Public Order Bill
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb ExcerptsTuesday 22nd November 2022
(2 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Public Order Act 2023 View all Public Order Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 61-II(a) Amendment for Committee (Supplementary to the Second Marshalled List) - (21 Nov 2022)
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I do not know if I am breaking the rules of the House in saying this, but I feel that some of the speakers in the last debate were slightly self-indulgent. I am appalled that we are still only on group 2. Would the Minister and the Whip take that back to the Chief Whip and the Leader of the House and suggest that people show a little more restraint in their agonising over certain bits of the Bill while somehow not agonising over the rest of it, which is plainly very similar to what they were arguing against?
The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has summed up extremely well. He often says things that I wish I had said. He was absolutely right to raise both the inherent potential racism in these measures and the prison population. We are already one of the most imprisoned nations in the world, even with Iran having corralled 15,000 or 16,000 protesters against its repressive regime. Adding to the prison population will be a complete folly.
I also oppose Clauses 10 and 11. I am very worried about Clauses 10 to 14, because they give the police extensive new powers to stop and search anyone in the vicinity of a protest and confiscate items from them. Under Clause 11, a police inspector can designate a whole area in which the police can stop and search anyone without suspicion. That means people taking part in a protest, people walking past, journalists—anyone in the area. That is ludicrous and repressive. It beggars belief that the Government think this is okay to include. It also includes stopping vehicles and searching them, again without suspicion.
My Amendment 101 exposes some of the risks. With this offence of locking on, any cyclist who has a bike lock in the vicinity of a protest could have it confiscated. This could even include a random person cycling past. Anyone cycling past is likely to have a bike lock on them, because if they are not cycling then the bike lock is likely to be on their bike. This exposes endless innocent cyclists to being stopped, searched and having their bike locks confiscated. There are similar risks for anyone who has glue, Sellotape or presumably anything that police do not like the look of—jam sandwiches or anything.
Like the other protest clauses in this Bill, this one is far too broadly drafted. The Government are so obsessed with fighting climate activists that they will expose anyone to being stopped and searched and having things confiscated. The Government are seeking in this Bill to make protest a crime instead of a right. That simply is not just.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester
My Lords, first, I declare my interest as co-chair of the National Police Ethics Committee for England and Wales, though I am speaking on my own behalf. I want to focus my remarks on the amendment opposing the question that Clause 12 stand part of the Bill, to which I am a signatory, but also on those opposing the questions that Clauses 10, 11, 13 and 14 stand part of the Bill. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for the way they have introduced this debate.
It is deeply concerning that the Bill seeks to extend suspicion-less stop and search powers to the context of protest. If brought forward, such measures would open a Pandora’s box for the further misuse of such powers that have in many contexts caused trauma, both physically and mentally, particularly to those in marginalised communities. The proposers of these clauses may have in mind the current environmental protesters, who appear, somewhat unusually, to include a large proportion of those from white, middle-class backgrounds, notably one of my own clergy. But history tells us that such powers, after a short time, are almost invariably and disproportionately used against minorities, especially ethnic minorities.
I would not be involved with the police in the way that I am if I was not passionate that our forces should gain and hold the confidence and respect of all sections of our society. But I know all too well how fragile that respect and confidence are. Police powers that are not grounded in suspicion create suspicion, and they create suspicion in those parts of society, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has so eloquently indicated, where we can least afford it.
We must note when considering the Bill’s creation of a new stop and search power in relation to specified lists of protest offences that there is—as has been referred to—no agreed position among police forces that such a power is either necessary or wanted. When you add to this the fact that the definition of “prohibited objects” is so broad—the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has referred to bike locks, but it could be posters, placards, fliers or banners—I am not sure about jam sandwiches, but I suspect it fits in somewhere; all could become suspect. How would the police ascertain that such objects were in fact for use at a protest? There are lots of legitimate reasons why you have household objects with you. The Joint Committee on Human Rights states:
“A suspicion of such an offence, even a reasonable one, in the course of a protest represents an unjustifiably low threshold for a power to require a person to submit to a search.”
There are serious risks here for people’s ability and willingness to exercise rights that are fundamental in a democratic society.
The Bill attempts to address what it refers to as “public nuisance”. But its scope is too broad—arguably, any form of protest risks “public nuisance”. Indeed, in these very halls of Parliament, four suffragettes chained themselves to statues to bring attention to their demands for votes for women; we must ask ourselves whether our contemporary context allows space for similarly important issues to be protested on. As things stand, these clauses risk a disproportionate interference with people’s Article 8, 10 and 11 rights as set out in the Human Rights Act.
This country has long prided itself on being a democracy, this Parliament is at the heart of that, and one of our duties is to ensure that the rights and freedoms necessary to such a system of governance are not undermined. Those rights and freedoms include the right to peaceful protest. Therefore, should these provisions remain at a future stage, I will vote to oppose the questions that Clauses 10 to 14 stand part of the Bill.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
If I might just press the point: of course, if the young woman has the presence of mind to simply ask for proof of identity, that may very well not be obstruction, but she may be frightened by this and seek to move away or to respond in some other way, but not to assault the police officer. I just see that there is a danger in this situation, and I am not hearing anything that I could tell women who are asking me about what we are doing in the Public Order Bill so that they do not need to have any concern about suspicionless stop and search. We heard before about it being perfectly reasonable to respond in such a way that you can categorically assure yourself that a person is a police officer. Frankly, I have never seen a police identity badge, so I do not know what they look like. The previous Metropolitan Police Commissioner talked about flagging down buses if you are not happy about what is going on. I want to press the Minister on this point, because although I absolutely accept that asking to see a badge is not necessarily chargeable with obstruction, other things could befall.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
To add to that, women were also told to consider refusing to get into a police car, and even if you did see the badge, Wayne Couzens was carrying a perfectly legitimate police badge, whether or not you recognise it is beside the point. While I am on my feet, will the Minister answer my point about the prison population already being incredibly high?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
This is so important. I do not think the Minister or the Government appreciate how vulnerable women can feel walking, particularly in the dark or on their own, and it gets dark very early in the winter. This is really serious. I also do not think they realise how much young women, particularly if they are attractive, can get hassled. If you have been hassled a lot, you can snap because you are sick and tired of it. I really do not think this has been thought through.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, Clause 17 is very dubious. It is bad enough when private companies use civil injunctions, which have become quasi-criminal private tools against protesters. I was up at Preston New Road and I saw this in action by fracking companies. The fact is, of course, that the protesters who had injunctions brought against them were proved to have been entirely on the right side of history, yet they were targeted by the fracking companies, very unfairly, because their trying to halt the companies’ damage to the environment was perfectly appropriate. We have seen injunctions used against tree protectors as well. Of course, breach of an injunction is contempt of court, with the risk of fines and imprisonment. It is actually quite onerous, and it is bad enough when a private company chooses to do it, but it is pretty concerning when a Secretary of State decides to do it.
