Public Order Bill

Charles Walker Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 18th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I will come to new clause 11 shortly, and express my support and our support for that new clause. We have supported it many times in many different forms through many different debates.

The Labour party, last April, called for greater injunction powers following the disruption by Just Stop Oil, when millions of people could not access fuel. We argued that the raft of existing powers could be used more effectively. We suggested injunctions because they are more likely to prevent further disruption to, say, an oil terminal than more offences to criminalise conduct after it has taken place, with all the added costs and logistics of removal. Injunctions are more straightforward for the police, they have more safeguards as they are granted by a court, and they are future-proof when protesters change tactics.

Police officers have told us that some of the most effective measures they use in the face of potential serious disruption are injunctions. The National Police Chiefs’ Council protests lead, Chris Noble, said that

“they can be very useful in terms of what we are trying to control and how we are trying to shape…behaviour.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 8, Q7.]

In Kingsbury with Just Stop Oil and on the M25 with insulate Britain, people were arrested, removed and charged for breaching injunctions.

We introduced a new clause in Committee to bring what is known as the Canada Goose case into law. The Canada Goose case allowed injunctions to be taken out against persons unknown. This means that when groups of protesters form outside, the applicant does not have to know all their names or the names of people who may come in the future. Sadly, in Committee, the Government voted against our injunctions new clause. They said it would not create meaningful change.

The Government have since had a change of heart, however—another U-turn from the Government—but our suggestions for injunctions are still not being supported; they have introduced their own in new clauses 7 and 8. We believe these new clauses are flawed in several ways. First, there are some drafting problems, and lawyers we have spoken to are unclear on what the legal basis of an injunction would be. Secondly, we have concerns about placing the responsibility and power in the hands of the Home Secretary. Thirdly, we have concerns about where the burden of cost will fall; at a very difficult economic time, the Government can through this Bill shift financial responsibility from the private sector to the public sector, and that needs to be looked at.

In Committee, we heard evidence from HS2, who were in the process of applying for a route-wide injunction to protect their sites from serious disruption. This has now been granted by the High Court. The documents detailing the High Court decision show that the judge granted it partly on the basis that it satisfied the requirements of the Canada Goose case, the guidelines set by the Court of Appeal. Our new clause 4 puts on to the statue books the Canada Goose case law principles. Surely the Minister does not oppose principles set by the Court of Appeal; why does he not look again at Labour’s sensible amendment to tackle serious disruption?

Our new clause 5 seeks to make a simple but important change. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 contains a definition of serious disruption—after we called on the Government to define it as they had not done so originally. That definition includes “noise generated by people”. We want that definition removed, so that when the police are deciding what constitutes serious disruption, they cannot do this on noise alone. We have all debated this many times in the House and I will not repeat the arguments we have made. Instead, I will quote the current Foreign Office Minister, the right hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), who said in a letter to the previous Prime Minister:

“No genuinely Conservative government should have supported the recent ban on noisy protest—least of all when basic human freedoms are facing the threat of extinction in Ukraine.”

We agree with him and tonight the Government have the chance to do so too and to right that wrong. Surely, the Prime Minister, fixated supposedly on freedom, would want to defend the right to chant and sing at a protest, just like she did as a child against the party she now leads.

Since we now have a new Home Secretary, perhaps these words from the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) are worth her also bearing in mind:

“It is tempting when Home Secretary to think that giving powers to the Home Secretary is very reasonable, because we all think we are reasonable, but future Home Secretaries may not be so reasonable.”—[Official Report, 15 March 2021; Vol. 691, c. 78.]

That has never been more the case than now.

This Bill gives the police wide-ranging powers to stop and search anyone in the vicinity of a protest: for example, shoppers passing a protest against a library closure, tourists walking through Parliament Square, or civil servants walking to their desks in the Cabinet Office. But these far-reaching powers to stop and search without suspicion go too far. We know the police will not feel comfortable using them—we have spoken to several who have said the same—and in an area of policing already prone to disproportionality, they represent a disproportionate way of preventing what is in the vast majority of cases a minor public order offence at most.

In the same way, a serious disruption prevention order, also introduced in this Bill, treats a peaceful protestor, who in some instances will have committed no crime, as if they were a terrorist. Is that what the Home Secretary really thinks? Does she really want her Government to be responsible for treating peaceful, if admittedly annoying, protestors like serious criminals? The SDPO is draconian, preventing people from going to places and seeing people when they have not even committed a crime. And we must remember that to be eligible for an SDPO, serious disruption does not even need to have occurred; as the Bill states, I could be given an SDPO if I helped someone else do something which was

“likely to result in, serious disruption to two or more individuals”.

