Public Order Bill

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ian Paisley]

I will conclude now, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I agree with the point that the hon. Member has made. The arrest of Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was atrocious. It sends out a terrible message to women and to anyone who wishes to engage in silent prayer in this nation. I am glad that that attempt at a conviction was overturned by the court and thrown out. It is unfortunate that she has been arrested again today by another police officer saying, “What are you thinking? What are you praying?” That is wrong, and we need to stand up against that sort of harassment.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I rise to speak to amendment (a) to Lords amendment 5.

I recognise that there is a genuine problem that the Bill and the Lords amendments seek to address, of harassment, intimidation and offensive behaviour directed at women going into abortion clinics. I recognise that this requires policing and that it is appropriate for the authorities to stop harassment and intimidation. This House and the other place have decided that additional legislation, on top of what is already on the statute book, is required to enable that additional policing. All the arguments made by the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq), who has campaigned so hard on this issue for so long, have been accepted by the House, and I do not think there is any particular value in unpicking her arguments. That debate has been had.

The question now before us, and the purpose of amendment (a) to Lords amendment 5, is about what is to happen in these safe access zones, as they are now to be called. I recognise that is the intention behind the Lords amendment, and the intention behind the original clause, but my concern is that, in asserting a general principle of something we do not want, and couching that desire in very broad terms, we are taking a momentous step. We are crossing an enormous river. The Rubicon was actually a very small stream, but it was a momentous step. When we criminalise prayer, private thought or, indeed, consensual conversations between two adults, we are doing something of enormous significance in our country and our democracy.

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

I agree with everything my hon. Friend says, but my concern is about the motivation for a person to silently pray there. What motivation do they have other than to be seen by a woman who is at her lowest ebb? It is not the best day of her life. In fact, it will be one of the worst days of her life.

[Danny Kruger]

I recognise that, but the difficulty is that none of us can know their motivation. I can accept that my hon. Friend’s judgment is that the motivation is pretty malign. The prayer might be well intentioned, but the attempt to dissuade a lady from accessing an abortion clinic is genuine. There is no doubt that is what is happening. My concern is about the principle of this law, how it will be applied and the precedent it sets in our democracy.

My concern is that the Bill authorises the police to ask exactly the question raised by my hon. Friend. It authorises them to go up to a private citizen standing on a street corner, not overtly harassing anyone, and to ask the question that the police asked the lady in Birmingham, “What are you praying about? What is in your head at this time?” They could see that she was not doing anything offensive, but they concluded that she was probably thinking something of which they disapproved, so they took steps to arrest her. I think we are taking a very concerning step as a country in authorising the police to act in that way.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I utterly respect the sincerity with which amendment (a) to Lords amendment 5 was moved and why my hon. Friend is supporting it. I am pleased to hear that the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) is against harassment, but that is the point of amendment (a). It does not say that any person engaged in consensual communication or silent prayer shall avoid harassment; it says that it shall not be taken as harassment. However ostentatiously someone is praying, or however aggressively they are seeking to open consensual communication with an individual going to a clinic, it shall not be taken to be harassment. It is a blank cheque for a person to behave in a harassing way, because they can defend themselves by saying, “Oh, but it says here that what I was doing shall not be taken as harassment.”

[Danny Kruger]

The behaviour that will not be taken as harassment is private prayer. Other actions that may be taken—obstructing a person walking down the street was what my hon. Friend suggested earlier—will be in scope. What should not be in scope is a person thinking something in their head. That is the only defence on which we are trying to insist, and I invite Members to consider whether they want to pass a law that will ban people from thinking something. Other forms of harassment or obstruction will be in scope of the law. So I do not think the intention is to stop people praying—I do not think that is what the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton, the Government or indeed any of us want to do. We need to send a clear signal of the intention of Parliament through this amendment, and I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) for tabling it. I ask Members to consider that if they vote against it, they are voting to ban private prayer. Of course it is a special case and we are talking about tiny zones, and of course we can all sympathise with the intention of the clause, but the point is the principle of this—

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

When we legislate, being specific matters. So let us be clear: the amendment proposed by the hon. Member for Northampton South is not about private prayer, but about “silent prayer”. Silent prayer can be done in somebody’s face, can it not, whether or not what the person praying is thinking is private in their head? That shows the challenge here. This is not actually about prayer; it is about where it is taking place. So will the hon. Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) clarify, for the avoidance of doubt, that he has no problem with recognising that somebody praying in another person’s face, silent or not, is unwelcome?

--- Later in debate ---

[Danny Kruger]

The difficulty is with the private prayer—the silent prayer; that is what we are trying to protect. If the person is standing offensively in somebody’s face and trying to obstruct their access, of course they will come within scope. We are trying to protect people such as the lady who was standing quietly at the side, praying to herself, as far as we know. She might have been thinking about her shopping, but that was what the police were interested in; she was asked, “What are you doing standing over here quietly?”.

I am afraid to say that there was always going to be difficulty with this new law, because the police are going to be required to make all sorts of strange interpretations and judgments about why somebody is doing something. Nevertheless, in passing a law to create these zones we must consider people who are doing this utterly inoffensive thing, standing quietly at the side praying.

[Dr Huq]

Let me just give the hon. Gentleman the example of Ealing, where we have had our zone since 2018—this is now its sixth year. Only three breaches have occurred and none has resulted in a conviction, because these people are usually law-abiding. Only one came close—I think it is still being legislated on and is probably sub judice—because it was done as a stunt. In reality, these things do not occur. People can pray elsewhere, and every royal medical college, including the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, as well as the British Medical Association and all medical opinion support this measure.

[Danny Kruger]

Okay, well, I will wind up now, because I think the point has been well rehearsed. My concern is with the principle we are setting here. Of course, everyone must have sympathy with these women, and we need to protect them from harassment, but where does this lead and what we are doing by saying that people should not be allowed to pray quietly on their own?

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

Policing by consent is central to how our criminal justice system works in the UK and the authority by which officers wield the power given to them. That is why this issue is challenging and why we are having this debate. It is seen as being about balancing the rights of protest in this situation with other rights to go about everyday legitimate business. It is important to take a balanced and sensitive approach.

Several legal minds here are much greater than mine. I am not a qualified lawyer, but I am standing here as the only former police officer participating in this debate. I know who the other two former police officers are and they are not here. I have approached this debate, these clauses and the Lords amendments by thinking about what would happen if I, as a police officer, went to attend a “spontaneous protest”, meaning that as a constable, the first person there, it would be on me to make the decisions about what was legitimate or not and about how I carried out my duties. I also thought about what would happen if I was part of a team of police officers policing a bigger protest, and about the instructions that I would be given by the silver and bronze commanders in relation to that protest and how they would tell me how to interpret the law.

I found it interesting when the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, who is no longer in his place, intervened on the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) to say that he would explain that this is confusing. Police officers are dealing with an ambiguity in the moment all the time. If we create legislation in this place that is confusing and if we have not provided clarity, it is not surprising that police officers will be found not to be applying the law correctly.

Interestingly, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who is also no longer in his place, talked about the interviews that His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue undertook with police officers. I cannot totally repeat what the former silver public order commander to whom I am married called this Bill, but I can say that it was a pile of something. I will leave Members to speculate on what else he said. These are complex decisions to be made in real time, regardless of rank. Policing by consent is how we ensure that we carry out our duties safely.