Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Debate between Gareth Johnson and Philip Davies

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 27th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

This very good debate has featured a great deal of expertise, which I have welcomed.

I am delighted that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) persuaded the Minister of his case in relation to sexual assault. He also spoke about spitting, as did the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick). When my dad—remarkably, unbelievably—became the elected Mayor of Doncaster, he introduced a penalty for spitting, and I should like to think that more local authorities would do the same. I am sorry that we could not persuade the Minister on that issue, but an acceptance rate of 50% for the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Rhondda is certainly better than my track record. The rule is, I think, that those who want the Government to agree to something should come at it from a left-wing perspective, as that usually gives them a better chance of success than the approach of coming from a more conservative perspective. That is something I have learned over many years.

I was grateful for the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) about the sentencing powers of magistrates, and for what he said about our breaking new ground and the possibility that, as I argued, the Crown courts should be given bigger sentencing options. I commend the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) for her support for my new clauses: she proved herself, again, to be a doughty supporter of police officers.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) made an excellent speech, although he let himself down somewhat by saying that we in the UK send lots of people to prison, which is a myth that is constantly propagated by the liberal elite. Just for the record, the fact is that for every 1,000 crimes committed in this country, we send 17 people to prison. That is one of the lowest ratios anywhere in the world. I challenge my hon. Friends to find any country that sends fewer than 17 people per 1,000 crimes committed to prison. They will struggle to find many, although there are some— [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) is part of the liberal metropolitan elite. I repeat the fact—it came from the House of Commons Library, so I am sure she will not deny it— that for every 1,000 crimes committed, we send 17 people to prison. That is a fact. My hon. Friend may think that the proportion is too high; I rather think that it is too low.

[Gareth Johnson]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Philip Davies]

No, because I think we want to press on.

I was also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts), who made the same point about the sentencing powers of Crown courts and magistrates. The Minister did not really explain why we are giving them the same powers.

Awards for Valour (Protection) Bill

Debate between Gareth Johnson and Philip Davies

Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 24th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. The Bill goes over the top in making these things a criminal offence, potentially with a custodial sentence attached. That is bad enough in terms of going over the top, but when we are dealing with things that have “the appearance of being an award”, we are going way beyond what anybody has ever envisaged before, and we are going too far.

My amendment 3 proposes to delete the words “including in particular” from clause 2. That seems a strange phrase to have in legislation, as it is general and does not strike me as being a particularly helpful legal phrase. How do we define “including in particular”? Does that mean something else is included that we do not know about? I do not really know what definition we have in mind for “including in particular”. How on earth is anyone to know whether they are committing an offence if they are wearing something which is not mentioned “in particular”? It could be interpreted that they did break the law without having any idea that they were doing so because the provision just includes things “in particular”, but not exclusively those things. That is a strange phrase.

We can take amendments 4 and 6 to 15 together, as they all deal with the fact of this being an imprisonable offence. They would remove the custodial sentence for the offence in England and Wales.

As I have said, I do not think we should have this legislation. As I pointed out on Second Reading, the Defence Committee called its report on the Bill “Exposing Walter Mitty: The Awards for Valour (Protection) Bill”, but it would not expose Walter Mitty; it would criminalise him and potentially send him to prison for three months. If it was just about exposing Walter Mitty, probably none of us would have a problem with the Bill, but that is not what it would do.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I have deliberately not intervened on my hon. Friend until now because it is quite clear that he is trying to talk the Bill out, and it is absolutely clear that his amendments are wrecking amendments that are not based on logic. Does he accept that it is a great shame that there is support on both sides of the House—from Her Majesty’s Opposition, the Government, the Scottish National party—yet he seems hellbent on preventing it from becoming law?

[Philip Davies]

I am sorry that my hon. Friend takes that attitude. I have tabled some amendments that have been found to be in order by the Speaker. I do not know whether my hon. Friend is questioning the Speaker’s selection of amendments, but they are all in order, which is why they have been selected for debate. If they were not, they would not have been selected. I am going rather rapidly through each of them, which is what we are supposed to do on Report—we table amendments and go through them to explain the purpose behind them, and then people can explain why they disagree. That takes as long as it takes. I do not think I have been dwelling unnecessarily on any particular amendment, so I am sorry that my hon. Friend takes that view. I do not set the timings for debates; if the debate could last longer, I would be happy for it to do so, but I do not set the rules. I am going to go through the amendments and explain why I have tabled them. I am sorry that he does not like people doing that with legislation in the House of Commons, but that is what the House is for.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

I am trying to do that, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I keep getting distracted by Members wanting to raise all sorts of other matters. I will stick to my amendments, as I was trying to do in the first place.

