Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Bill

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 9th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who has done such an incredible job to get the Bill to this point. I appreciate that it has a long way to go yet, but I welcome the cross-party support for it and the comments made by my hon. Friend the Minister.

I do not recall the first time that I spoke in this Chamber about public sexual harassment, but I vividly recall doing an interview with “Woman’s Hour” in 2019, when I was ridiculed for saying that public sexual harassment should be a specific crime. I remember the commentary on the website afterwards saying I did not know what I was talking about, and I remember the Daily Mail calling me mirthless because I did not think it was funny. The reality is that public sexual harassment is never funny: it is always scary and it dominates the lives of too many women.

There has been some focus this morning on the lives of young women, but the stark reality is that there is probably not a woman in this place who has not experienced public sexual harassment at some point. It can happen at any age to any person, and it does happen to men as well, particularly young gay men. They need our support every bit as much as women do.

I certainly remember why I first started talking about this issue: it was largely because of a coalition of really impressive women and women’s organisations—people who had come to see me and raised the issue with me. I am going to list them all, because I argue that, once we have on our side Our Streets Now, Plan International, the Girl Guides, the Soroptimists and the Women’s Institute, we have brought together a very impressive coalition of women of all ages and backgrounds who are prepared to speak up and determined to do so. When we read the statistics, they are absolutely terrifying. They show the sheer scale of the problem. When an issue dominates the Girlguiding girls’ attitude survey and dominates the experiences of young women at school, college and university, we have to reflect that it is well past time that we did something about it.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister, who will have the pleasure—I suggest—of responding to my right hon. Friend’s Bill, of taking it forward, and of seeing it eventually go on to the statute book. However, there is a long history of other committed female Ministers, many of whom, over the past few years, have sidled up to me and said, “Keep going: keep pushing at that door.”

Let me give some indication of the scale of support there has been. I remember my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), on many occasions in Westminster Hall, begging me to keep going—to keep on asking difficult questions, and to keep on ensuring that this issue remained uppermost in people’s minds—but, of course, she is not the only one. My right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) has held this brief, as have my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies), who was in the Chamber earlier: she too has played a role in keeping this issue on the priority list. There is also, of course, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), not to mention the former Members of Parliament Amber Rudd and Sarah Newton, both of whom also held this brief at various points.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells said, back in December last year we saw the Law Commission’s review, which clearly stated that the Government should consider making public sexual harassment a specific crime, although, interestingly, at that time the commission rejected the idea of adding misogyny to the list of hate crimes. I was not particularly happy about that, but I was prepared to wear it on the grounds that we would see public sexual harassment made a crime. It was a shame that there was not enough time for the Government to do that, but I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for bringing the issue as far as this point.

I want to pay tribute to some of the brilliant women out there in the community who are working both for and alongside the police, whom I consider to be real champions in this regard. The Minister mentioned Maggie Blyth, the deputy chief constable of Hampshire constabulary—my home force—who is also the national police lead for violence against women and girls. I also pay tribute to our police and crime commissioner in Hampshire, Donna Jones. I have attended many events relating to violence against women and girls where she too has proved herself to be a real champion in sticking up for the 51% of the population who are affected by these matters. Another is Caroline Henry, whom I met the day before yesterday to talk about the issues affecting women and girls.

Let me give a specific example to show why I think the Bill is so important. I have heard successive Ministers say that such legislation is not necessary, because there is existing legislation to protect women and girls from sexual harassment. I am going to recount the story of a constituent who spoke to me about it, and my subsequent conversation with the then Minister about what had happened to that constituent. This was a 22-year-old working in the retail sector—a very glamorous job, pushing trolleys around the supermarket car park in the depths of February. I want Members to imagine her uniform: a puffer coat made of hi-viz material, a pair of leggings, heavy boots, a bobble hat, and, because this was at the height of covid, a mask. She said to me, “I hate lunchtime.” I thought that was bizarre: I thought most young people quite liked having a lunch break. She said, “I have to work from 12 pm until till 2 pm, because that is when the supermarket is busiest and I have to return all the trolleys to the front door, and I hate it.” I said, “Why? What is so difficult about lunchtime?”

