Police Conduct and Complaints

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

It is a great pleasure, Ms Ghani, to appear before you for the first time and also to appear for the first time before someone who was elected to the Commons on the same day that I was. That happy day in 2015 seems an awful long time ago. [Laughter.] I am very grateful—

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

Order. I hope the Minister is not trying to sway the Chairperson. I note for the record that it will have no relevance to the rest of the debate.

[Kit Malthouse]

I am also grateful to the assembled members—current and former—of the Home Affairs Committee for contributing to this debate. I am particularly grateful to the current members, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) and my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), for securing it. It is an immensely important topic. We have had some interesting contributions, which I will take away and digest.

As a number of Members have said, the police perform a unique and critical role in our society. The public look to them for protection and reassurance and, in certain circumstances, through us, authorise them to sometimes use lethal force against our fellow citizens. The public rightly expect all who serve to uphold high standards of conduct and professionalism. As I have said on many occasions—pretty much since I was appointed deputy Mayor for policing more than a decade ago—public confidence and trust are integral to the long-standing model of policing by consent. It is fundamental to the very essence of policing in the United Kingdom. I have worked hard during my career in fighting crime to ensure that we cleave to that model and do not drift towards the warrior model of policing that we see in other jurisdictions.

A range of elements come together to form the full picture when it comes to securing and maintaining public confidence. One of those is an effective conduct and complaints system. As Members have said, the vast majority of police officers already act with the highest standards of professionalism. It is therefore all the more disappointing and, in some instances, completely shocking when the behaviour and actions of a few undermine the hard work of their dedicated colleagues. When things do go wrong it is vital that the systems in place are robust and fair, and stand up to scrutiny.

I note the positive comments in the Committee’s report on the February 2020 reforms made to the police conduct and complaints systems and the significant improvement in the IOPC since 2018. Of course, we accept that there is more to do. With policing—indeed, with any major public service—complacency is something we must fight against with all our might and energy. We must strive constantly for improvement; the public deserve nothing less.

As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham mentioned, the Independent Office for Police Conduct was launched in 2018 following reforms to the IPCC, which scrapped the old commission structure in favour of a single head of the organisation. The new structure resulted in the director general having a combined role that includes chairing the unitary board. The aim of having a single role was to both streamline and demonstrate the independence of decision making to enhance public and police confidence. Scrutiny of and support for the director general is provided by the unitary board, on which the non-executive directors must be in a majority. There is a senior independent non-executive director.

Since its launch in January 2018 and under Michael Lockwood’s leadership, the IOPC has completed more than 91% of the core independent investigations started since then within 12 months. The average length of all investigations has fallen from more than 11 months in 2018 to less than nine months now. I understand that the backlog that was inherited on the conversion to the IOPC has been eliminated. That is huge progress, which, I am happy to say, was also highlighted in the Committee’s report. My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham asked about the number of former police officers on the staff: it is 28%. That is a number that we need to keep an eye on, as he said, in terms of their expertise.

Last year, the Home Secretary announced that she was bringing forward the first periodic review of the IOPC, in response to pressure from my hon. Friend and others. Such reviews of the Government’s arm’s length bodies typically consider the effectiveness of an organisation and its fitness for purpose. We agree that the existing governance structure, along with the Home Affairs Committee’s specific recommendation on the director general’s role, should be looked at as part of that review. The review has not started; however, we are currently working on the arrangements, including identifying an independent reviewer. We will update the Committee when we are able to confirm further details.

The Government are clear in our determination to listen and act on issues important to the general public and their confidence in policing—including accountability, which is crucial to public trust. As colleagues will recall from the Committee’s report, the IOPC is already making a concerted effort to uphold confidence in the police complaints system, which includes greater transparency in the publication of investigation outcomes, actively listening to policing bodies and communities about their concerns, improved investigation timeliness and thematic reviews.

The legislative reforms in 2020 to overhaul the police complaints and disciplinary system were wide ranging, and were designed to simplify processes while increasing transparency and independence. The reforms have significantly reduced the bureaucracy in handling low-level customer service matters, which account for the majority of complaints. The most serious cases continue to be dealt with under robust processes, including independent investigations by the IOPC.

We continue to engage with policing stakeholders across the piece, including the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and we welcome the ongoing engagement of the Police Federation and other staff associations. We have agreed to review the impact of the reforms, including considering the role of police and crime commissioners in policing complaints. As part of that wider review, we will look at the issues raised by the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North about super-complaints.

