be exhausted with it, we are very much up for that debate. However, I do not understand why anyone would believe this measure will somehow cut our ties with the European courts; rather than our rights being brought home, we will be forced to go to Strasbourg to enforce them. Our human rights should not be embroiled in the Tory Brexit fantasy.

On the Public Order Bill, it is no surprise to see the eleventh-hour amendments to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 that were vehemently voted down by the House of Lords returning in the Queen’s Speech. Is this the way it is going to work now—democratically rejected clauses will be repackaged and grouped together to form next year’s legislation? If the Government can do that after just a few weeks of being told no, what on earth is their argument against Scotland’s right to go to the people and revisit the question on Scotland’s independence after nine long years? They are leaving themselves with no arguments for refusing a section 30 order; that will not stop them refusing of course, but they have no valid arguments. It is one rule for this Tory Government and another for everyone else. It is a brazen thing for the Home Secretary to do. These clauses did not go unnoticed by the public; they sparked outrage and protest during the passage of the policing Act, and rightly so. The Government are deluded if they think that the people who were willing to stand outside this place and risk arrest and imprisonment are going to lie down and accept this Public Order Bill. They are also deluded if they think that those Members on this side of the House and in the other place will roll over and accept defeat.

[Kit Malthouse]

One of the arguments put in the House of Lords around the clauses the hon. Lady refers to is that they had not been adequately scrutinised by the House of Commons; that is the main argument behind why they were knocked out and, by bringing them back, we will be allowing that scrutiny. I am interested in the hon. Lady’s view, however. As she will know, there is currently a protest outside a fuel depot in Scotland where protestors have locked themselves on. Does she support the arrest and removal of those protestors, and their prosecution, and if they are prosecuted and convicted, what penalty does she think they should get?

[Anne McLaughlin]

The Government are constantly doing this: they are constantly trying to suggest that, because we do not like the draconian laws that they want to bring in, we somehow support everybody’s right to do whatever they want without any penalty. I am not going to get dragged into that. Instead I tell the Minister that we will continue to fight this issue, because what they are doing is wrong; no matter how dispiriting it gets, we will continue to fight them. Today, on the 41st anniversary of the death of the late, great Bob Marley, I would like to use one of his quotes to explain why:

“The people who were trying to make this world worse are not taking the day off. Why should I?”

We should not, and we absolutely will not. If the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 was a step too far, this Public order Bill is a leap into the realms of a dystopian nightmare.

I want to take a moment to say how pleased I was to see my friend and colleague my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (Amy Callaghan) back making a speech yesterday. It was emotional for all of us, and not least for her parents and her partner—her fiancé—who were watching up in the Gallery. I was particularly pleased to hear my hon. Friend express support for a fully inclusive ban on conversion therapy for all LGBT people. I absolutely concur with her: absolutely nobody should be subjected to conversion so-called therapy.

I will finish my remarks by saying that I am disappointed. Of course much of this Queen’s Speech was predictable, but these measures are not manifesto pledges becoming reality; they are the result of personal agendas and are attacks on the most vulnerable people on these islands. As I asked earlier, where is the compassion? Where is the helping hand or the reassuring support from a Government who are at least partly responsible for the cost of living crisis?

Scotland wants to do things differently—as, I appreciate, do many non-Scottish National party Members on the Opposition Benches. We do want to offer that helping hand; we do want to act with care and compassion; and we do want to welcome people in need, not throw up the shutters and turn them away. The Scottish Government do all of those things, but they do so with one hand tied behind their back. I am ready for this year’s challenges but I am also raring for our independence referendum, because when the people of Scotland recognise that the only way to stop tinkering around the edges of dreadful Tory policies and to stop having to spend millions of pounds on mitigating the effect of those policies, thus leaving the Scottish Government with a lot less money to do the things that we as a country want to do, and they reach the conclusion that the only way to have full control over the kind of country we are is to vote yes to independence, I predict that that is exactly what they will do.

HM Passport Office Backlogs

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

Just to be clear, a range of private contractors are already involved in the passport process. The bit that is not undertaken by a private contractor is the decision itself. The customer advice line is run by Teleperformance, a private company. As I have already described, its performance is unacceptable and we are engaged with it.

There is already quite extensive use of the private sector in the process. To be fair, Thales and others have stepped up in the record output that we now require, which is far beyond what would have been expected in a month two or three years ago. The private sector is already being used in the vast majority of the processes in the Passport Office.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

Like many other Members, I have constituents and family members who have lost a lot of money and had to cancel plans because of the passport delays. I share the concerns for those people, but I want to talk about the workers who, yet again, are about to be blamed.