I apologise for generalising, and I apologise to all those employed in the construction industry who will hate what I am going to say next. My constituent replied, “Because that is when the builders come for their lunch.” When I asked what happened when the builders came to the supermarket to get their lunch, she said, “They make comments about me, they follow me around the car park, they talk about how my bum looks, and this week one of them came up to me, put his hands on either side of my face, and told me that I was too beautiful to be pushing trolleys.” I looked at her in horror, and then I went to see the Minister at the time and said, “You’ve been telling me for months that there are crimes already being committed and that there is legislation to protect people like my constituent who tells me that she hates lunchtime and spends it pushing trolleys back to the entrance of the supermarket as quickly as she can, because that is where the security guards are—she spends her lunchtime trying to be within range of the security guards. What was the specific crime there? What legislation can we use to protect girls like her?” She looked at me and said, “I don’t know. I don’t think a crime has been committed there.” I entirely accept that we must not demonise all men and we must not demonise all builders, but that is the type of behaviour that this legislation is designed to counteract, so I welcome it wholeheartedly.

We know that 50% of young women have experienced sexual harassment in schools or colleges. We know that 37% have experienced it on public transport. I pay tribute to the amazing work done by the British Transport police, among other organisations, to highlight the unacceptability of it and the strategies and tactics that we can all use to stop being bystanders and to intervene and help women in situations where they are uncomfortable and are being harassed. We know that 33% of sexual harassment happens in public buildings and that 75%—three quarters—of all women have experienced sexual harassment at some point in their lives. All of us in this Chamber know a victim of it, which also means that all of us in this Chamber know a perpetrator. It is the perpetrators who we need to identify and we need to stamp out their behaviour.

I want briefly to talk about the cultures behind public sexual harassment. My Select Committee has done and continues to do significant work on this. I remember telling a colleague that we were doing some work on the cultures that underpin male violence against women, and she looked at me and said, “You’re trying to overturn 2,000 years of male behaviour, are you?” I said, “Yes! Absolutely—that is what we have to do.” We have to put a marker down somewhere. If we are not prepared to do it now, today, in this place, then do we wait another 10, 20 or 1,000 years? Are we prepared to do that? I am certainly not. I find that it is very liberating being a woman in your 50s; you suddenly find that you are in a terrible hurry to get stuff done now. Now is today, and the Bill is that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells.

My Committee is doing some great work looking at the experience of young women in education settings, and it is harrowing. I did a roundtable with the Agenda Alliance for women and girls at risk, which includes girls who have been through the care system and girls who have experienced all sorts of horrors in their lives. Many of them told me about their experiences in pupil inclusion units; we have to be careful about the terminology we use, in terms of whether it is exclusion or inclusion. Girls in those settings are heavily outnumbered. In some instances, it is 90% boys and 10% girls. One of the girls told me that there is a poster in her education setting talking about consent, and every day, that poster is slashed and torn off the walls. She said, “How do you think that makes me feel? It makes me feel that I am not worthy. It makes me feel that I am in danger and at risk in my education setting.” She was perfectly happy to accept that it was a suboptimal education setting, and that there were many reasons why she had ended up there, but she said, “I should be valued and protected as much as the boys in that place.”

The work that the Committee is doing is fascinating, important and worth while, but it is harrowing to hear the stories and the experiences, particularly of black women working in the music industry and of how they can be sexualised, victimised and harassed because of their skin colour, their sex and the fact that they want to get on in an industry that is incredibly male-dominated and competitive. They feel that if they make a fuss, their careers will be pushed to one side.

We heard a couple of weeks ago from Fern Whelan, the ex-England footballer, about the experiences she had as a footballer. We like to think that sport is a great leveller and that everybody is equal, but the harassment that women still face in football is significant, and it continues when they move on to careers in the media after they have finished their playing careers. She told a fantastic tale of how she had made a comment and was endlessly trolled for it, with hundreds of comments basically telling her to get back into the kitchen, while her male contemporary had made the same comment and not one single person had reacted to it in any way.

While these incidents may appear to be the less serious end of harassment, it is cultural, and it is embedded in all the places that women go, where women work and the activities they want to take part in. It is crucial that we pursue the culture. I absolutely accept that it is not all men; there are some brilliant men. I think in particular back to 2020, when women were feeling empowered and emboldened to speak up about their experiences walking home, and I shared the fact that, when I leave this place at night, I do so with my flat keys in my hand and wearing a pair of trainers. I know that they are not much beloved of Madam Deputy Speaker, who would prefer none of us to wear trainers in this place, but actually as a woman it is much easier to run home in flat shoes. I suspect that few of my male colleagues have ever reflected on their footwear before trotting home across Westminster bridge.

