Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th November 2021 Lords Chamber

The Government have introduced a series of measures which seriously call into question civil liberties in this country, in particular the right to protest. They have done so at a massively late stage in a Bill, and begun the discussion at midnight. If the Government had any sense of decorum, or wished to show some respect to this House and, more to the point, to the people of this country—who may demand action but also demand that the people who govern them act with care and consideration—they would let their legislators properly scrutinise the things that they put before them. We have not been given that chance. The Government should withdraw these amendments, and if they insist on bringing them back, doing so in a form that can be properly debated by both Houses of Parliament.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, gave some well-deserved compliments to my noble friend Lord Paddick, but he was not trying to improve these proposed clauses. He was trying to show why they should not go forward, and he did.

There are many points that puzzle me, but I will ask about two. First, on prevention orders, is the phrase “causing or contributing to” used elsewhere in legislation? Certainly, “contributing” is a vaguer term than I have come across elsewhere. Would it extend to financial contributions? Is a response to a crowdfunding appeal caught by it?

The second point, to which my noble friend Lord Beith referred, relates to Amendment 319J. It refers a person who

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

How does that fit with the advice given after Sarah Everard’s abduction and murder about requiring another constable to be called, flagging down a bus, and so on? I simply do not understand the policy.