It is a thankless task to work for a Government agency at the best of times but—worse—they are now being blamed for the Government’s failings. Could it be that they are under-resourced, understaffed and suffering from stress from the pressure to do more faster? In Glasgow, many passport staff were forced into further stress when they were redeployed to process universal credit claims with just five days’ training when it would normally be six weeks’ training. Could that be part of the reason for the backlog? It is certainly another source of stress for them.

Those same workers face the public’s understandable anger, but it is being directed at the wrong place. The Government are throwing them to the wolves: Ministers are leaving notes on desks suggesting workers should work a little harder—and that from a Minister who is known to lie down on the Benches in this place when he is supposed to be at work—and, although I do not have the exact quote, the Prime Minister said something like, “If they don’t sort out this backlog, I will privatise the Boris out of them.” How did that go with rail, energy and water? Is that the plan? Was it the plan all along? Is that why the Government did not foresee this? The Opposition cannot be expected to foresee these things—[Interruption.] I hear coughing; I had better ask my last question. Is there any chance that we can simply respect workers by increasing capacity, decreasing threats against them and sorting out this sorry mess for everybody?

[Kevin Foster]

I start on a point of consensus by thanking the many staff who are working hard and saw a record output last month. It was 13% higher than the previous record, so we are talking about it beating that record not by one but by some distance. As I said, there are 500 extra staff and we are in the process of recruiting more; between January and March, 90% of applications were dealt with within six weeks; and support is there.

The redeployment that the hon. Lady mentioned took place at a time when passport demand was significantly down. It made sense to redeploy people away from a role where there was not the demand and on to things such as universal credit and the EU settlement scheme. To be clear, those staff have now fully returned to passport production, and on 1 April more than 4,000 staff were working on it. Yes, there are issues, particularly in relation to the unacceptable performance of the advice line, which is run by a private contractor, as I have already touched on.

We continue to put in place a range of measures. If people are to travel somewhere, we advise them to get their applications in now. We saw a strong level of applications yesterday. We continue to do the work we need to do and to expedite those cases in which people have compelling and compassionate reasons for travelling.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 25th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

Throughout the proceedings on this woefully drafted Bill, I have maintained that, although it is largely reserved to England and Wales, part 3 on protest will severely restrict anyone from Scotland, or indeed anyone across these islands, from exercising their fundamental and democratic right to protest. None of us can sit back and allow that to happen. What happens here in the coming days will outlive this Government, so the Scottish National party will vote against the Government motions to disagree with the Lords, who have worked tirelessly to help restore some balance to the Bill. I am seriously concerned about what will happen when the Bill is forced through the Lobby, and I know that that worries some Conservative Back Benchers who have been lobbying Members of the other place to allow the Commons the opportunity to think again on protest measures. We are back here to consider part 3 on protest, and rightly so.

The protest measures in the Bill have been the headline grabbers—the clauses most briefed on, tweeted on, reported and debated—and, most importantly, they are the clauses that people are concerned about, because they are a threat to our long-held right to have our voices heard. My office also receives hundreds of emails on a daily basis asking me to stand up and act against the threat to those rights. People are worried not just because of this Bill in particular—although it is terrifying—but because of the context in which it is being pushed through this place.

This week, we will debate the Elections Bill, the Nationality and Borders Bill and the Judicial Review and Courts Bill, each carrying its own threat to our fundamental rights. People know how this works: they know that the Government have seemingly unfettered powers to make any law that they want. Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb put it best when she said:

“Because they have a huge majority…they can afford not to care about how the Bills are written or about their content.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 31 March 2022; Vol. 820, c. 1707.]

The Bill is badly written. No well written legislation would require so many amendments—it borders on the ridiculous. When we are forced to create a database for amendments just to keep track, we know that fundamentally something has gone wrong at the front end. However, it is our job to amend, correct and stop badly drafted legislation and, whatever the Minister says, it is the second House’s job to have its say on that.

I will speak briefly on specific amendments, but I would like to make a general point: all the amendments under discussion clean up ambiguous and badly worded clauses that will, as the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), said, only force the police into making quasi-political decisions on the spot. Former police chiefs and senior officers have warned against the

“political pressure the Bill will place on frontline officers.”

It has become apparent through these debates that it is not more legislation or laws that the police need or want.

Lords Amendment 73 would remove sections of the Bill that allow the police to intervene and limit processions based on the criterion of noise. We have heard a lot about that today. The Government have got this wrong—they simply have. They have tried to make assurances that powers to act on noise will be used only in the most extreme circumstances, but it is all just too vague. As the shadow Minister said, what kind of law would ask a frontline police officer to assess the thickness of walls in an office or the kind of glazing in a building prior to intervening on a protest? Seriously! It is in the guidance, if Government Members opposite want to check it. Here is a quote from the guidance:

“A noisy protest outside an office with double glazing may not meet the threshold”.