Recent high-profile cases of misconduct have shone a light on the culture that exists in some areas of policing. Aside from examples of appalling behaviour that has no place anywhere, let alone within an institution entrusted to protect the public, there is a wider impact on how policing is perceived. When standards are not met, it not only undermines the excellent work done by thousands of officers, staff and volunteers day in, day out, but risks damaging the legitimacy of policing in the eyes of the public. It is therefore crucial that there are effective systems and safeguards in place to ensure that all officers adhere to the high standards expected of them and that breaches of those standards are identified quickly and dealt with appropriately.

Although the Government have overseen significant progress in the police complaints system in recent years, we do agree that forces, individuals and their representative organisations must take further responsibility for rooting out bad behaviour. The College of Policing is currently undertaking a review of the code of ethics. The review will provide clear expectations that everyone in policing has a duty to challenge and report behaviour that undermines the profession and damages public confidence, and to be open and accountable and learn from mistakes at an organisational and individual level.

As part of the 2020 integrity reforms, the Home Office introduced a duty of co-operation for police officers. The duty provides clarity on the level of co-operation required by an officer where they are a witness in an investigation, inquiry, or other formal proceedings. Failure to co-operate is a breach of the professional standards and can be dealt with by police forces accordingly.

The Government will respond in due course to Bishop James Jones’s report on the experiences of the Hillsborough families and the report of the Daniel Morgan independent panel. The Government will also consider calls for a broader duty of candour for public bodies and authorities—an issue raised by various Members.

Colleagues may also recall that the Home Secretary has announced the Angiolini inquiry, which a couple of Members referred to, part two of which is expected to consider wider policing matters, such as barriers to whistleblowing, vetting practices, and professional standards and discipline, including workplace cultures. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham pointed out, since 2017 it has been the case that retired police officers can be brought back to face gross misconduct proceedings.

I again thank members of the Committee for securing this debate. I am grateful for the opportunity that it has provided me to underscore just how seriously we take this issue. This is not an end point in our work on police integrity and the complaints system. As I said in my opening remarks, the maintenance of trust and the model of consent require constant attention and adjustment as we face different circumstances and incidents. The Committee has my undertaking that we will report to it on our progress on this issue. We will take seriously its report and weave it into the work that we do. We will continue with the work programme to reinforce the fundamental foundation of policing in this country, which is the trust and confidence that the British public have and the consent that they give to the policing model.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

Thank you, Minister—not an end point. I call Mr Tim Loughton to respond and wind up.

Miners Strike 1984-85: UK-wide Inquiry

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

It is a great pleasure to appear before you, Ms McVey. We have both come a long way since we were teenagers together in south Liverpool.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) for securing the debate. I know he has a long-standing interest in these issues. Obviously, I have listened carefully to all the contributions. I recognise the significance of the miners strike and its impact on mining communities throughout the United Kingdom, including those affected by what occurred at the Orgreave coking plant on 18 June 1984. I remember the footage well. I was a teenager at the time and a student shortly thereafter in the north-east, and I know that the events of that period continue to resonate in those communities.

The House is calling for a wider inquiry into the policing of the strikes. Successive Home Secretaries have given careful consideration to the issues arising from the calls for an inquiry into the policing of the strikes at Orgreave and, by extension, the miners strikes more broadly. As Members have mentioned, the former Home Secretary Amber Rudd announced the decision in October 2016 not to undertake an inquiry, and her successor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), upheld that decision in September 2018. In the spirit of transparency, in 2017 the Home Office released the files held by the Department to the National Archives, and those files are available there for public review. We have urged other Departments to do the same, and South Yorkshire police is in the process of reviewing its files to release them as well.

The core argument given by the Home Secretaries was that, given the passage of time and the large number of legislative and systemic changes since 1984, an inquiry is unlikely to result in relevant lessons for today’s system. The Government stand by that decision. Crucially, there have been significant changes to policing since then, including major reforms to criminal procedure, changes to public order policing and practice, stronger external scrutiny and greater local accountability. Specifically, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which came into force from January 1985, and other legislative and operational changes made since then, have vastly improved the way police investigations and powers operate. The exemplary standards of behaviour expected of everyone who works in policing were reinforced by the introduction of a statutory code of ethics, which was laid before the House in 2014 and is currently being reviewed.