Amendment 4 would remove the chance of anyone being sent to prison for such an act. Other countries have different positions, as was confirmed by the House of Commons Library before Second Reading. A range of offences is covered, and there is a distinction between wearing medals, wearing medals with an intent to deceive and wearing medals with a view to a financial gain. As my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) said, fraud legislation already provides protection in this country when it comes to wearing an Army uniform, so we do have other legislation that covers this area, when other countries have no such legislation.

My amendments give a range of options: I have gone from no custodial sentence to custodial sentences of one day, seven days, 14 days, 21 days and 28 days, all of which are naturally better than three months. I prefer no custodial sentence at all, but I have tabled all those different amendments to give the House some kind of choice if it felt a different option was more appropriate.

[Gareth Johnson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is very sad that, come this Remembrance Sunday, any individual can parade in front of widows, veterans, families and loved ones wearing medals that they have not won themselves—they may not have even served—with the intent to deceive and to curry favour? The reason why they will be able to do so is that he has filibustered this Bill.

[Philip Davies]

I thought that my hon. Friend was going to make a sensible point, rather than bandying about more accusations. I am trying to improve his Bill. The fact is that, by his own admission, he brought forward a Bill that was a bit of a dog’s breakfast, because he changed it radically in Committee. If he had had his way, his Bill would have gone through on the nod; no one would have said anything and it would have gone through in its original form, which he accepts was a dog’s dinner of a Bill; it is now half a dog’s dinner. I accept that he made some improvements in Committee, but just because he is on a tight timescale is no basis on which to pass legislation in this House. It cannot be appropriate to say, “Well, I know that it is not a very good Bill, that there are deficiencies in it and that there are lots of concerns with it, but, I tell you what, we are on a bit of a tight timescale so we will forget about all that, just nod it through and to hell with the consequences.” Are we saying that, if someone gets sent to prison and gets a criminal record when no one in this House ever intended that they should get a criminal record, then so be it—hard cheese? That might be the attitude that my hon. Friend takes, but it is not one that I take. We must take these provisions seriously.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

The idea that I am scared of the hon. Gentleman is bizarre, particularly given that he did not even understand what an amendment was in his first intervention. He has a lot of learning to do.

I have dealt with the custodial sentence part of the Bill. Now, I come to the part on fines. I am trying to reduce the level of fines because they are disproportionate. With the way the Bill is drafted, it seems that somebody could be given an unlimited fine by the courts for this offence. Again, I cannot honestly see how an unlimited fine is appropriate for committing this offence, but that is what it would be in England and Wales following the changes to fines a few years ago. It would be rather different in Scotland and Northern Ireland, with a maximum of £5,000, which is still too high. Amendments 16 to 23 are about reducing the level of fine from unlimited to something more manageable. I have suggested a range of options. The lowest I have gone down to is £200, which is a level one fine in the courts, and I have gone up to a level four fine, which is £2,500. At least that sets a limit because an unlimited fine seems rather over the top.

Clause 1(4) provides that the Secretary of State may change the schedule of medals at any point. Amendment 24 would mean that the Secretary of State may not change the schedule of medals. When my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford introduced the Bill, he said that the challenge in drafting it was knowing where to stop. As I have said before, he may know where he wants to stop but, as with many things, where the legislation stops and where other people might want to stop are the most important. We should not encourage legislation giving the Secretary of State unlimited power to change the schedule willy-nilly. It obviously has the potential to apply to many more medals and other awards for non-armed forces personnel—and, in many cases, why not? But we should not be giving the Secretary of State that power. Amendments 25 to 27 are consequential amendments to that.

Clause 1(5)(b)(ii) states:

“The regulations may add an award to the Schedule only if it is awarded in respect of…a level of rigour significantly greater than might normally be expected in a non-operational environment.”

If the right to include medals in the future remains, it should only apply to those involving danger to life from enemy action, not

“a level of rigour significantly greater than might normally be expected in a non-operational environment.”

I am not sure who would be the ultimate judge of or who would determine the phrase

“greater than might normally be expected”.

Amendment 28 would deal with that issue.

Amendment 29 would delete the wide-ranging provisions regulations. Why do we need to hand over all these powers to make regulations that are in the Bill? Surely these things should be on the face of the Bill. Amendments 31 to 34 would delay the Act coming into force by two months, four months, 10 months or a year and 10 months respectively.

I have been through my amendments as quickly as I could. They would all make the Bill stronger and deal with some of the potential unintended consequences that were not envisaged when the Bill was conceived. I hoped that my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford would have taken them in the spirit in which they were intended. I could have gone on at greater length on every single one of those amendments, but I went through them all as quickly as I could. I hope they are helpful because I worry that if we are not careful, we will end up criminalising not the people who my hon. Friend wants to criminalise, but people who we never had any intention at all of criminalising. That is all I seek to avoid in this legislation, and that is a duty that we should take very seriously.