We must tackle the cultures. We must recognise this good Bill, which my excellent colleague has brought forward, as a first step. There will be a very long way to go yet for all of us to stand up for brilliant young women like Maya and Gemma Tutton, who have been such an inspiration to me and others in this place, and ensure that this is a first step and that we continue the work.

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[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend is making the important and powerful point that we must never ever forget that there is, uncomfortable though we may find it, a pyramid of offending. Although not every flasher becomes a rapist, every rapist has started somewhere, and public sexual harassment can be the somewhere. Does she agree that that is one of the many reasons why we have to make sure that it is stamped out at source?

[Siobhan Baillie]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. That is why I get so frustrated when people dismiss this as unnecessary, going too far, or too heavy-handed. It is a very short hop, skip and jump from someone shouting obscenities or being rude to a woman on the street to being rude in their own home, if that is their mentality. We have to make that connection and we have to keep making it strongly.

When we had those rare horrendous incidents in Stroud, the advice that was immediately given was for women. They were told, “Change your behaviour. Change your clothes.” It was exactly as the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) said. It was also, “Don’t wear your headphones. Think a little bit more about where you’re going to walk”. Where do I want to walk in a beautiful Cotswolds market town? I want to walk everywhere. I do not want my thought processes to be about whether I will get attacked on any given day.

But Stroud fought back. This is a very spirited place, very politically bouncy, as anyone who follows politics will know, and my inbox is very bouncy, too. Anybody who thought that they would get away with attacking women and girls or being rude to them on the streets in my area was very, very wrong. We have all banded together to make changes, which is why I am so much in support of what my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells is doing. Our voices are being reinforced, although it is not just about our voices: in all of our constituencies, we have Government support for a very important Bill.

I have led a successful campaign, which the Government have now supported, to change the law and reduce anonymous online abuse, which, as I said, is completely connected to the real world. Hundreds of people in Stroud have marched, on a number of occasions now, specifically on these issues. Our police and crime commissioner, Chris Nelson, and our police have joined those marches. That is a really important step. Our PCC has made tackling violence against women and girls a focus of his work. The hon. Member for Walthamstow was talking about police forces that were ahead of the curve; Gloucestershire is one of them and I am very proud of it for that, although the police have a lot more work to do. We held a public meeting about these issues, and even though we have been reporting hate crimes and public harassment for much longer than other forces, women were standing up saying that they still did not feel comfortable going to the police. There is an awful lot of work to do, and I know that the Gloucestershire constabulary understand that.

Two fabulous constituents, Nikki Owen and Sydney-Anne McAllister—I met Sydney quite recently—have launched a pressure group called This Ends Now. They want to change the law and the media, and they are challenging both to do better, particularly on language. Where there is a rape, it should be reported in the media as a rape, not as a sexual assault, and it should not be played down in any way, shape or form. I believe that committed women in my patch will be pleased to see what we are trying to do today.

I encourage all Members of the House to look up the work of the Holly Gazzard Trust, which was set up by a family who were devastated by the loss of their daughter. They have gone on to campaign on domestic abuse and to really change the lives of many other families, and they are front and centre in supporting and fighting for women and girls in Gloucestershire.

We also have Chrissie Lowery, who is winning awards all over the place. Following the rapes and other incidents I have mentioned, and the rise of concern among our school girls about public sexual harassment, she took up the baton and created the Safe Space campaign, which Stagecoach, the police and lots of local businesses are now on board with. After an incident in a very dark, dingy, scary tunnel, Chrissie took the initiative of getting some amazing artists together, and we painted the tunnel, which sounds very simple. My daughter and I went down, and we put butterflies on the wall of this horrendously dark tunnel; it is now a beautiful open space that people are comfortable going down during the day, and we are looking at having lighting and CCTV at night. These efforts are small acts of kindness, but they will all join up to make a difference.

Gloucestershire police have created something called the Flare app, which is being rolled out to other forces. It allows people to put in the details of places they are worried about in the Stroud district and creates a heat map, so the police know to go to specific points of concern and the council can come in and do work on things such as CCTV. It is really innovative, and we can probably do more with it, but 3,000 people have downloaded it, so it is going pretty well for a new piece of kit.