The introduction of further provisions through the Policing and Crime Act 2017 has increased the powers of the Independent Office for Police Conduct, clarified its investigative processes and further safeguarded its independence. Those reforms were introduced in 2018 and 2020, alongside wider reforms to the police discipline and complaints systems. The legislative reforms in 2020 to overhaul the police complaints and disciplinary systems were wide-ranging and designed to simplify processes while increasing transparency and independence. Furthermore, the creation of the Crown Prosecution Service in 1986, with the introduction of independent CPS prosecutors, fundamentally altered the prosecution of offences and ended the existence of ad hoc prosecution arrangements throughout the country.

Given the fact that the landscape has changed so markedly, it is difficult to see how a review of the events and practices of more than three decades ago would yield significant lessons for the policing system today. In the light of the significant changes since the strikes, there are no plans to undertake an assessment of the potential merits of establishing an independent inquiry into the policing of the miners strike in 1984 to 1985 in England and Wales. The Government do not plan to review the decision not to establish a public inquiry into the events at the Orgreave coking plant on 18 June 1984. For the Government’s part, we are completely focused on ensuring that policing is the best it can be, including through reforms to improve accountability and transparency. Public confidence is pivotal to our model of policing by consent.

[Chris Stephens]

The Minister is giving his reasons not to have an inquiry, but obviously in Scotland there was an independent review, and pardons have been issued for certain offences. Is that something the UK Government are considering?

[Kit Malthouse]

We are not currently considering that particular route of action. We have received the letter the hon. Gentleman referred to—indeed, we have received a number of letters over the past couple of years on the matter, to which we have responded. I know that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is considering that letter and will respond in due course.

I thank everybody who has participated in the debate. I have listened carefully to the points that have been raised and am grateful for the opportunity to underline how far UK policing has come since the miners strike. Progress has undoubtedly been made, but that is not to say that we are in any way complacent; on the contrary, we are constantly challenging the police to get better in all they do. We have overseen significant reform, and continue to drive improvements for the benefit of policing and those whom the police serve.

Business without Debate

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Commons Chamber

Question agreed to.

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Earlier today, during my statement on the Met police, there was an exchange about the prior notification of the contents of my statement to the Opposition. On reviewing the fast-moving events of the morning, it was clear that we could have sent an updated copy to the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), which would have contained some but not all of the amendments I and others had made. In that regard, my comments were not completely accurate. For that, and the associated discourtesy, I apologise to you, to the hon. Lady and to the House, and undertake that there will be no repeat.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the Policing Minister for checking the records and the emails, as I requested him to do at the end of the statement earlier, and for correcting the record. Clearly, it was not a last-minute addition, as he had said, to put so many additional deliberate political attacks into the statement. Obviously, it should not have taken my asking such forensic questions to elicit this and to elicit this apology in the first place. Given that this is such an incredibly sensitive and serious subject—the future of the Metropolitan police—and that we have had repeated examples of this, could you use your offices to urge other Departments not to add in these political statements that are not included in the statements that are given to the House? In addition, will you urge Ministers to see this as a lesson to stop playing political games with something so important?

Metropolitan Police Service

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

May I start by expressing my condolences to the family of Zara Aleena? We were all shocked by her horrific killing in the past few days, and our thoughts and prayers are with her loved ones.

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement about the Metropolitan Police Service, following the decision yesterday of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services to place the service in the “engage” process, which has been described as a form of special measures.

The public put their trust in the police and have every right to expect the country’s largest force to protect them effectively and carry out their duties to the very highest professional standards. The public expect the police to get the basics right. Although very many Metropolitan police officers do exactly that, it is clear that the service is falling short of these expectations and that public confidence has been severely undermined.

The Government support the action that the inspectorate has taken to escalate the force into special measures and address where it is falling short. The public also elected a Mayor to bring governance and accountability in their name, and I now expect the Mayor of London, as the police and crime commissioner, to act swiftly to ensure that he and the force deliver improvements, win back public trust and make London’s streets safer. We expect him to provide an urgent update explaining how he plans to fix this as soon as possible.

Now is not the time for the Mayor to distance himself from the Met. He must lean in and share responsibility for a failure of governance and the work needed to put it right. Over the past three years, this Government have overseen the largest funding boost for policing in a decade, and we are well on the way to recruiting an extra 20,000 police officers nationally, with 2,599 already recruited by the Metropolitan police, giving them the highest ever number of officers.

By contrast, as many Londoners will attest, the Mayor has been asleep at the wheel and is letting the city down. Teenage homicides in London were the highest that they have ever been in the past year, and 23% of all knife crime takes place in London, despite its having only 15% of the UK population. The Mayor must acknowledge that he has profound questions to answer. He cannot be passive and continue as he has. He must get a grip.

