Harassment in Public Life

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

My hon. Friend is right. In citizenship classes, there is an online element that I would expect to be covered. That point has been made by other Members, and I will ensure that the Department for Education hears it. I think that our children hear about what is acceptable when they hear people like us calling things out, saying, “No more,” insisting that this is the end of such abuse, and saying that we will take action. It is by example that they learn.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Mr Speaker, the first thing you did as Speaker, as is required, was to go to the House of Lords and demand the traditional privileges of this House. At the top of that list is freedom of speech. We should be able to speak our mind without fear or favour and, for that matter, to vote without fear or favour. What we have seen over the past week is a deliberate attempt to humiliate, to bully, to intimidate and to prevent people from doing what is their democratic right. We will not be a Parliament—we will not be a free Parliament—if we continue to allow that to go on.

The worst of it is that there is a concatenation here. Yes, the newspapers, with the authority they have, are putting horrible stories on their front pages and effectively lining people up as if they should be politically shot. An amplification then goes on through social media. But there are also international actors involved in this. There are Russian bots deliberately seeking to intimidate Members of this Parliament.

I do not believe for a single instant that the Government are taking this seriously enough. At the beginning of my time in Parliament, I might have got one death threat a year; it is now one death threat a week and several a month. Until we see real action—until I know that a police officer will one day ring me back and say, “We have done something about it. That person is going to prison,”—I honestly will not believe that the Government really know what is going on out there.

[Amber Rudd]

Let us make that change ourselves. Let us make sure that our voice is heard clearly, loudly and effectively. Let us say that this is the point at which we will make those changes. We have made it clear that the sorts of activities the hon. Gentleman describes are illegal online, as they are offline, and I would expect them to be reported. We are seeing prosecutions by the CPS, and the police are taking it seriously and are much better trained on digital evidence. I would expect that to start to make a difference.