Given that my community and constituents have done so much legwork—there are more examples, but I will not go on and on—it is right that we in this place constantly review the law. Following the advice from bodies such as the Law Commission—where very learned people have spent a lot of time investigating this issue—my right hon. Friend’s Bill assists us in doing that. We are creating a new law that deals with intentionally harassing or seeking to cause alarm, which is a gap in the legislation that we have in this place, so I welcome the Bill.

However, it is right that there is a balance in what we are trying to do and in what happens should somebody be pulled up for sexual harassment, so I welcome the explanation of what will and will not result in imprisonment. The headlines and challenges that we have seen—that someone will be sent to prison because they wolf-whistled—are immediately dismissive. It is therefore right that we are clear about what the Bill does and does not do and about how we have sought to strike a balance. The test is the intention to cause distress. Where somebody is being a plonker, that is a very different test—we could deal with plonkers in other ways. This intention to cause distress is a serious test, which will hopefully lead to prosecutions in the right places and then to deterrence, so that we can start to change society and culture.

Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Bill

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary, and to continue to work on the Bill. I thank the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells for his diligence on this legislation. Many of us feel very passionately about the issue, and we are grateful for his commitment and the work he has done to bring so many people together around what has historically been quite a difficult issue to make progress on.

I was watching my three-year-old daughter gambolling down the street the other day. “Gambolling” is the right word; she was in a party dress, half dancing and half singing, and she was joyful. She was walking down the same street that I walk down when coming home from work, with my keys in my hand, looking around, nervous about who else might be on the street. It struck me how important it is that we do not give into those who say that this is too complicated an issue to make progress on.

The honest truth about being a woman is that you learn to live in fear. You learn in our society and our culture to be half aware of what is going on around you at all times, because you know that there is danger out there. When I look at my little daughter and think about what is to come, I know why this legislation is so important. I wager that everybody who has young children in their life thinks about these issues. In particular, tackling the public harassment that women face on a daily basis is long overdue, and many of us in this place have worked on it. That is why it is so important that we take the opportunity to get this right, because they come along so rarely. New clause 3 and amendment 5, which I tabled, and new clause 1, tabled by the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North but not selected for debate as it was not in scope, all get at the same point about ensuring we take this opportunity we finally have to recognise in law the fact that misogyny is driving crimes against women and to act on it.

I was thinking about some of the euphemisms we use and the things that are part of the culture we grow up in. We become so used to the fact that women are at risk and face harassment and abuse on a daily basis that we minimise it. I remember when I was younger being very concerned about somebody I was told had “deserts disease”, because I did not understand what it meant, until somebody explained to me that they meant wandering palms. We talk about people being handsy, and we talk about “creepy”, but all these behaviours are criminal.

What this legislation does is so powerful, because it says that the criminal offences that have been so much a part of women’s daily experience of public life should be acted on. For many of us who have campaigned on the issue for years, one of the biggest frustrations has been being told that we could not act on these things, because if we did, so many people would be prosecuted that the system could not cope, so it was up to women to take the abuse and find ways of minimising it and protecting themselves, carrying their keys in their hand and making sure they were alert at all times when they were in public, rather than us stopping it. What this legislation does that is so powerful is to say, “No, actually, it is not women’s job to protect themselves; it is society’s job to stop the people doing this.” The amendments I have tabled speak to that culture and the challenge we face in getting this right.

As the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells said, this is based on public order offences. There are other pieces of harassment legislation, which I am sure many people are familiar with. I had the fortune in a previous lifetime to work on some of them, which is why, on reading the Bill, I was concerned to identify some of the challenges with using the public order offence. I hope the Minister recognises that I want us to get the legislation right. My amendment are probing amendments, but I hope that by the time we get to Report, the questions they raise can be answered by the Government, because this is not a partisan issue; I think that Members across the House recognise the point I am making.

Public order offences are based on the concept of intent—did someone intend to harass somebody? They therefore give the person who is accused of it a defence that says, “Well, I thought my behaviour was reasonable.” The concept of reasonable behaviour is contained in other pieces of harassment legislation, but in that legislation it is also defined by whether someone ought to know it was reasonable. The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 refers to conduct that

“occurs in circumstances where it would appear to a reasonable person that it would amount to harassment of that person.”