It is not just the way a building is constructed that frontline officers might have to contend with, but the duration of the noise and the type of noise. The list goes on. This is ill-conceived and ill-defined. It will load pressure on to already pressurised police forces and simply will not work. And that is before we get to the crux of the matter: our right to protest is our democratic right. It is not for this Government or any successive Governments to take that away.

We continue to oppose the Government’s apparent concession to remove the term “serious unease” for the simple fact that it is nestled in badly drafted sections and has the unintentional—or possibly intentional—effect of lowering the threshold for police intervention. Removing the term would lower the threshold of “serious alarm or distress” to “alarm or distress”. My hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) eloquently made that point in a previous debate, and I stand by his remarks.

We supported Lords amendment 80, to remove clause 56 on public assemblies, and we continue to support it. This is yet another clause rife with hidden dangers, attempting to replace public order legislation that is operating perfectly well. The Public Order Act was careful to delineate and differentiate the conditions that could be imposed on static demonstrations, as opposed to a march or a moving protest, and that was sensible. That reflected the relative ease by which a static demonstration can be policed.

[Kit Malthouse]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point, but I am afraid I disagree with it. In Scottish jurisprudence, Scotland has an advantage over England in that it has a well-expressed and commonly used offence of nuisance. Would she support the use of this legislation in controlling nuisance emanating from a protest?

[Anne McLaughlin]

So many of us have already answered that on so many occasions. There already exists legislation and the powers for the police to control demonstrations that are not peaceful and out of control, but we are not talking about that. The proposed legislation allows the police to make decisions according to very spurious guidance. The removal of the distinction regarding statics demonstration could hand the police unfettered discretion to impose further conditions on static protests, such as the words and slogans that can be used on placards. That is ridiculous. Sometimes they are the best bits! I really wish I had the time to read out some of my favourite words and slogans that I have seen recently, but I do not think the Government would be too pleased about that.

Finally, I want to touch on Lords amendment 87, on one-person protests. The amendment removes the ability of the police to impose conditions on a one-person protest. That was rejected in the last round of ping-pong and the Lords have rightly asked for it to be reconsidered. I have twice now heard the Minister talk in derisory terms about the House of Lords because some of them are hereditary and none of them are elected. The SNP is opposed to the House of Lords on that basis, but his party is not and it puts people in there all the time. If that is the system he supports, he cannot really complain when they do the job they are asked to do. Are we really going to see a law passed today that will allow the might of the state to bear down on a single, individual protester? It is ridiculous, disproportionate and nothing short of bullying. And be careful anyone who even stops to chat to a protester, because they could be snared by the clause, too. How many times have we all stopped to chat to the wonderful array of protesters outside this place, whether we agree with them or not? Well, Madam Deputy Speaker, doing so could soon see you committing a criminal offence.

We are not impressed with the Government’s amendments to lay reports before the House with regard to changes to the Public Order Act. They are lip service posing as concessions. They are better than nothing, but they are not much better.

I understand that time is short, so I will finish with this: we support the Lords in their amendments and fundamentally disagree with the undemocratic way the Government are throwing their weight around. If the Government are intent on dissuading protest, they are intent on silencing voices. From the huffing and puffing coming from the Minister today it is clear he is no fan of democracy, so I am sure he will not mind if I tell him the Bill is undemocratic, unworkable and unfair.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I would be delighted to come to his constituency to do exactly that. Perhaps we can have a conservation about the safer streets fund, which will certainly assist with that issue.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

T9. I am getting sick and tired of the fact that every time any Opposition Member talks about our disgust with the “abandon people in Rwanda” scheme, Government Members start shouting, “What are your plans?” If they had paid any attention during the six full weeks of debate on the Nationality and Borders Bill or had read up on the multiple amendments that we tabled, which Conservative Members voted down, they would know what our plans are—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The question is meant to be to Ministers, not Back Benchers.

[Anne McLaughlin]

The main response to this issue should be safe and legal routes. The Government keep saying that they have them. I submitted a written question asking for the detail of all the routes available, and the detail of those routes fits on half a page, because there are practically none for the entire world.

[Priti Patel]

If the hon. Lady has read the new plan for immigration—I hope she has—she will be very clear about the Government’s policy on safe and legal routes. I have outlined today a number of safe and legal routes to which the Government have committed, including two routes for Ukrainian nationals and the two routes for those who fled Afghanistan last year.