I think we have all agreed that, if not completely overcome by corruption, this Government do at least have filaments of corruption winding their way through the whole body politic. Therefore, we have to be very careful that we do not introduce other ways for corruption to happen within government. Clearly, the Government should review the situation and propose reforms, because this really is not how injunctions are supposed to be.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, not being a lawyer, I would never have dreamed of writing amendments of the technical nature of Amendments 114 and 115. None the less, having heard the speech of my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti and having discussed it with her before she made it, it is evident to me that these are vital amendments should Clause 17 stand part—which, of course, it absolutely should not. If there is any sense, as my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti has powerfully persuaded me there is, that Clause 17 is constitutionally dubious, that really should give the Government pause for thought. I genuinely believe that anyone—the person on the Clapham omnibus—who read this and found that the Government can substitute a prosecution for a private company at the public expense would, frankly, be rather appalled and find it very odd legislation.
Clause 17 (5) states:
“the Secretary of State must consult such persons (if any) as the Secretary of State considers appropriate, having regard to any persons who may also bring civil proceedings in relation to those activities.”
That just does not seem appropriate. Surely, the purpose of the law is to make sure that the onus for things lies in the proper place, and the onus for proceedings such as those conceivably envisaged here cannot possibly lie with the Government and the public. Amendments 114 and 115, in the name of my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti, at least tighten up the possibilities here. The Secretary of State would be required to publish a range of things, as she has already said, including
“the reasons for any decision not to consult, the results of any consultation, any representations made to the Secretary of State as to a proposed exercise of the power, an assessment of why other parties should not finance their own proceedings”.
It seems to me that we are allowing the Secretary of State to do something which, if I had just read this myself and come to a view on it, I would have considered to be ultra vires, if that is the correct term, because this is not something we should be spending public money on. Amendments 114 and 115 would go some way towards tightening up Clause 17, but as other noble Lords have said, those of us who have read this in detail and given it some consideration genuinely believe that it should not stand part of the Bill.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He made a kind offer to consider this argument; when he is considering it, could he think about transparency versus corruption and the public expense? He has made his arguments about the new co-ordinating role of the Secretary of State, standing in the shoes of a consortium, if you like, of local government, business and central government, but there is still this issue about transparency versus corruption. When he takes this away, will he think about a scenario in which a press baron or an oil baron—whichever noble Baron, or ignoble Baron, it is—says to a Home Secretary, or a putative Home Secretary, “I’m sick of these legal fees, and I think it would be a jolly good idea if the Home Department brought these proceedings against these pesky demonstrators in my shoes”? Will he think about the risks to public trust in the good use of public money that might result if there is not transparency about this new power?
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, before the Minister resumes his speech, may I ask him about a word he used? I do not know if I misheard—and I have quite a good vocabulary—but I think he used the word “dubiety”. Does that mean dubiousness?
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
I thank both noble Baronesses for their interventions. Turning to the question about transparency, we will certainly engage on that, and I appreciate it. It is always important that government actions are transparent. It is clearly an important public principle, and on that we agree.
As to corruption, in this context, it is really not a terribly likely hypothetical scenario. I say that because, if one were an ignoble baron seeking to pursue an injunction to preclude some sort of serious disruption, it is unlikely that the cost of pursuing an injunction would be sufficiently high to warrant seeking the assistance of the Secretary of State in bringing that injunction. It would be more likely that such costs would be borne by the company or person themselves, given the urgency and the much larger costs incurred by the disruption occurring. While I accept that there is a hypothetical concern, therefore, I find it unlikely in reality that such an envisioned scenario would eventuate.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for tabling Amendment 116. Let me start by saying that I, again, recognise the sentiment in this amendment. It is important that the Government intervene only in matters that are serious and proportionate to the public interest. However, I wish to remind noble Lords that causing nuisance or annoyance to the public can have a far-reaching impact when it occurs on a widespread scale. The recent protests targeting the M25 have shown just that. Furthermore, while a Secretary of State may apply for the power of arrest to be attached to an injunction, it is for the courts to decide whether or not this is an appropriate measure.
Finally, I turn to Amendment 145, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. Again, I understand and have considered the need for scrutiny and transparency, as I touched on earlier, and therefore I entirely understand the logic of the tabling of that amendment. None the less, it is the Government’s view that while a review is not needed to ensure that activity relating to these provisions is necessary, it is important that transparency is carefully considered, and I will ensure that that is done.
There are already several clear provisions in the Bill that serve to ensure that the use of these powers by a Secretary of State will be subject to scrutiny and safeguards. As has already been noted, of course, in Clause 17(5) there is a requirement for consultation as may be appropriate ahead of initiating civil proceedings. Moreover, as we have already touched on, civil proceedings can be issued in the interest of the public only when it is considered expedient to do so in the judgment of the judiciary hearing the claim. As I have already committed to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, I will nevertheless consider what further clarity could be provided on the circumstances in which a Secretary of State might seek to initiate such proceedings. I therefore invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Public Order Bill
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb ExcerptsWednesday 16th November 2022
(2 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Public Order Act 2023 View all Public Order Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 61-I(a) Amendments for Committee (Supplementary to the Marshalled List) - (16 Nov 2022)
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
I cannot sit still any more. I am starting to feel sorry for the Minister, who is on a very sticky wicket because this is clearly rubbish legislation. I do not understand how it got through or who directed the civil servants to write it. It is absolute rubbish. We have heard all of the arguments about how it is so broadly written and will criminalise too many people—many more than the peaceful protesters whom the Government are trying to target. I just wonder where the idea came from. This is so right-wing; it is not an appropriate Bill for a democracy.
The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has beautifully laid out the lack of a definition of “serious disruption”, and I cannot better that. But, for example, what about arresting the Government for serious disruption to the NHS over the last 12 years? I would support that. But we would obviously have to know exactly what “serious disruption” meant.
The criminal courts in this country are crumbling and cannot cope with the number of cases that they have at the moment. Yet here the Government will insist on more cases, sometimes on very specious grounds, which will clog up the courts even more and make life even more difficult for people who care about justice and law. I beg the Minister to meet with some of the more learned noble Lords here and perhaps start either to clarify the Bill or to scrap it altogether.
Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)
My Lords, I will make a very serious request of the Minister, who is dealing with this difficult Bill with great courtesy and who is very amenable to comment, even if he disagrees. I ask him to take the trouble, before he replies to this debate, to read Section 78 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022—it is only one page, and I will lend him my iPad if he needs it. In this country, we have training for magistrates and judges, which is provided by the Judicial College— certainly for judges; indeed, I see the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, nodding that this is the case for magistrates as well. One of the reasons why this training is provided is to ensure consistency between courts around the country.