In contrast, public order offences simply allow the perpetrator to define whether they thought their behaviour was reasonable. Every woman in this room will recognise the challenge that that presents, because I wager that all of them have probably experienced unwanted touching and unwanted behaviour. I pay tribute to the Clerks, who have been fantastic in working with me on how we address that challenge.

Let us put it in the simplest phrases: “Cheer up, love! I was just trying to chat you up.” “Can’t you take a joke, love?” “It’s a compliment.” “Don’t get your knickers in a twist!” We have all heard those phrases when we said to somebody, “Stop.” We have all had the experience of somebody feeling they are entitled to touch us and harass us because they think their behaviour is reasonable. These amendments speak to a simple point. Most men in this country know how to approach a woman if they find her attractive. They do not feel the need to touch her breasts or her bottom or to harass her and abuse her, but some do. If we do not close this legal loophole, a commonplace experience for women—being challenged when they speak up for themselves and say, “No, don’t touch me in this way. Don’t speak to me in this way. Don’t harass me. Don’t abuse me”—will become a legal defence, because in contrast with other pieces of harassment legislation, there is no provision that says someone ought to know their behaviour is unreasonable in the definition of intent in the Public Order Act.

My amendments will do something very simple. They will introduce the concept of “ought to know” that is contained in other pieces of harassment legislation. I hope the Minister recognises that that will help to create consistency in how we define harassment in law. More importantly, none of us wants to see those women who are brave enough to come forward under this legislation and say, “This person did this to me” be put on trial about whether they can take a joke. Nine times out of 10, that person will be a man. I recognise that the Bill does not specify gender, and that is important, but we know from the 11 police forces that are defining misogyny as a hate crime and recording the gender of victims that the victims are overwhelmingly—80% to 90%—women.

We do not want victims to be put on trial about whether their response—their statement that such behaviour was not acceptable—is reasonable, because that would bring into play the very simple concept of whether anybody else would think it is reasonable. That concept exists in other harassment legislation—not just the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, but the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. The Crown Prosecution Service guidance says:

“In determining whether the defendant ought to know that the course of conduct amounts to harassment, the question to be considered is whether a reasonable person in possession of the same information would think the course of conduct amounted to harassment of the other.”

It is important to clarify, in relation to the Bill, that in public order offences a judge can give what is called an oblique direction to a jury, so they can say: “This concept of reasonableness is not necessarily right.” That is there as a precedent, but reasonableness is not defined in every single case.

There is a risk that if we do not clarify that we want those same protections and the same questions in this Bill, that will create a legal loophole. My amendments are about that. I am sure the Minister will argue that they are not quite at the level they need to be. I completely understand that; this is a first attempt to flag the issue. If the Minister can suggest other ways to set out in law the fact that we need consistency and that we want to close the loophole, I would be very open to that, but the Bill will not do all the things we want unless we are clear that it does not matter that a person thinks it is reasonable to grab a woman by her breasts to express their sexual interest in her—most other people would not. This Bill is about those commonplace forms of public harassment—24,000 women every single day experience harassment—and it needs to be tightened up.

I hope Committee members understand where I am coming from with these amendments, and I hope they will find common cause across the House. I look forward to what the Minister has to say and to hearing how we might take the issue forward.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells, who has done an enormous amount of work to bring together a coalition of reasonable people—to use the word of the hon. Member for Walthamstow—who have sought over many years to find a way forward on this really serious issue.

We know it is a serious issue because each one of us has listened to tales from our constituents and organisations in our patches. I always highlight the incredible work of Plan International UK, Girlguiding, the Women’s Institute and Soroptimist International. I had the pleasure of speaking about this issue at the Soroptimists’ regional conference, probably at the start of last year, although I fear that it may have been 2021. I am sure they will not mind me saying this, but it was a group of mature ladies. They were very clever, very sharp and very determined to ensure that their daughters and granddaughters do not experience the same things they had, albeit some years before.

The hon. Member for Walthamstow painted a picture of her daughter. My message to the Committee is that they are all our daughters. Those of us who are blessed with daughters often cite our experiences, but it is about every woman and young girl out there who has been the victim of this sort of harassment. The tragedy is that they all have.

I will not speak to my new clause, which was deemed out of scope—you need not worry about that, Sir Gary —but I will speak to the broad theme of this Bill, which is a huge step forward. We have been looking for this progress. I know it has been considered over many years by the Home Office under successive Home Secretaries. I pay tribute to the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), my hon. Friends the Members for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) and for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), and the Minister. I know they want to find a way forward.

