Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Clive Lewis Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

When people complain to me about the noise at Prime Minister’s questions, I always tell them that they can tune into any of the two-hour hearings of the Select Committees that I sit on and listen to some calm forensic questioning, but they do not, because shouting—the impassioned barrage of noise—is a fundamental of PMQs and of democracy. Democracy is noisy. Democracy is irritating, but that is democracy.

It will come as no surprise to hon. Members that I have attended a good number of protests and never once—never once—have I attended a protest without the intention to disrupt or to make a noise. Quite frankly, what would be the point? When our constituents feel that they cannot be heard through other means, they stand outside and they shout. Even if they are fox hunting supporters or Brexiteers, I smile when I walk past them as they are performing that basic level of democracy—from the agora to Parliament Square. The idea that we would criminalise those people is frankly disgusting.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making some excellent points. Does he see the irony that as we watch Putin’s tanks roll into Ukraine and protesters having their peaceful protests broken up by the police, we in this place are debating a Bill that would take away the right to protest?

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I do. The expansion of police powers is highly disproportionate. In the words of a former police chief and senior officers who have written to the Government, it will place an “onerous burden” on and apply “greater political pressure” to frontline police. Ultimately, it will be up to the police to determine whether the low threshold has been met.

Ruth Walshe, a volunteer from Green and Black Cross, detailed her experiences of the police during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. She heard the police say to her:

“‘who does that b**** think she is’, ‘can’t we lock them and put them in a cell’, ‘what do those f****** want’”.

Reports of that type of behaviour are corroborated by the Charing Cross report, which found that officers present at those protests had made horrific homophobic, sexist and racist remarks. There are very many good police officers, but collectively, there is a problem in the police. Rather than trying to deal with those systemic problems, the Government are saying, “Make racist, sexist or homophobic abuses and you get more powers to control woman, people of colour and queer people.” It is outrageous.

I also rise to speak in support of Lords amendment 87, which would remove clause 61, which should really be called the “Get Steve Bray” clause. I have found Steve bloody irritating at times, but creating an unprecedented and disproportionate law to go after a man who interrupts the Minister’s Sky News interviews is quite frankly pathetic. Some hon. Members may remember Brian Haw, the peace campaigner who lived opposite. It was wrong then for the Labour Government to try to get rid of him from Parliament Square and it was right that Conservative Members stood up for him to stop the law being changed. They should be doing it now.

I will end with this observation. The Government did not like the Black Lives Matter protests when tens of thousands of young people went on to the streets for racial equality, they were embarrassed by the anti-Trump demonstrations during his state visit and they despised the 1 million people who marched to try to stop Brexit, so we are here with a Bill that tries to make the snowflakes opposite feel better. That, frankly, is what they are: the Secretary of State is a snowflake, and the Minister’s Back Benchers are snowflakes. They cannot cope with a bit of robust debate. They cry into their port in the evening when people say things they do not like or they are too noisy. Rather than debate them back or viscerally argue back, what they do is shut them down and make them illegal. It is nasty, it is wrong and it should go.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Clive Lewis Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading - Day 2
Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab) [V]]

How often have we heard the notion that somehow liberty is an integral part of the English character, and that we fortunate few in this country are somehow different from the rest of humanity? Not for us authoritarianism, autocracy or, God forbid, the dark slide into fascism. No, no, no—that is for other people and other countries, not us. Yet here we stand, yet again with yet another Bill from this Government stripping the people of this country of yet more liberty and more of their democratic rights.

English exceptionalism is a dangerous fallacy, none more so than when it comes to the constant vigilance required of any democracy. It is hubris of the first order—one I fear has infected those on the Government Benches. The potential for the slide into authoritarianism and worse is, as history has clearly demonstrated, part of the human condition. That is the painful and bloody lesson from the 20th century. Yet here we are, with this Bill before us. It is the tip of an authoritarian iceberg—one that is on a collision course with public defiance.

Democracy is being swept away in a calculated programme to leave the public muted and powerless. We have the demonisation of the Gypsy, Traveller and Roma community, a planned voter suppression Bill to strip the right to vote from black and other disadvantaged communities, and the limiting of judicial review to stop the public challenging the Government’s decisions in court and shifting yet more power to the Executive. We have the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill, which creates a two-tier, “them and us” system of human rights. Now, having passed that, the Government are coming for our rights with a review of UK human rights legislation.

Those on the Government Benches are fast moving from becoming a Government to becoming a regime. They want to stifle dissent, so that they are not accountable to the public. Our country—our economy, our politics and our media—is controlled by a small clique of individuals. Over the past 40 years, they have taken more power for themselves at the expense of our democracy. Now they are not even happy with us clinging on to the scraps we currently have.

I have directed this speech at Government Members, but to those on my own Front Bench who have finally been brought to the right position of opposition, I say this: it should not have taken the police assault on people gathered peacefully in memory of Sarah Everard to see the assault on democracy that this Bill is. It is writ large, so let this be a wake-up call. We have never seen anything like this Government before.