If there are two sets of legislation—this Bill and Section 78 of the 2022 Act—the Government cannot control who charges whom with what. It is quite likely that, in “Lonechester”, the police will charge someone who glued themselves to the passageway of the cathedral with this new law, while in “Scuddersfield” they will charge them with Section 78 of the 2022 Act. They are quite different: the Bill is basically a summary trial on these offences and has very low sentencing powers, but the 2022 Act, which we have already passed, has a maximum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said. We cannot expect police officers to know these differences when they are busily rushing around trying to save the public from being stuck on the M25 for seven hours. But they can expect the law to make life easier for them by ensuring that it has that consistency. At the moment, we are breaking the rules which we generally set ourselves to scrutinise legislation so that we do not create ambiguity and inconsistency. In the context of what we are discussing now, nothing in the Bill is not covered under Section 78 of the 2022 Act, which has already had the scrutiny of your Lordships’ House.
“(1A) In this section, “attach” means to connect by mechanical means, and does not include circumstances where persons, objects or land are merely touching, holding or being held, or seated or placed upon each other.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment probes the definition of “attach” in the Clause 1 offence of locking on, and whether it includes for example holding hands or sitting down.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I am not going to describe all the amendments in this group. I am hoping that noble Lords will introduce their own.
I have one point to make about the arrest of Charlotte Lynch. I had the dubious pleasure of sitting on a panel with David Lloyd, the PCC for Hertfordshire, who seemed to suggest that it was the journalist’s fault and that journalists should not report on protests. He believed in a free press, but not always, so I was slightly worried about the Minister’s reaction, but he said that he used the wrong word.
All these offences deserve to be probed because they are so badly drafted, so broadly drafted, that we cannot be sure what they mean. For example, the Bill names the offence of locking on, but the definition is much broader. The Bill talks of a person attaching themselves or an object to another person, another object or land. What does “attach” mean? Does it mean people linking arms or holding hands? What if they were tied together by a ribbon with a loose bow that you could undo? Would that be attached? Exactly what does it mean? If it is easy to remove the attachment, does it count? Is it still criminal? It seems that these offences are absurd. I do not understand where the threshold is for criminal conduct. It makes the whole Bill worthless if we cannot be sure what it means, and certainly the courts are going to have a field day with this. I beg to move.
Lord Beith (LD)
My Lords, the noble Baroness has raised the absurdity of the locking-on offence and the problems that will arise, which are addressed by some of the amendments in this group.
I want to introduce the Minister to an issue he may not be familiar with—perhaps it does not happen in his part of the country. Quite a lot of young couples go about carrying padlocks. Why do they do that? It might not be immediately apparent to a constable that they are wishing to pledge their lifelong devotion to each other. They go to a place such as the High Level Bridge in Newcastle, and they attach the padlock to the bridge; they then throw the key into the water. Explaining that that is what you are about to do might be pretty difficult when your average police constable says that you are carrying a padlock, obviously intending to lock on to somewhere. But they do not lock on to anything—except perhaps each other, and they might be caught by that, as the noble Baroness just pointed out. That is simply one example.
Another obvious example which has been raised by noble Lords before is that of bicycle padlocks. People have to carry them whenever they are going to use their bicycle. Again, these are pretty obvious cases for the locking-on offence as the Government have conceived it.
These are things that just happen in ordinary life. When you compound the offence created in the Bill with the offence of obstruction of a constable, you can see really difficult situations arising, where citizens with no intention of creating serious disruption are nevertheless caught because they are carrying such things in the vicinity of somewhere where serious disruption might be about to arise, or might be known to be about to arise.
I really think that the Government have got to clean up this Bill if they want to proceed with it, and remove from it things that drag ordinary citizens into conflict with the criminal law when they have no criminal intent at all—and do not need to have for the purpose of some of these offences—and are not involved in serious protest. Serious protest is itself, of course, an often justifiable activity, as the courts have demonstrated in some recent cases. Quite apart from the problems faced by those who want to engage in legitimate protest, we should not be passing legislation that simply confuses ordinary citizens as to what they are allowed to do.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. I have really enjoyed it and I think we are expecting some better answers in the future. The Minister said something about probing us on what we thought, but it is our job to probe him about what this legislation means. So far, it is not coming out very well.
Personally, I hope it gets thrown in the rubbish bin because, quite honestly, we are spending an awful lot of time and energy debating it when we know it is awful. It is not as if we can see a glimmer of hope that it might solve some problems. The Minister talked about the damage and disruption that these protesters are doing. In fact, the Government have done more damage and disruption to our social fabric than XR, Insulate Britain or Just Stop Oil could ever do. They have had 12 years and made the most horrendous mess.
Getting back to the Bill, the Minister did not answer my question about “attach”. I still do not know what “attach” means. I am happy to wait and hear a longer answer, if he has one, on another occasion.
“(2A) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under subsection (1) that their actions were likely to avoid greater disruption or were otherwise in the public interest.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment creates a defence for actions that are in the public interest or which avoid greater disruption.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
Again, I will just talk to my two amendments. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and I are probing the Government from both ends with our amendments. I am probing on the basis that the offences are so broadly drawn that they require equally broad defences to protect innocent people from being criminalised. I imagine that the noble and learned Lord is being rather more forgiving on the drafting of the offence, and therefore trying to ensure that it works by not making the defences overly lenient. I am happy to be corrected, but both perspectives can be true. That is why the drafting is so bad. These issues will not just detain us here—she says, bitterly—but will create hours, days and weeks of legal arguments in the courts, which is very much to be avoided.
There is an opportunity in this legislation which I might explore later: that fossil fuel companies and other environmentally destructive actors could be prosecuted and convicted for locking on. For example, if a fracking company attaches a drilling rig to land, that potentially causes serious disruption to two or more individuals. It could leak or cause earthquakes; it could contribute to climate change, or two people might have wanted to walk through that field but now there is a rig in the way. Local people could be seriously inconvenienced by having to protest against the fracking rig, rather than pursuing their hobbies such as birdwatching.
The Government probably do not mean to criminalise fracking and other oil and gas extraction, but this is a logical consequence of such broadly drafted offences. I rather suspect that people such as those at Greenpeace or the Good Law Project might enjoy some time in court with private prosecutions of that kind. I beg to move.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 11, 30, 34, 41, 57 and 63. That may seem a bit of a mouthful but they are all in exactly the same terms. They refer to the reasonable excuse defence in Clauses 1, 3, 4, 6 and 7. Perhaps I should preface my remarks, particularly in the light of the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, by saying that I very much subscribe to the view that these measures are not needed at all. These are laws we do not need and they may cause confusion, but I have to take the Bill as it is. I am making my remarks with reference to the Bill as we find it, not as I would like it to be.
The Constitution Committee examined the phrase “reasonable excuse” and its implications, and said that it is
“constitutionally unsatisfactory to leave to the courts the task of determining what might be a ‘reasonable excuse’ without Parliament indicating what it intends the defence to cover”.