Giving someone a criminal offence is a serious matter; it is not something that should be taken lightly—it can have devastating consequences for people—and the same is true of sending people to prison. Yes, of course we want to expose Walter Mitty, but do we really want to criminalise and imprison Walter Mitty? That is where I draw the line with this legislation. If we think we are sending too many burglars and robbers to prison, surely the solution cannot be to send these people to prison, too.

[Gareth Johnson]

The main purpose behind the Bill is to protect veterans. It is intended to ensure that when anybody sees someone wearing medals proudly at a remembrance service or in any other sphere, they can have confidence that that individual is the legitimate article. That has always been my intention.

I find it grotesque in the extreme that certain individuals—we have had numerous examples of them—can parade in front of others and cause deep upset, hurt and ridicule to those who have actually served and those who have lost loved ones. It is grotesque to see that bravery undermined by those who do not have the courage to put their own neck on the block for our country.

It is because of that that I put forward the Bill. Legislation has worked very successfully in many countries around the world, and it worked successfully in the United Kingdom; in fact, legislation was originally introduced by Winston Churchill after the first world war. He said that when anybody sees a person wearing medals, that should radiate an opportunity to say, “There is a man in whom we can all have confidence and pride.” That is exactly the motivation behind my Bill.

I leave it at that. There is very much more that I could say, but I hope that we can make it at least to Third Reading.

Awards for Valour (Protection) Bill

Debate between Gareth Johnson and Philip Davies

Friday 25th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is right, but I would like to have £1 for every time on a Friday I hear somebody say, “We want to pass this Bill to send a message.” Well, actually we can stand here and send a message; we can all say how terrible it is if somebody wears a medal they are not entitled to, and we have then sent a message. We are not sending a message here; we are passing an Act of Parliament. We are talking about putting someone in prison. That is not sending a message; that is doing something far more drastic.

[Gareth Johnson]

Is my hon. Friend aware that domestic burglary carries a maximum sentence of 14 years and that robbery carries a maximum life sentence? This offence would, if the Bill went through, carry a sentence of three months. I believe that that is proportionate, and I do not agree with him that this behaviour is merely “boastful exaggeration”. It is far more than that: it is insulting and undignified, and it undermines people’s confidence in our veterans system and in the medals our veterans wear. Three months’ imprisonment is an appropriate way of dealing with such a problem.

[Philip Davies]

I appreciate that that is my hon. Friend’s view, but I want to set out why it is not my view.

The current legal position is neatly summed up by the Ministry of Defence’s response to an e-petition in May last year, which stated:

“The Government does not believe that the UK requires an equivalent of the USA’s Stolen Valor Act.

The Stolen Valor Act 2013 makes it a federal crime to fraudulently claim to be a recipient of certain military decorations or medals in order to obtain money, property, or other tangible benefit.

Under UK law the making, or attempting to make a financial gain by fraudulently wearing uniforms or medals, or by pretending to be or have been in the Armed Forces is already a criminal offence of fraud under the Fraud Act 2006, as is the pretence of being awarded an official medal. The offence carries a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment. It is also an offence under that Act (carrying up to five years’ imprisonment) for a person to possess or have under his control any article for use in the course of, or in connection with any fraud.

It is also an offence against The Uniforms Act 1894 for any person not serving in the Armed Forces to wear the uniform of any of the Armed Forces under such circumstances as to be likely to bring contempt upon that uniform.

However, it is not automatically against civil law to wear a veterans badge or decorations or medals which have not been earned and there are no plans to make it an offence. There are many instances where relatives openly wear the medals earned by deceased relatives as a mark of respect, albeit on the right breast and we would not wish to discourage this practice.”

As far as current UK prosecutions are concerned, the details are a bit sketchy, to say the least. The Defence Committee reports in its written evidence that the

“MOJ has provided data in relation to prosecutions under the Uniforms Act 1894. Data on a number of other offences was requested but was either not held or not held in a form that allowed the types of offence requested to be distinguished.”

To illustrate this point, I shall give the House the numbers of people proceeded against in magistrates courts and found guilty under the Uniforms Act 1894. There were none at all in 2011, 2013 or 2015, and one was found guilty in 2012 and one in 2014, so this is hardly a big issue. “Next to none” would probably be the best phrase to use.

I submitted freedom of information requests to West Yorkshire police and the Metropolitan police to see what information I could gather about the use of existing legislation by their forces. The reply from West Yorkshire police stated:

“A search was conducted for all arrests which were made between 1st August 2011 and 31st July 2016 inclusive and contained any of the keywords “medal”, “military” and “uniform” within the arrest circumstances description. As well as a search for arrests between 1st August 2011 and 31st July 2016 that were made for an offence under Sections 2 or 3 of the Uniforms Act 1894…a manual assessment was then carried out to find any records which related to the arrest of any individual wearing war or valour medals they were not entitled to wear. No such records were found.”