The phrase “likely to result in” amounts in real world terms to absolutely nothing, and just two people being required to experience, or being likely to experience but not actually experiencing, serious disruption is too low a bar.

On new clause 11, everyone has a right to access healthcare without fear of intimidation. The same principles applied when we had debates in this place about buffer zones—public space protection orders—outside vaccine centres when there were protests against people having their vaccine. Access to healthcare is a fundamental right and we must safeguard it. Many Members have been making this argument for many years in many different ways. The shadow Home Secretary has been calling for it since 2014. I have only been in Parliament since 2017 and we debated it in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and we do it again now. The Minister has the opportunity to do some good here; I think there is agreement on that on both sides of the House.

We all agree that the disruption we have seen from the small groups of hard-line protesters is unacceptable, whether blocking ambulances or stopping people getting to work for long periods of time, but our job as legislators is to come up with proposals that will actually help. It is our jobs to be grown-ups. This Government have created a piece of legislation that is disproportionate and threatens our unique model of policing by consent. In the evidence sessions, Sir Peter Fahy, a very well-respected former chief constable, spoke to us about the British style of policing. He said that we do not live in France or any other country with a paramilitary aspect to their policing and that

“in our policing system…policing is by consent… There would need to be a huge shift in the public mood and I think British policing is not really set up and does not have the mentality to use the degree of force that you see in other countries.

People do not realise that we are pretty unique...that is the British style”.––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 62, Q122.]

The Government would do well to listen to Sir Peter’s warnings. They are undermining that style of policing and upsetting that careful balance between the police and the people, and the fine line between being popular and populist. We are not the French. At a time when the economy is crashing and inflation is soaring, Ministers are choosing to spend precious parliamentary time trying to create political and cultural dividing lines, to chase headlines instead of actually finding sensible and workable solutions. The Government should rethink this flawed legislation.

[Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

Over the past few days I have been accused of being tired, emotional, erratic, and, just to put the record straight, I am all of those things and more. I want to be clear: unlike some Members in this Chamber, I have no time for those people who block roads, throw soup, and make a general nuisance of themselves. They are agents against their own interests, as they repel normal ordinary people. Having said that, serious disruption prevention orders are not the answer. They leave me absolutely cold; in fact I would go so far as to say that they are 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.

I know there is a convention here that we do not read lists, but I hope, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I will be allowed to read a very short list just to set out the laws that already exist and have been covered by colleagues: obstructing a police officer, Police Act 1996; obstructing a highway, Highways Act 1980; obstruction of an engine, Malicious Damage Act 1861—we all remember that one —endangering road users, Road Traffic Act 1988; aggravated trespass, Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994; criminal damage, Criminal Damage Act 1971; and public nuisance, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. There are also other laws. There is the Public Order Act 1986 that allows police officers to ban or place conditions on protest.

So the Government’s attraction to SDPOs demonstrates our own impotence as legislators and the impotence of the police as law enforcers to get to grips with the laws already in place and to enforce them. This is what we do now in politics: we have these machismo laws where something must be done, so we go out and do it, and that makes a good headline in The Daily Telegraph and The Times, but we do it and then very little happens, or if it does happen it is way over the top.

[Jeremy Quin]

My hon. Friend rightly compliments the police for routinely arresting and charging those who are responsible for wrongdoing. Does he agree that it is not an acceptable circumstance where 460 individuals have been arrested a total of 910 times for Just Stop Oil protests and that there is a difficult point of cumulation that we must accept?

[Sir Charles Walker]

I thank the Minister for his intervention, because I am now warming to my task to nail a stake through the heart of this nonsense that we are debating. [Interruption.] It is absolute nonsense, Minister. For the benefit of Hansard, that is what the Minister said from a sedentary position. I would just say this. There is the idea that in this country we will ankle-tag someone who has not been convicted in a court of law. Those Chinese in their embassy will be watching that closely at the moment—they might actually be applying for some of this stuff once we have passed it in this place, as I suspect that we will.

Now I am getting tired and emotional. I say this to the Minister. During the covid lockdowns, when we banned protest, I warned that we would get to this point and that once the Government and politicians were emboldened by placing restrictions on a right and turning it into a freedom, they would not stop.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a fantastic speech that is being admired on both sides of the House. I wonder if he might be concerned that somebody could say that warnings on Radio 4 that the Conservative party might end up smaller than the SNP after the next election would be conducive to public disorder. Does he fear in any way being prosecuted himself as a result of that?