If the Bill goes through, anyone who values their democratic rights must get organised and fight back. I will stand with protesters, irrelevant of the laws passed by this place. I say to anyone in this place and outside who values democracy that we must create a democracy that is fit for purpose for the challenges we face—climate and ecological breakdown, the epidemic of inequality—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. We are moving on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

T9. Violence in Norfolk prisons has reached unprecedented levels, with more than two attacks every single day last year. So when will this Government accept that the root cause of this crisis is the thousands of cuts to experienced prison staff that took place on their watch, and when will they commit to stopping the underfunding and overcrowding of prisons across this country?

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Member makes two important points. He may have heard my answer to the hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin), when I said that in fact for the first time, September to September last year, we had a reduction in violence—a slight reduction but a good step in the right direction. As I mentioned to the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts), we have recruited more prison officers—4,300 net since 2016.

Points of Order

Clive Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We cannot and will not have a debate on the matter. The hon. Lady was courteous enough to give me advance notice of her intention to raise this point of order, for which I thank her, and I have attended both to the substance of what she has said and to the remarks of the Minister.

I must say to the hon. Lady that, disquieting though the experience might have been, and relatively irregularly though it might occur, it is not clear to me that the hon. Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) has broken any convention. It is certainly a convention to notify another Member of an intention to visit his or her constituency in a political public capacity. It is also a very well established convention that a Member of Parliament should not purport to represent or offer to represent people who are not her or his constituents. [Interruption.] Order. Writing, however, in a campaigning context on party notepaper, though it might not happen very frequently, is not—and I have some experience of these matters—a demonstrable breach of a long-standing convention.

I say to the hon. Lady, whose concern I treat very seriously, that I appreciate that concern, but it seems to me that courtesies between Members of the House, which are important, are best arrived at and adhered to by informal discussions between colleagues. It is not desirable that they should ritually be attempted to be resolved by being raised on the Floor of the House with the Chair. That is to say, to be clear, that they are not matters of order but matters of informal agreement and understanding. It is much better if such understandings can be reached between neighbouring colleagues.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You have often stated from the Chair that answers to written parliamentary questions from Back-Bench Members from all parts of the House should be answered in both a timely and a substantive manner by Ministers. On 24 March, I tabled a named day question to the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), asking, very simply, how much the Government had spent on advertising in the Evening Standard in the last financial year. Three days later, I received a holding answer. Now, over a month later, I still have not received a substantive answer. I am concerned that the Government might now simply be winding down the clock, with the intention of not providing an answer before we prorogue. The public might also draw the conclusion that they have something embarrassing to hide that they do not want to reveal during an election campaign. Is there anything you can do from the Chair, Mr Speaker, to encourage Ministers to answer such questions substantively this week, so that both Members of the House and the public can know the truth?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of his point of order. I do appreciate his concern. The content of Ministers’ answers is, of course, not a matter for the Chair. That is a matter exclusively for the Minister giving the response. However, the hon. Gentleman references my repeated exhortation to Ministers to provide timely and substantive responses, an exhortation in which I am regularly joined by the Leader of the House. Many Ministers attach a premium to adhering to that principle and expectation. I agree that it is unsatisfactory if the Government are unable to give a substantive answer to a named day question tabled well before Prorogation. No doubt the concern articulated by the hon. Gentleman has been heard on the Treasury Bench. In so far as he further seeks my advice, it is encapsulated in one sentence: the hon. Gentleman should seek to speak to the Leader of the House, sooner rather than later.

Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women

Clive Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

This is remarkable. The difference between our Government in Scotland and the Tory Government in London is that we have a Government who are popular and responsible. There is a very easy answer to this: give us the powers over pensions. Give us our independence and we will do the right thing for our people and rectify the wrong that has been done by the Conservative Government.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

Conservative Members keep talking about money. That is very important, but there is another issue—fairness. Maybe you do not know, but a third of the women between the age of 55 and 59 do not work. Do you know why they do not work? Because they have ill health or are disabled. The other half are either carers or looking after people. The reality is—

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice (Mike Penning)]

My hon. Friend raises a really important issue. One minute our servicemen are heroes, and the next minute they are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system. Charities such as Care after Combat, which was recently formed, are doing fantastic work that is being piloted in our prisons. I would like to meet my hon. Friend again to see how we can work together to ensure that our heroes do not end up in the criminal justice system.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

T3. Last week the Scottish Government celebrated the 10th anniversary of legal humanist marriage. Given their popularity —there has been an upsurge in the number of such marriages in that country—and support in both Houses, can the Minister give us an idea of whether the Government would like to implement something similar in this country?

[Caroline Dinenage]

Yes, marriage is one of our most important institutions and we need to make sure that any changes to the law are carried out with care. That is why we have asked the Law Commission to undertake a preliminary scoping study to prepare the way for potential future reform. It is due to report in December and then the Government will consider the next steps very carefully.