The Metropolitan Police Service responded:

“To locate the information relevant to your request, searches were conducted…The searches failed to locate any information relevant to your request, therefore, the information you have requested is not held by the MPS.”

So, if the existing legislation appears to be used infrequently, as we think, we need to consider carefully the extent of the problem that this Bill seeks to address.

Unduly Lenient Sentences (Right of Appeal)

Debate between Gareth Johnson and Philip Davies

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to extend the powers of prosecuting authorities to appeal against unduly lenient sentences imposed in the criminal courts.

This Bill aims to correct a fundamental flaw that exists in our criminal justice system. It is currently the case that the defence is able to appeal as of right against any sentence imposed at the magistrates or youth courts, and it may also appeal through leave of a judge against any sentence imposed in the Crown courts. Yet the prosecution has no ability whatsoever to appeal against a sentence imposed at the magistrates or youth courts and only in a few cases at the Crown court. This is the case no matter how insufficient the sentence.

It is simply wrong for the defence to be able to appeal against a sentence if it is too harsh, but not the prosecution if it is too lenient. I do not seek to reduce or change the rights of the defence to appeal. It is right that it can appeal against sentences that are manifestly wrong, but what is right for one side is surely right for the other. I have worked in the criminal justice system for over 20 years. I do not seek to lay blame at the door of the magistracy or judiciary. My quarrel is with the system in which we in this House ask them to operate. We must have a criminal justice system where the scales of justice balance, not one where—in the case of sentencing, at least—the offender is favoured over the victim of crime.

I have met both the Justice Secretary and the Attorney-General to discuss this issue, and had very positive meetings with them. Through you, Mr Speaker, I thank them for the time they gave me. I concede that the Bill involves a cost element and that an extra burden would be placed on the Attorney-General’s office, but that burden would be fully justified in the minds of the public, who are tired of feeling that the system favours not the law-keeper but only the law-breaker.

Let me explain why I believe the Bill is necessary. If, for instance, someone burgles a person’s home, violates his very household, is caught by the police, and is given less than a slap on the wrist, the public rightly look to the system and the House to provide a solution, but currently there is none. That burglar can be let off without the possibility of appeal from the prosecution, but if the court sentence goes too high the defence can appeal, and that is simply not right. We should ensure that courts never feel that they can be as lenient as they like without consequences but cannot sentence too robustly, which is the danger under the current system.

Let me give the House an even more frightening example. Let us suppose that the burglar whom I mentioned ransacked an occupied home at night, drove away in the owner’s car in a careless manner and killed someone by his careless driving, maliciously wounded a police officer when apprehended, caused an affray, in the process of his arrest was found to be in possession of a knife, drugs and child pornography, and later intimidated the witnesses to the offence. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that the prosecution could do if he were let off with, say, a £50 fine.

That is simply not right. The law needs to change to amend a ludicrous and, indeed, dangerous situation that makes me wonder why we have our current system. Why is there such an obvious imbalance in the judicial process? Surely no one believes that our courts are incapable of making a mistake. Courts do make mistakes, and we therefore need a mechanism to right the wrongs that will inevitably occur in any judicial system.

We also need younger people to have confidence in our judicial system. The fact that only the defence can appeal against a sentence imposed in the youth court creates a huge danger that young people, as victims of crime, will feel that the system simply does not care about them. The youth court deals with some extremely serious cases, including cases involving the offence of rape. Great efforts have been made in the House of Commons and the other place, by the police, and by the wider public to encourage rape victims to report the crimes in question. How does that square with the fact that the prosecution cannot appeal against an unduly lenient sentence imposed on a rapist in the youth court, while the rapist can appeal if the court has been too tough on him? How does that encourage more rape victims to come forward? The simple fact is that it does not.

There is a gaping hole in our criminal justice system when it comes to sentencing; a hole that has been overlooked, ignored or pushed aside for far too long. It is time that we allowed the prosecution to have the same access to sentencing appeals as the defence. It is time that we adopted a common-sense approach to sentencing that is balanced and fair and treats both sides equally. I hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading, so that victims of crime can be put back at the heart of our criminal justice system.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Gareth Johnson, Jim Shannon, Alec Shelbrooke, Henry Smith, Mr Dominic Raab, Mr Robert Buckland, Stephen McPartland, Mr Marcus Jones, Nick de Bois, Gavin Williamson and Karl MᶜCartney present the Bill.

Gareth Johnson accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 1 March and to be printed (Bill 122).

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I won’t be talking that one out.