There are two points in particular: first, it invites argument over whether certain, but not other, political motivations might constitute an excuse—how serious they are and their consequences, and so forth; secondly, and perhaps even more important, is whether the defence of reasonable excuse should be available at all in cases where serious disruption has been caused. This is exactly the other side of the argument that the noble Baroness put forward a moment ago. The committee’s recommendation was that unless a precise definition of reasonable excuse is provided, the defence should be removed from Clauses 1, 3, 4 and 7 altogether.
The point is really this: if the wording remains in the Bill as it is, it opens the door to arguments that bodies such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil use to justify their actions. I recall the lady who was sitting up on a gantry when she was interviewed on television. With tears in her eyes, she said, “I know I’m causing terrible disruption to many people”—you could see all the cars stuck behind the police cordon—“but I’ve got no alternative. Look at the serious disruption that climate change is giving rise to; that’s my case. We’ve got to do something about it, so I don’t mind how much disruption I cause to however many people because I’ve got to get that message across.” The problem with the reasonable excuse defence is that it opens up that kind of argument.
The committee’s recommendation was, as I say, that unless a precise definition is provided it should be removed. My amendments propose that the question
“is to be determined with reference to the immediate interests or intentions of the individual, not any public interest which that person may seek to invoke”.
The immediate interest point would cover the case of the journalist Charlotte Lynch, who was arrested by the police. In her position, she could obviously say that as a journalist she was doing her job. That would undoubtedly be a reasonable excuse if she was having to defend a charge in this situation, and one could think of many other examples, so the opening words of my amendment are designed to deal with people of that kind. But they are intended to meet the very point on which the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, focused on so clearly: the position of protesters who are protesting because of climate change, for example, or other big public interests that people feel it necessary to protest about.
There are various problems with leaving the words as they are. The offences described in Clauses 1 and 6 are to be tried summarily before magistrates. I am conscious that the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, is here with his experience but I suggest that leaving it to magistrates to decide whether a particular public interest excuse is reasonable, without any guidance from Parliament, is not satisfactory. There is a risk of inconsistent decisions between one bench of magistrates and another but there is another problem, too. These arguments, if they are to be raised in a magistrates’ court, may take up a great deal of time. I have heard at second hand of a case where one of these issues was raised in a magistrates’ court and it took hours and hours as people deployed their arguments. The magistrates’ courts are not equipped for that kind of interference in their ordinary business, so one has to have regard to the consequences of leaving it to them to decide issues of this kind. That important factor needs to be borne in mind.
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. The short answer is that these cases are always going to be fact-specific. If there was a serious disruption in a London Underground tunnel, I suspect that there would potentially be many offences being committed other than those under this Bill. As my noble friend Lord Sharpe has already said, this situation will be considered and we will come back to the noble Lord. I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed. I enjoyed the critique of reasonable defence from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and I was delighted that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, has come into the debate. However, I ask both of them not to be helpful to the Government—I just want to vote against everything in this Bill and they are making it difficult.
Asylum Seekers: Accommodation and Safeguarding
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his question. No error was made by Mr Jenrick when he addressed the other place. He was correct to say that the conditions facing the border staff at Manston are unprecedented. We have never had this number of unlawful crossings of the channel. The situation has not been faced before. As the noble Lord rightly observes, there is a problem with the processing of asylum claims. Every effort is being made to accelerate the pace at which asylum claims are resolved. It is clear that there is a backlog, and work is being carried out at pace to develop a method by which that backlog can be reduced.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I am not a member of Labour but I resent that snipe from the Dispatch Box. It is not appropriate here. We are not a student debating society; we are not even the Commons. We respect each other so, please, no more snipes like that.
Secondly, back in July a report said that detention was already often for much longer than 24 hours and that there was overcrowding. Why did the Government not act then? They clearly did not.
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
The height of the numbers at Manston was on 30 October. The Government acted as rapidly as they could from that date to reduce the numbers held. They reflected the conditions and the numbers crossing, which therefore led to an increase in the numbers held for processing at Manston. Clearly, the Government’s intention is to return Manston wholly to a processing facility not performing any accommodation function.
National Security
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that question. I am afraid I will again answer at some length, because the subject of cyber resilience is at the heart of what he, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Browne, asked me. The current state of UK resilience to cyberattack is an interesting subject, and we are making significant progress in bolstering the UK’s resilience. We stop hundreds of thousands of attacks up stream while bolstering preparedness and helping UK institutions and organisations better understand the nature of cyber threats, risks and vulnerabilities down stream.
Despite this, there remain serious gaps in the nation’s defences, as both noble Lords have pointed out, and the collective resilience-building effort must continue apace. Poor organisational practices, processes and systems, and a lack of awareness of risks and mitigations, all contribute to attacks getting through. Taking some practical and cost-effective steps, such as improving the use of account authentication, could have prevented a lot of damage. I could go on, but at this point I reiterate my praise for the work of the security services. I have seen some of their work in this area, and it is incredible.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
Is it not a threat to national security to have a Home Secretary who uses inflammatory, racist language and dehumanises thousands of traumatised asylum seekers?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
If the noble Baroness is asking whether there was a threat to national security, I would have to say no.
Public Order Bill
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb ExcerptsTuesday 1st November 2022
(2 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Public Order Act 2023 View all Public Order Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 18 October 2022 - large print - (18 Oct 2022)
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I felt that this debate was moving quite fast, and I realised that this was because many of us have been here before: this is actually a zombie Bill that the Government have dragged out of its grave because they do not like opposition at all. That is the real problem we are facing with the Bill. As we have heard, the powers are there already, and the Government really do not need the sort of repressive powers in the Bill that are worthy of Russia, China or Iran. Noble Lords probably know exactly what I am going to say now.
There is no doubt in my mind that we should vote against this legislation—again—to protect the right to freedom of expression, the right to freedom of assembly and the right to protest, which is what we expect in a free society. Of course protest is inherently disruptive; that is its nature. But do noble Lords know what is more disruptive? The fossil fuel companies and extractive industries that are destroying our planet, and the billionaires who are amassing huge claims over the world’s resources while everyone else worries about how to pay our energy bills this winter. Then there is the plastic and sewage choking up our rivers, coastlines and oceans. BP has made £7 billion profit in three months, yet we will pay the extra cost of coastal defences and higher food prices for the next three decades. Shell makes £9.5 billion profit in a quarter; our arable land will produce half as much value by 2100. They have billions in the bank; we have a country that swings from drought and wildfires to floods of sewage. Every dollar or pound that the oil and gas companies make equals the world becoming a worse place for generations. That is what real disruption means, and we have a Government encouraging it with tax breaks and licences for big business.