I regard the Bill as the first step—this should strike fear into everyone’s heart. I will be completely candid: this is not perfect legislation. It omits some of the things that I would like to have seen included. We must keep a weather eye on what has been done to improve it when it comes back on Report and how it works in practice, because that is what really matters. It does not matter that we get the wording right in a piece of legislation if it is not any use on the ground. It is the practical implications that will make a difference to all those women out there who walk home with their keys in their hand.

We cannot shy away, and the hon. Member for Walthamstow did not shy away, from the fact that this is about women protecting themselves from male perpetrators. My Committee, the Women and Equalities Committee, is doing an enormous piece of work on misogyny and violence against women and girls. We never shy away from saying that in the vast majority of cases—of course I acknowledge that it is not every case—the behaviour is perpetrated by men, and it is cultural.

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I respectfully suggest that the hon. Lady’s amendments do not work technically, but we understand what has been put forward and it will be considered very carefully. I know that my responses will raise the question why we are restricting the new offence to cases in which the defendant’s intention to cause harassment, alarm or distress must be proven. That is what I think lies behind the amendments.

[Caroline Nokes]

I apologise if I was not listening correctly, but the Minister mentioned intent. I am not sure that, in simply reiterating the question from the hon. Member for Walthamstow, the Minister gave us an answer. Is she going to give us an answer about intent?

[Miss Dines]

To be able to get forward to the next step of the offence, the prosecution must always prove intent, so we would not get to the statutory defences until we have dealt with intent, and intent depends on the circumstances. I think we all know that it is all quite obvious, although I and the Government are willing to look at a better form of wording. I appreciate that my right hon. Friend feels passionately about this issue, and it is something that will be considered very carefully.

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[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the Minister for giving way again. I wish to follow up the example of the hon. Member for Walthamstow with a very different example, which I have used previously in the Chamber.

A young woman came to speak to me. Her job was pushing trolleys around a supermarket car park. She used to shelter by the security guards for all of lunchtime. I said, “Why? Surely lunchtime is the best part of the day?” She said, “No, because that’s when the builders come.”

Now, I recognise that we are now castigating an entire category of man, and I apologise for doing so, but they would turn up in their vans and harass her while she was pushing her trolleys. This was at the height of covid. She wore a beanie hat, a mask, a thick puffer jacket, leggings and boots; and a man walked up to her, put his hands either side of her face, and said, “You are too beautiful to be doing a job like this.” Can we discuss what the intent and the reasonableness is there? That is a clear case of harassment on the grounds of sex, but it is not as stark as the case that the hon. Member for Walthamstow shared.

[Miss Dines]

I thank my right hon. Friend for raising that example. I personally think that it is just as stark, and that it is just as easy to knock down the defence, because the intent is so obviously there. Intent is not a fanciful legal device. It is something that is pretty obviously stated, and a jury, judge or magistrate—whoever it is—would very easily be able to knock the defence away, but I do value the point that my right hon. Friend makes. The Government have accepted that they will look at that again, and I very much enjoy hearing these interventions.

The Government’s view is that even though these amendments would have the desired effect, they would not be necessary to criminalise the type of behaviour that concerns most of us here, but I do take seriously the concerns that lie behind them and I will give them further consideration. In the meantime, I suggest that the hon. Member for Walthamstow, having probed with quite a lot of debate, and made her point very forcefully, should perhaps not press the amendments.

Moving on to substantive matters more generally—I know that I have taken up a great amount of time—I speak in support of clause 1, which creates the new offence at the heart of the Bill by inserting a new criminal offence within the Public Order Act 1986 as a new section 4B. The offence will be dependent on the behaviour that falls within section 4A of the Act—namely, that of intentionally causing harassment, alarm or distress—and will provide that if someone committed behaviour under section 4A, and did so because of the victim’s sex, they could receive a longer sentence of up to two years, rather than the six months mentioned in section 4A.

The approach of building on the section 4A offence reflects the Government’s view that public sexual harassment behaviour is already covered by existing criminal offences, most commonly that section 4A offence. Had we instead sought to create a wholly new offence, that would have entailed overlap with existing ones, which would be not only unnecessary but actively harmful, as it would create confusion about the law—exactly the reverse of what we are trying to achieve here.