Public Order Bill

Julian Lewis Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 23rd May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

To put this into context, I remind the House that Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services has argued that stop-and-search powers would be an effective tool for the police in this case. Stop and search is a critical tool in policing and, as I highlighted, is absolutely crucial when it comes to saving lives and preventing the loss of life.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I am a little concerned about the point raised by the right hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie), because many, if not most, of these protesters feel that their cause is the most important thing in the world—in fact, some of them think that they are saving the world. If, therefore, they can give excuses of that sort by way of a reasonable explanation of what they are doing, is not the legislation leaving a loophole? In particular, I have in mind some previous cases where anti-nuclear protesters broke into military bases and damaged military equipment, and certain courts felt that they should be acquitted because their motives were to try to prevent nuclear war, even if, in fact, it has the opposite effect.

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[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is certainly right to suggest that it is an unwise Government who try to silence those who disagree with them; it is also an undemocratic Government who seek to do so.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Yvette Cooper]

I will in due course.

The Home Secretary said to us this afternoon:

“From day one, this Government have put the safety and the interests of the law-abiding majority first.”

She claimed that she was prosecuting more criminals, but the opposite is the case. Since she came to office in 2019, crime has gone up by 18% and prosecutions have gone down by 18%, so I have to ask her what planet she is living on. Just because she says things stridently, that does not make them true. When she wonders about being on the side of criminals, maybe she should remember that it is a Conservative Government, and a Conservative Home Secretary, who are literally letting more criminals off—literally. There are hundreds of thousands’ fewer prosecutions every single year than there were under the Labour Government. Prosecutions, cautions and community penalties are going down, even now when crime is going up, and that genuinely means that rapists, abusers, serious offenders, thieves and thugs are all less likely to be prosecuted than they were seven years ago. There is just a one in 20 chance of someone being prosecuted on this Home Secretary’s watch.

The Home Secretary said too that she would not “stand by” while antisocial behaviour caused misery for others, but she is. There are 7,000 fewer neighbourhood police than there were six years ago, and the police are failing to send officers to more than half of all reported antisocial behaviour offences. People and communities across the country are expressing serious concerns about antisocial behaviour being ignored time and again by this Home Secretary.

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way first to the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), and then to the hon. Gentleman in due course.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I cannot see what these general points about the record of individual Ministers have to do with the substance of the Bill. What does have to do with the substance of the Bill is the difference between the right to protest peacefully within the rules and the right to insist on repeatedly bellowing a message—on and on and on—irrespective of the fact that other people have heard it and now want to exercise their right to go about their normal life. If I had insisted on intervening on the right hon. Lady when she was not allowing me to do so, that would be the parallel with the sort of abuse these measures are designed to stamp out. I obey the rules, and so should protesters.

[Yvette Cooper]

I do not think this is about bellowing; I think this is about serious offences and the committing of crimes.

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[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point: people across the country want to be able to protest against big new projects that are planned for their area, such as major transport projects, or plans to turn a woodland into a car park or to close a library. That is why it is important to ensure that we have our historic freedoms to protest and people’s voices can be heard, and that we have the right to be protected from intimidation and harassment and we fulfil our responsibilities to keep essential services running. There should be a shared understanding across the House that there are rights to be balanced and important principles that should be respected on both sides of the House—for example, the principle that respects the historic freedom to protest, but also ensures that our essential services keep running.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I thank the right hon. Lady for giving me a second bite of the cherry. I fear I have to confess that I am possibly the only Member here today who was actually arrested once—for taking part in a counter-demonstration 40 years ago, when we played the national anthem in public against a group of protesters against the Falklands taskforce, which was embarking to the south Atlantic.

The point that I am trying to get over to the right hon. Lady with the use of the words “bellowing” or indeed “incessant bellowing” is this: when the huge pro-nuclear and anti-nuclear demonstrations took place, everybody stopped and allowed each other to have their protest; and then the protest was over, and that was that. The idea that the same people could go on protesting day after day after day without being interfered with by the police, either for obstruction or causing a public nuisance, is ridiculous. What will she do to defend the right of other people to go about their normal lives once the protest has been made but the protesters will not stop?

[Yvette Cooper]

There are two different issues: there are issues in respect of the kinds of protests that might cause serious disruption to the vital public infrastructure that we all depend on, but there may also be protests that, to be honest, might be a bit annoying but do not actually disrupt anybody at all. In a democracy, we should recognise that even though the right hon. Gentleman and I may think that the world should move on, if people have strong views, they should be able to express them.

There should be a shared understanding across the House—

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[Danny Kruger]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. The fact is that going equipped to commit an offence is a criminal offence in itself. We are creating a new offence here and it is necessary to provide that preventive measure as well. The Bill allows the police to take action in a dynamic and fast-flowing situation to search and to prevent the commission of a crime, so I support the measure.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

As someone who, for decades, has gone around with a heavy chain and padlock to secure my motorcycle, I have never found myself in a situation where I was carrying that device but did not have my motorcycle with me, so hon. Members should think about that. However, what my hon. Friend is explaining so lucidly has been thought of before. To return to the anti-nuclear protests, there was even a term for it—NVDA, which is non-violent direct action. It is not violent, but it is not really peaceful, because it is deliberately breaking the law. I think that is the distinction that he is correctly trying to draw between that and peaceful legitimate protest.

[Danny Kruger]

I thank my right hon. Friend very much for his intervention. He is absolutely right.