We must think ahead to the chaos that will happen when climate change disrupts the global economic system: these current disruptions will be nothing compared to that. The likes of Extinction Rebellion are polite dissenters compared to what is coming in the next few decades. The clampdown on the climate protesters of today is the foolish reaction of a Government in the pockets of the oil and gas industry. Sensible politicians would listen to Just Stop Oil, because its demand is incredibly reasonable and one that noble Lords have heard from the Greens on these Benches before: no new fossil fuel extraction. Quite honestly, it is a warning of what is to come if the Government refuse to change course.
We cannot stand idly by while this destruction and injustice takes place. No one wants to be a protester; we all have better things to do with our time—that is true for all of us. I have been to a lot of protests—I have sometimes even been to protests where I have watched the police from their side—so I have a very clear view of what protests can be. The police actually do their best, but the Government do not help them by giving us laws that are incomprehensible at times. The protesters and I are desperate: while there are more fun things that we could do, we are desperate because of an economic and political system that has proven again and again that it is detrimental to the vast population of the world and to life on earth.
Protest and non-violent direct action are essential parts of a free country, and the disruption caused is part of the pressure; it is what raises something beyond merely complaining on Twitter to having direct real-world consequences that force our leaders to pay attention. Protesters are supported by millions of people. There were several things in the Minister’s opening speech with which I disagreed very strongly, and I actually had to leave the Chamber after the opening speeches so that I did not start shouting across the Chamber. I listened in my office, because I could shout at the screen and not disrupt proceedings here. The Government are creating an attack on nature that people have seen is plain wrong, and they are angry. So please do not say that everybody is against these protests; that is absolutely not the truth.
I have been on protests where it is local people who are protesting and getting out there. One man I stood next to said, “I retired last month and I thought that I would be bird watching, but here I am, standing at the roadside and holding a banner to stop fracking at Preston New Road”. Local people do not like fracking—and they do not like HS2. Yes, there have been a few thousand people on protests, but actually there are millions of people who do not want it. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, talked about a “long and hard democratic process”, or something, but actually the Government did not listen to any of the advice that said that this was not the section to build first and that we should have built the other, northern section first. It is the Government’s fault that we are losing masses of very beautiful and precious places because of HS2. We cannot replace them; it is something much more precious than a railway line that cuts 20 minutes off the average business person’s journey.
When people locked on to trees that were due to be cut down by Sheffield Council, when they blocked roads and sat on drills to stop fracking or when they ran in front of a horserace to get women the right to vote, these were all acts of heroism. They brought about real political change in the face of obvious injustice. As the Prime Minister said only this week in response to a question from our colleague Caroline Lucas, the anti-frackers were right—and thank goodness that the Government saw sense on that. I shall give them a small round of applause for that. But while this Government dither and delay on insulating Britain and support a whole new generation of fossil fuel extraction, and while they fail to prosecute the climate criminals and ecocidal maniacs destroying our planet, they instead imprison those of us who sound the alarm and respond to mass injustice with minor inconvenience —and even those who carry a bike lock without so-called “reasonable excuse”.
A few other things were said this evening. No artwork was damaged. I cannot remember which noble Lords mentioned that—but no artworks were damaged. They had glass on them, and they were cleaned up; they were not damaged, so please do not repeat that falsehood again. And how dare this Government talk about a shortage of police time or police being used on things they should not be used on? This Government have actually cut tens of thousands of police officers. They have, so please do not argue with that; it is a clear fact. They have also cut thousands of back-office jobs, which of course hindered the police, because then they had to go into the back office and do all the paperwork. So please do not let us hear any more about, “Oh dear, police time”. If this Government had done their job, we would now have a police force that could do its job properly.
The noble Lord, Lord Blair, is not in his place, but he said something like, “These disruptions are irritating”. I am irritated on a daily basis by some of the things said in this Chamber; that is why I went up to my office, so I did not have to hear them. I am irritated, but does that mean that I can call the police and say, “Please don’t do that”? The noble Lord, Lord Bellingham, who is not in his place—and was not on the list for this debate—managed to interrupt the Minister’s opening speech. He irritated me—and what options do I have for that irritation?
We have to vote against the Bill again and again, for as long as it takes to show this Government that it is the wrong thing to do.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Paddick said in November last year when broadly similar powers were introduced into the police Bill:
“With the greatest respect to the Government, this is yet another example of ‘What wizard ideas can we think up in line with the Home Secretary telling the Tory party conference she was going to get tough on protesters?’”—[Official Report, 24/11/21; col. 982.]
Here we are with a sense of déjà vu, again.
We have had a very interesting and useful debate this evening, with almost no unqualified support for the Bill. In a debate on this Bill in the other place, the Conservative MP Sir Charles Walker called the proposed serious disruption prevention orders
“absolutely appalling because there are plenty of existing laws that can be utilised to deal with people who specialise in making other people’s lives miserable.”
Sir Charles went on to read out a list of public order laws that already exist to tackle disruptive protests. This list bears repeating:
“obstructing a police officer, Police Act 1996; obstructing a highway, Highways Act 1980; obstruction of an engine, Malicious Damage Act 1861 … endangering road users, Road Traffic Act 1988; aggravated trespass, Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994; criminal damage, Criminal Damage Act 1971 … public nuisance, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022”
and
“the Public Order Act 1986 that allows police officers to ban or place conditions on protest.”—[Official Report, Commons, 18/10/22; col. 580.]
The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, sensibly suggested a degree of consolidation to provide clarity and assessment of the existing laws. That seems a wise idea.
My friend in the other place, Wendy Chamberlain MP, a former police officer, said on Report that
“the police do not need this Bill to respond when protests cross the line.”
She also noted:
“Policing by consent is one of the greatest attributes of our country, and it is something that I am passionate about. The Bill undermines that.”—[Official Report, Commons, 18/10/22; cols. 590-92.]
So when the Minister says that the Bill gives the police the tools they need, which I think he said in his opening speech, we on these Benches do not agree. We certainly do not need these broad, unclear, illiberal measures. My noble friend Lady Hamwee said how precious our freedoms are and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, said that protest is not a crime.
I am not saying that all those we have witnessed protesting in recent years, months and days are angels. Those who obstruct an ambulance or commit criminal damage do the protest cause no favours and should, if appropriate, be arrested and prosecuted. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, referred to the tomato soup on the Van Gogh painting. When I saw that, I did not know the painting was covered by glass and I do not know whether the protesters knew it was covered by glass.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
Okay, that is fair enough, but what I did not like was the tweet from Just Stop Oil saying, in effect—I cannot remember the exact words—who cares about art when the planet is in danger? That struck a very harsh note with me; many of us do care about art. What I support are peaceful protests which avoid both violence and deliberate damage.