[Sir Charles Walker]

The Conservative party is the architect of its own misfortune, and we must deal with that and respond to it, so I will not be tempted down that track by the hon. Gentleman. All I will say is that this is as unconservative as our Budget a few weeks ago. This is not what the Conservative party does. We believe in proportionate laws, like we used to believe in sound money. I will therefore be joining hon. Members from across the House in voting against this piece of legislation.

As I said a moment ago, I warned, over a pint of milk—the metaphor that I used—that our right to protest was being eroded. Now, we are crying over spilt milk.

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)]

I rise to speak to the new clauses tabled in my name and those of my hon. Friends the Members for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) and for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova), the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) and the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) as well as all those amendments that stand against this fundamentally flawed Bill.

One of my motivations for my new clauses was the fatal police shooting in my constituency of Chris Kaba, an unarmed black man, which sent shockwaves through a traumatised community. I offer my condolences to the Kaba family, his friends and his community. I will not say more for risk of sub judice, especially since an inquest is ongoing and the Independent office for Police Conduct is conducting a homicide investigation and considering whether race was a factor in his shooting. I am sure that everybody across the whole House will agree that a just society is one in which your race does not determine whether or not you are over-policed as a citizen and under-policed as a victim. But with a Government who seem hellbent on ramping up policing powers and presiding over worsening inequalities, it is clear that there will be an uphill struggle to realise that vision.

The Bill contains a significant expansion of police powers, including measures that the Government already attempted to put into the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. Those measures were opposed in the other place, so I do not understand why they are trying to bring them back. That is one reason why new clause 15 states that there must be a public inquiry into the policing of black, Asian and minority ethnic people. New clause 16 would require an equality impact assessment of the Bill. Yet again, we are having to ask that the Government respect that equality is the law and do not propose legislation that clearly infringes on the rights of minoritised groups.

--- Later in debate ---

I have heard arguments from Opposition Members about how serious disruption prevention orders will unfairly infringe on someone’s right to protest. I must state unequivocally that the Government do not agree. As I have said already, peaceful protest is a fundamental part of our democracy, and those who make their voices heard peacefully will not be affected by these changes. Rather, serious disruption prevention orders exist to provide a route to prevent small numbers of individuals who have a track record of deliberately causing serious disruption from using the cover of protest to commit criminal offences or inflict serious disruption on the wider public.

[Sir Charles Walker]

Will the Minister give way?

[Jeremy Quin]

I have lots of Members to cover, but I will of course give way.

[Sir Charles Walker]

The Minister is his usual charming self, but what we are talking about is putting ankle tags on people who have not been convicted of any crime. That just does seem way over the top.

[Jeremy Quin]

That would be a decision made by a court in very specific circumstances, and I do trust our courts to take appropriate action. They can only do so on the weight of evidence, and they are very used to taking these decisions. After all, there is a tried and tested process whereby injunctions can be sought and obtained to prevent a future harm. I do not think this is as radical as my hon. Friend is suggesting. However, I congratulate him on the points he made, even though I disagree with him, and also my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) on his contribution to this point of the debate. I would love to prevail on my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne to withdraw his amendment, but I do not think that is going to happen, and I look forward to opposing it.

Turning to the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), I spoke earlier in the debate about why we believe that injunctions are useful. We absolutely accept the point being made by the hon. Lady that they are appropriate when used properly, and that is why we have tabled our amendments. I think ours is a more competent and effective way of achieving our shared objectives.

On new clause 5, which seeks to define the meaning of “serious disruption” for the purposes of this Bill, I have to say that no two protests, nor the operational response required, are ever the same. Being too prescriptive risks the ability of the police to respond to fast-evolving protest tactics while also risking the exploitation of loopholes by those intent on causing as much disruption as possible. That is not to say that I dismiss the principle of this amendment. There is a balance to be struck between a definition that is broad and one that is prescriptive, so while I do not agree with the hon. Lady’s amendment, we will reflect further on its intent.

I turn now to perhaps the most vexed issue in today’s debate—namely, new clause 11, proposed by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy). New clause 11 seeks to create 150-metre buffer zones outside abortion clinics in which all activity interfering with a person’s right to access abortion services would be prohibited. As the hon. Lady would accept, that is a blunt instrument. It is there to achieve an objective, but within those 150-metre buffer zones there could be houses and churches, and this would be a national decision covering the 150 metres around all clinics.

At the outset of the debate, I made it clear that, from the Government’s perspective, it is a free vote for members of our party. My good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), said that this is a difficult issue to grapple with, and it is indeed difficult. However, I would like to make it clear that it is entirely possible to support totally a woman’s right to an abortion and to view protests outside abortion clinics as abhorrent while still believing that the current legislative framework provides an appropriate response.