I end with the observation that the protesters we are dealing with, even if they have honourable intent and they are entitled to their opinion—who knows, they might be right about the climate crisis—are not allowed to use our tradition of liberty against us. It is necessary to update the law to criminalise that form of protest.

Public Order Bill

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Lewer]

That is exactly right, and I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution. Indeed, the question asked then was, “Are you praying?” When that was answered with, “I might be”, the next question was, “What are you praying about?” That was answered with, “I am praying in my head.” It is extraordinary that that leads to someone being arrested in this country in 2023.

Last month, a father and Army veteran was fined in Bournemouth after being grilled by the police about what he was silently praying in his head. This points the way to a world where freedom from offence, or even potential offence, supersedes freedom of speech and religious belief. We have created, therefore, a situation where we can impose criminal penalties for silent thought, and there will be countless ramifications. For example, it would make it increasingly difficult for my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), as the Prime Minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief, to advocate for these freedoms abroad. We often have debates in this House where we are all telling the rest of the world what to do and people will turn around and say, “How can you lecture us about religious freedom when there are areas where you cannot even pray in your own country without being arrested and hauled off by the police?”

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is speaking first in the debate, so I would like to give him an opportunity to anticipate an argument, with which I have considerable sympathy, that we are going to hear urged against him. I refer to the fact that we have seen in other countries, particularly the United States, loud and noisy protests outside abortion clinics and they are what has undoubtedly led to this movement for zones. Will he confirm that if his amendment goes through, it will not, in any way, affect the ability of the law to prevent women from being genuinely harassed when they go to abortion clinics?

[Andrew Lewer]

That is an extremely important part of this amendment—it makes sure that those protections are very much still in place, as indeed they already are under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. Censorship is a notoriously slippery slope. It might not be our thoughts that are being criminalised today, but we should be careful not to open the door to that happening tomorrow to other opinions that people might hold about something else.

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It is unthinkable that we should be living in a society where what people think has become a matter of police interest. But more than that, it is not merely a matter of police inquiry, for the lady concerned was arrested, charged and went to court. Of course, in the end she was acquitted, but that is not the point. The very fact that she could be arrested for what she thought or prayed for is—in a much overused word—chilling.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

Surely the point that we have to be careful about is the use of words—which the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq), whom I regard as a personal friend, did use—such as “impede”. Thinking and praying is not impeding. Actually shouting, livestreaming and doing offensive things to people who are going to have a procedure is impeding. If I understand correctly the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer), he is talking only about things that do not impede. I think that is right, and that is the only basis on which I could vote for his amendment.

[Sir John Hayes]

My right hon. Friend will be pleased—but not surprised, given that he knows me so well—to hear that I entirely agree with him. I would not support loud, aggressive protests outside abortion clinics. They do take place in some other countries, but the evidence that they take place in this country is extremely thin. Indeed, a previous Health Secretary conducted a review to establish that fact. If that was in any way likely or possible, or was made more possible by this amendment, I would not be speaking in support of it, so my right hon. Friend is entirely right. This is about peaceful, silent protests.

In moving this Bill at its inception, the Government rightly said they were doing so because they were against violent disruptive protests. They had in mind people gluing themselves to roads, and stopping ambulances that were rushing to save lives. I support this Bill. I support its objectives because that kind of disruptive and violent protest is incompatible with a free, open and peaceful society. But it is extraordinary that, simultaneously, having said that they were in favour of peaceful protests—the defence being, “We are in favour of an open society, different opinions, the right to put your case by protesting peacefully”—the Government are now failing to support an amendment, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South because the Government refused to table it, to protect people’s right to protest in the very peaceful and indeed silent way that a few weeks ago they were saying they were prepared to defend.

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Our definition of serious disruption has been proposed by a former Deputy President of the Supreme Court, a Cross-Bench peer, and it enshrines case law handed down by the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, no less. I therefore feel very comfortable in commending our amendment (a) in lieu of Lords amendment 1.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

Will the Minister confirm something for the sake of clarity? In the past, major peaceful demonstrations such as anti-nuclear demonstrations have blocked roads, but it was done with the permission of the police. That would continue, would it not?

[Chris Philp]

Yes, it would. My right hon. Friend pre-empts my next point, which I think an Opposition Member raised earlier. Where a protest has been authorised and licensed in advance by the police, of course these provisions will not be engaged. Protests such as the Iraq war protests aimed at the former Labour Government would, of course, be licensed. Protests against this Government would no doubt be licensed as well and could properly be held.

The hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett), who I see is back in his place, made a point about whether the Bill could be used to disrupt strike action. I draw his attention and that of the House to the Bill’s original clauses 6 and 7, which as a result of the Lords amendments have been renumbered as clauses 7 and 8. Subsection (2)(b) of each clause makes it clear that it will be a defence to offences under the Bill that the act in question was undertaken

“in…furtherance of a trade dispute”,

so trade union protests and anything to do with strikes are exempted from the provisions of the Bill.

I think that the definition we have set out is reasonable. The police have asked for it, the former Deputy President of the Supreme Court supports it, it backs up the case law and I strongly commend it to the House.

Lords amendments 2, 3 and 4 deal with tunnelling. They are clarificatory amendments, making it clear that the offence of causing serious disruption by being present in a tunnel, as defined by clause 4, is committed only if the tunnel has been created for the purposes of a protest. Lords amendments 10 and 16 relate to some clarifications involving the British Transport Police which we think are important. Lords amendments 6,7, 8, 9 and 36 pertain to so-called suspicionless stop and search.