The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, made a powerful speech, but I am afraid it failed to convince me that the existing powers are inadequate. I normally agree to a very large degree with the noble Viscount, but not really on this occasion. As my noble friend Lord Beith said in last November’s debate on the police Bill:
“It seems to me that political considerations have taken precedence over all considerations relating to making good law and, indeed, policing protest satisfactorily and effectively.”—[Official Report, 24/11/21; col. 985.]
He wisely warned both then, and again today, against getting into trouble by trying to turn into general law attempts to deal with very specific cases. The noble Lord, Lord Frost, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, made similar warnings that next time it will be some other inventive method and we will have to legislate for that.
The noble Lord, Lord Blair of Boughton, said that climate protesters risked damaging their cause, and I have felt that on various occasions recently. Indeed, it is so but that is a public relations matter, not a criminal issue. I hope that will make some of them reflect on the value of what they are doing. If they are alienating some of their potential audience, the message is not effective.
Getting the Balance Right?, the March 2021 inspection report from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services on how effectively the police deal with protest, which has already been referred to, not least by my noble friend, wisely said that
“legislative reform will not be a panacea for the problem of disruptive protest”.
My noble friend Lord Paddick explained how HMIC had rejected many of the proposals now in the Bill. In fact, as in so much of what the Home Office supervises, the challenge is not so much new laws but sufficient, well-trained operational capacity. Perhaps that will be a theme of what was to be the dinner break business on asylum processing. HMIC also called for
“a greater understanding of human rights law among the police”.
That might have come in useful during the anti-monarchist protests in the run-up to the Queen’s funeral, when there was a heavy-handed response at times. Certainly, some were in very bad taste but whether they were a breach of the law is another matter entirely.
The HMIC report emphasises the value of working with protest organisers, commenting that most collaborate with the police to make sure that protests are safe. It notes:
“Courts have repeatedly emphasised that a degree of temporary interference with the rights of others is acceptable in order to uphold freedoms of expression and assembly”.
The police are ahead of the Government here. HMIC reported on the value of police liaison team officers in reaching agreement on an acceptable level of disruption. This should not be underrated.
In regard to the expansion of stop and search, including without suspicion, the Home Office itself acknowledges in its equality impact assessment on the Bill that the expansion of stop and search
“would risk having a negative effect on a part of the community where trust and confidence levels are relatively low.”
We know that this is talking about young people and especially young black men. That is a very serious matter if it is going to create a more negative relationship with the police.
The noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, applauded the JCHR’s suggestion that serious disruption be defined and I think the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, agreed with him. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, also wanted careful examination of the proposed reversal of the burden of proof requiring the defendant to show that they had a reasonable excuse for, for instance, locking on. This seems in strange contrast to an offence such as obstruction of the highway, where it is for the prosecution to prove that the defendant did not have lawful authority or excuse for their actions. Perhaps the Minister could explain this reversal of proof.
The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, my noble friend Lord Beith, the noble Lords, Lord Balfe and Lord Sandhurst, and others warned particularly against politicising policing through government injunctions under, I think, Clause 20. That was a particular concern that ran throughout the debate.
The Minister said in his opening remarks that serious disruption prevention orders have an appropriately high threshold. Other speakers, such as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, did not agree that the balance of probabilities was an appropriately high threshold. Some obstructive activity has to be tolerated in a free society. In its report on the Bill, the Joint Committee on Human Rights recalled:
“The European Court of Human Rights has recognised that public demonstrations ‘may cause some disruption to ordinary life’ but that ‘it is important to show a certain degree of tolerance towards peaceful gatherings if the freedom of assembly guaranteed in Article 11 of the Convention is not to be deprived of its substance.”
The Government have provided no compelling justification for the introduction of the new expansive powers in the Bill, criminalising ordinary, peaceful, if disruptive, behaviour. The JCHR also stresses—it has been another theme in this debate—that:
“The UK is rightly proud of its history of respect for political protest and is critical of other nations who fail to show the same degree of respect for the crucial importance played by protest in a democratic society. Introducing our own oppressive measures could damage the UK’s international standing and our credibility when criticising other nations for cracking down on peaceful protest.”
The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, pithily summed this up as “authoritarian creep” and the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, reminded us that sometimes protest tactics that make us uncomfortable change opinion and get the law changed. I hope the new Government will show concern about their international image and reputation and be persuaded that the Bill is unnecessary and unjustified. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans said, we need evidence of how this Bill can succeed when its predecessors have self-evidently failed if the Government want this new Bill.
Police and Crime Commissioners
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, on getting this debate. It is an interesting topic that we will keep coming back to, because we are facing legislation that will inevitably drag it to the fore.
In November 2011, the then Home Secretary Theresa May made the Policing Protocol Order, which stated:
“The establishment of PCCs has allowed the Home Office to withdraw from day-to-day policing matters, giving the police greater freedom to fight crime as they see fit, and allowing local communities to hold the police to account.”
The idea was that the public should have a direct say over policing in their area. I do not think that has happened. Although the old police authorities may not have been the ideal system, they were certainly more accessible by the average person. I was a councillor for four very long years and in my experience, people found it very easy to speak to me directly. They would stop me in the street, in the shops or in my front garden, and they were able to give me straight feedback on anything they were concerned about. When one has one person in a role of this kind, it is much harder to speak to them and to communicate. Police authorities probably worked much better and were probably more accountable.
I was on a police authority here in London for 12 years, from its start to its finish. It was a fascinating experience for somebody like me. I was possibly one of the rare types who went to protests and things like that, but not completely. We were an incredibly diverse bunch—a lot of elected people but also experts in various fields. It worked extremely well. We respected the successive police commissioners, but we also challenged them; we made them answer to us for their decisions. I think it worked extremely well.
At the moment PCCs can hire and fire police chief constables, who continue to manage things day to day. They also set the police budget and the police precept. They write the area’s policing plan and commission a range of crime-related services such as victim support. That is a very big job, and the PCCs I have spoken to need quite a lot of office help to make those things happen. Clearly, there have been many hiccups. One big problem that I have seen several times is that the chief constable resents the police and crime commissioner, and any breakdown in that relationship makes it incredibly difficult for the PCC to do their job properly.
In March this year the Home Office produced a report on a consultation it had done on giving PCCs greater powers of competence. The consultation had a staggering 84 responses—I am sure that all the groups that responded were very important—and the majority felt that PCCs should have more power. More scrutiny and accountability was also discussed. The police and crime commissioner review has considered options to strengthen the accountability and transparency of PCCs to ensure that the public can effectively hold them to account for the exercise of their functions. Given that the public find it difficult to hold them to account now, I guess that will be welcome.
Luckily, the end of the report states:
“We require primary legislation to provide PCCs with these wider powers. We will seek to implement the measures through the next appropriate legislative vehicle.”
So we lucky Peers will get the chance to debate this and suggest improvements. I rather think, given the nature of the debate today, that there might be a lot of amendments in the making.
Police and Crime Commissioners and Panels
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
It is fair to say that the role has evolved to some extent. Whether it is appropriate to have an overall review is already under discussion.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, before the Government introduced police and crime commissioners, we had police and crime panels, just as we now have to oversee the police and crime commissioners. If that system was so bad that we needed to introduce police and crime commissioners, who cost a huge amount of money and whose ability is variable, why do we now have police and crime panels to oversee them?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I made it clear that there is a transparency and accountability issue. I am grateful to my friend Katy Bourne, the Sussex police and crime commissioner. She tells me that PCCs are more visible and approachable than the police authorities that they replaced. Many hold monthly accountability meetings with their chief constable, often online, which the public can attend and contribute to.
Police National Computer
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
As I said earlier in answer to another question, it was the only viable alternative. Other companies were invited in and, for reasons most of which were around the time it would take to implement new systems, Fujitsu offered the only solution. Of course, I agree with the public perception argument; however, I do not think we had any alternative.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, given that the flaws in Horizon software by Fujitsu were the cause of an awful lot of distress and misspent money, are the Government confident that so far there have been no similar mistakes on the police national computer?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
The Government are confident. There has been one incident of data loss, but it was a human error, as opposed to a software error and all that data has been recovered. So, yes, the Government are confident.
Corruption in the United Kingdom
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effects of corruption in the United Kingdom.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords very much for coming today. It has been incredibly difficult for me to finalise what to say this afternoon, simply because I wanted to mention a current fiasco—a current example of corruption—and there were so many popping up that I had to keep delaying what I was putting into my speech. I decided to go with the Kwasi Kwarteng issue, because I thought that was a rather nice one.
For me, the point is that political corruption is absolutely endemic in our country, and we really ought to be ashamed of that. It is embedded in our system. We often fail to recognise it simply because we do not know about it, because it is covered up. It does a huge amount of damage. It damages our social fabric and individuals who engage in it. It is not all about personal greed—it is sometimes about corporate greed—but it is about greed, and it contributes to the growing gap between rich and poor. It also stops us dealing with major issues such as poverty and our climate emergency.
In 10 minutes I do not have enough time to deal with all forms of corruption, as noble Lords can imagine. For example, I cannot deal with corruption in the police, in prisons, in local government, associated with our borders, in the construction sector or even among Lords appointments, which of course would be a rich source of stories about corruption. I will deal with four types of corruption, and there is some overlap: political access, corporate lobbying, party donations, and procurement and privatisation.
First and foremost, and most obvious, is political access. In his previous job, our Chancellor held undisclosed meetings with—I could list them all—the chief executive of Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer; the chief executive of SABIC, the world’s fourth-largest petrochemical company; and the chair of Alfanar, an industrial conglomerate. Obviously, meetings with these people are absolutely fine and could easily be part of his job, but they are meant to be logged by civil servants. A government spokesperson said there had been an “administrative oversight”. It leads to the question: how many administrative oversights of this kind never come to light? Kwarteng was flown around the kingdom by various helicopters and jets, which apparently provided the opportunity for the oil company to lobby the Minister then responsible for the UK’s energy policy on opportunities for the company. Other points of discussion on the flights were redacted, so we do not know what they talked about. Although it is perfectly okay to take lifts, he really should not have taken them from private companies.
Then we have people such as Owen Paterson working for Randox as a second job and David Cameron using his inside track to lobby for Greensill. Money buys access to, for example, the personal phone numbers of civil servants, Ministers and officials. A recent Public Accounts Committee report said that it could not be sure that all the Randox contracts, which were worth £777 million, were “awarded properly” and that there was obvious potential for conflicts of interest. On Greensill, the Treasury Committee accepted that
“Mr Cameron did not break the rules governing lobbying by former Ministers, but that reflects on the insufficient strength of the rules”.
So we cannot hold people to account.
The public view becomes that there is one rule for people like us and another for them. Of course, it is not only things such as partygate, which showed a clear division on what people were allowed to do—it is also clear from the way in which the Government tried to change the rules to get Owen Paterson off the hook. This is systemic corruption, not isolated, individual corruption. We should all be very concerned. These examples are the tip of the iceberg—the individual cases that we get to hear about because of media activity.
My second issue is corporate lobbying, and its influence over policy. Uber spent £75 million a year on public relations and lobbying to successfully swing policies in its favour. Companies spend that kind of money only because they think that it will guarantee them a profitable return. Many second jobs that MPs have are actually a form of corporate lobbying, a value-for-money addition to the company’s PR budget that buys them the access they need. For example, Nadhim Zahawi allegedly earned £1.3 million from his second job at Gulf Keystone Petroleum. Again, this is not illegal—he can do that—but it is a much bigger and more damaging influence on our politics and policies than parliamentarians want to admit.
As well as individual companies lobbying, there is a network of right-wing think tanks that refuse to declare their corporate donors but launch policy reports on issues that directly benefit those donors. The media should be demanding transparency, and so should Parliament, when we see those policy institutes give us opinions disguised as evidence. Sometimes their members are even promoted to jobs in government. To quote George Monbiot in 2011, “Downing Street and government in the last decade has been completely captured by this network.” He is referring to the right-wing think tanks.
The third form of corruption, party donations, is more direct and visible, because big donations to political parties have to be declared. We can strongly suspect that the reason why we are still building houses and new developments without solar panels, without the best energy conservation standards available and without charging points or heat pumps is that property tycoons account for around one-fifth of donations to the Conservative Party. The reason why people are buying new homes and are energy bill payers rather than net contributors to the grid is because developers paid a toll of £891,000 to the Conservative Party in the first quarter of 2021 alone. The reason we are struggling to get a common-sense measure such as charging points for electric vehicles as standard on new buildings is that developers do not like it, and they pay good money to ensure that the Conservative Party listens to them more than it listens to climate scientists.
Is it not strange that oil and gas companies are getting new licences in the North Sea despite the climate emergency, or that they are getting £150 billion of taxpayers’ money which they have not done anything extra to earn, or that taxpayers are carrying the burden of that £150 billion for the next 20 years, instead of a windfall tax? Systemic political corruption has real-world consequences and real victims, so it is important to put this on the record now so that the next generation understands how Parliament did relatively little while the world started to heat up and burn in our climate emergency.
The fourth category of corruption, and perhaps the largest in terms of profitability, is the British system of procurement and privatisation. It has become a visible form of corruption due to the excesses of the Covid crisis. The system for preventing conflicts of interest failed, with firms referred to the Government’s VIP lane, a dedicated mailbox for parliamentarians and officials, where they were 10 times more likely to win contracts. Twenty-five of the 50 companies in this VIP lane supplied PPE worth £1 billion that was not fit for purpose, amounting to 59% of all money awarded to VIP-lane companies for PPE. The Covid purchasing fast track was open to abuse, and that is what the Government encouraged in the middle of a pandemic.
This is a reason why the Government are now burning £4 billion of unusable PPE supplied by donors and friends of the regime and bought with taxpayers’ money. This corruption was hidden behind a wall of lawyers, who worked on behalf of the Government to hide the most basic information about who benefited from the contracts and who they spoke to in order to get them. This is collusion or corruption and points to systemic corruption.
Of course, we are not immune here in your Lordships’ House. In June, it emerged that one Conversative Peer accepted £3,000 a month from a private firm to open doors with No. 10 and Ministers. Now I like open doors. I nudge a few doors open myself to help people. But I do not take money for it. I do it for people who cannot afford to pay for it, and I make sure that they get their voices heard. It is not a democracy if you have to pay for access. It is more like a Putin-style oligarchy run for and by the rich and corporations.
I think I am running out of time, which is absolutely infuriating because I have another two or three pages. Of course, I could spend all day here listing the problems and the corruption. We need this Government gone. I am not so naive as to think that that will be the solution to everything, because of course it will not. What we need is strong, decent rules and for people to understand that they are going to get caught.
Slavery and Human Trafficking (Definition of Victim) Regulations 2022
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I rise to support the regret amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has tabled. He has powerfully laid out the arguments why the amendment is needed, for reasons of substance but also of procedure. I raise my concerns that the draft regulations narrow the definition of a victim; depart from international standards; provide insufficient distinction between adults and children; and could lead to many victims being excluded from identification and, therefore, from support and assistance. I join the noble Lord in urging the Minister to redraft the regulations and properly consult the anti-trafficking sector to ensure that redrafted definitions of “victim” are workable and consistent, in line with international law and informed by the lived experience of survivors and those who assist them.
I declare my non-financial interest as a trustee of the Arise Foundation, a charity that works with people who are victims of human trafficking or modern-day slavery. As the Minister knows, it is a matter that is particularly close to my heart. I am therefore saddened not to be able to support the draft regulations as written, and saddened that we have to have a regret amendment at all. Of course, it is of the utmost importance that victims of modern slavery are properly identified and supported, so in one respect I can warmly welcome the intent outlined by the Minister that lies behind these regulations, in so far as they determine who will be considered a victim of modern slavery for the purposes of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and Sections 48 to 53 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which I and many Members of your Lordships’ House who are present this evening, not least my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and others who participated in those proceedings, will recall.
I shall identify reservations that I hope the Minister will listen to carefully and address when she comes to reply at the conclusion of today’s debate. I start by underlining the way in which the procedure has been used to bring these regulations forward. I do not think that the Minister can have seen the joint briefing by the Anti Trafficking and Labour Exploitation Unit, ECPAT UK, Focus on Labour Exploitation, the Helen Bamber Foundation, Hope for Justice, to which the noble Lord referred, and others, which has been circulated to Members of your Lordships’ House—otherwise she would not have said to us that there had been an adequate consultation process. They have also written to the Home Affairs Select Committee of another place to express their concerns, along with more than 30 other organisations and experts—so, clearly, there is dissatisfaction right across the sector.
How can there have been a proper consultation, and how is it possible to say to your Lordships that there was one? Anti-trafficking organisations tell me that they did not see, and did not have the opportunity to give feedback on, the definition and wording before they were published. Can we be told why not? Under the old courtesies that used to be followed that, before legislation or orders were brought before Parliament, the leading organisations in the field would be invited in to meet Ministers and civil servants to discuss these things. It is not good enough simply to say that there was a broad consultation about modern-day slavery and that people could have replied. Those definitions should have been before them, and they should have been invited in specifically.
As those organisations and I argue, it is deeply disappointing and troubling that the regulations as drafted seem to curtail the capacity for victims to be identified, and ultimately to get access to support. That is because the regulations narrow the definition of “victim” and therefore reduce the scope for victims to be identified. It is the view of the anti-slavery organisations, in contrast with the Minister, that the definitions are not, as she told your Lordships’ House, in alignment with international law—such as ECAT, the European convention against trafficking, and the Palermo protocol. In this context, I put it to the Minister, as I and other noble Lords, including her noble friend Lord Horam, did during discussions on what became the Nationality and Borders Act, that matters such as these require broad and considered consultation. Legal definition of a victim is clearly a matter of huge importance, and it is surprising at the very least that formal consultation has not taken place, particularly within the anti-trafficking sector and other relevant stakeholders with first-hand experience of supporting victims of human trafficking or modern slavery. Surely, it would not have been too onerous, and nor would it have precipitated a lengthy delay, to do so.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, also referred to our Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which has reviewed these regulations and has highlighted the potential for them not to achieve their objectives. That surely will be of concern to the noble Baroness, I would hope, and to her officials. This and the uncertainty as to whether the definitions of the draft regulations in fact meet the UK’s international obligations under Article 4 of ECAT, which I have referred to, are serious matters, and I hope that the Minister can shed light on both these points in her response to the debate.
To summarise, I strongly urge the Minister to listen carefully and to reflect on the concerns raised by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, today and consider withdrawing this version of the regulations. We all want to see victims properly identified and subsequently supported and given the tools necessary to stand the best chance of recovery. These regulations do not do that. They raise the threshold for identification, they set a definition of exploitation that is too narrow, they are not in alignment with international law, they do not distinguish between adult and child victims, they do not include criminal exploitation, they do not feature practices similar to slavery, they overemphasise arranging or facilitating travel and they are completely defective on the means of eliminating trafficking. I hope the noble Baroness will think again.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I support the regret amendment and I wish we could use something stronger. It has been a long slog since December 2019 with all the legislation that has come through and this little painful reminder of the Nationality and Borders Bill is part of the problem that we have had to face. A lot of this legislation is cruel and uses new definitions for things that we thought were settled some time ago.
These regulations seem to be deliberately drafted to disregard the international norms around slavery and trafficking; they create special UK definitions that limit government assistance to a narrow category of survivors. Regulation 2(2)(a) has already been mentioned. It specifies that when determining whether somebody has been enslaved you have to consider
“any of the person’s personal circumstances … that significantly impair the person’s ability”.
This is victim blaming, pure and simple. The Government are proposing that normal people who can “protect themselves” from being subjected to slavery are unlikely to be genuine victims of enslavement. I do not understand why any Government would do this to people who have been trafficked.
In my view, the Government do not want to help enslaved people; they simply want to label these people as illegal immigrants or economic migrants and deport them as fast as possible. It is a cruel piece of legislation, giving effect to a cruel policy.
The lack of consultation is quite appalling and I echo all the requests for the Minister to explain that. If there had been consultation, I think this would be a very different set of regulations. I think the problem here is that the Government do not actually intend to support all victims of slavery and human trafficking and I think that diminishes us as a nation.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, I am not at all sure that I am allowed to speak, and I seek the approval of the House. The reason that I arrived late was that I was having an MRI scan for a bad back. Am I too late to speak?