There are many areas of remarkable expertise and performance in the Met, and, in many areas, the Met is understandably the best in the world. However, there have been persistent Met failures on child protection, and, earlier this year, following the catalogue of errors found by the independent panel, which looked at the investigations into the murder of Daniel Morgan, the inspectorate issued a damning report on the Met’s approach to tackling corruption. There have been exchanges of extremely offensive messages between officers, and, of course, we had the truly devastating murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer.

It is reported that the inspectorate has raised a number of further concerns in its recent letter to the Metropolitan police. It makes for sorry reading, I am afraid. The inspectorate reportedly finds that the force is falling short of national standards for the handling of emergency and non-emergency calls, and that there are too many instances of failure to assess vulnerability and repeated victimisation. An estimated 69,000 crimes go unrecorded each year, less than half of crimes are recorded within 24 hours and almost no crimes are recorded when victims report antisocial behaviour against them. The inspectorate has also found that victims are not getting enough information or support.

Other concerns are thought to include disjointed public protection governance arrangements; insufficient capacity to meet demand in several functions, including high-risk ones such as public protection; and a persistently large backlog of online child abuse referrals. The inspectorate also highlights an insufficient understanding of the force’s training requirements, and the list is not exhaustive. This has all undermined public confidence in the Metropolitan Police Service, and we have not heard enough from the Mayor about what he plans to do about it. Blaming everyone else will just not do this time. [Interruption.] I am glad that hon. Members find this amusing, but I am afraid this is not funny.

As I have already said, it is vital that policing gets the basics right and that there is proper accountability for those in charge. Every victim of crime deserves to be treated with dignity, and every investigation and prosecution must be conducted thoroughly and professionally, in line with the victims code. Recent reports of strip searches being used on children are deeply concerning and need to be addressed comprehensively. We have a cherished model of policing by consent. The police force is a service—a public service—and the public must have confidence in it. Plainly, things have to change.

The Government are working closely with the policing system as a whole to rewire police culture, integrity, and performance. Last October, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced an independent inquiry to investigate the issues raised by the conviction of Wayne Couzens for the murder of Sarah Everard. In the same month, the Metropolitan police commissioned Baroness Casey of Blackstock to lead an independent and far-reaching review into its culture and standards. We also welcome the College of Policing’s new national leadership standards, which are aimed at ensuring continuous professional development. Policing is a very difficult job and demands the highest possible training standards.

The process to recruit a new Metropolitan Police Commissioner is well under way and the Government have made it crystal clear that the successful candidate must deliver major and sustained improvements. The whole country, not just London, needs to know that our biggest police force is getting its act together. The Mayor of London, supported by his deputy mayor for policing and crime—a role that I once had the privilege to hold—is directly responsible for holding the commissioner and the Metropolitan police to account. Notwithstanding what Opposition Members think, the Mayor needs to raise his game. He has an awesome responsibility which he has hitherto neglected, in my view.

This is not an insurmountable problem, but it is extremely serious. Trust has not been shattered beyond repair, but it is badly broken and needs strong leadership to fix it. Through the police performance and oversight group, the Government look forward to seeing the Metropolitan police engage with the inspectorate and produce a comprehensive action plan to sort this out, and be held to account by City Hall.

The national system for holding forces to account and monitoring force performance is working well. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and every public service must be held to account. I am grateful to the inspectorate for its work. It now falls to the Metropolitan police and to the Mayor of London to make things right. Given my admiration of so many who work in the Met, it is with some personal sadness that I commend this statement to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Many of us will have heard this morning and last night the dignified and gracious interviews with Mina Smallman following the announcement that Her Majesty's inspectorate is moving the Metropolitan police into what is called an “engage” phase. The way that the disappearance and then the deaths of Mina’s daughters were investigated, and the fact that altered images of their bodies were shared widely by some officers, have come to epitomise the problems within the Met that we, the Mayor of London and London residents have been so concerned about for some time.

We know that tens of thousands of people work in the Met and, of course, we know that so many have that sense of public duty that reflects the incredibly important job that they do. They have been let down by poor leadership, lack of resources and an acceptance of poor behaviour. It is for them, as well as for victims and the wider public, that we seek to drive forward improvements.

The announcement yesterday comes after a long list of serious conduct failures from the Metropolitan police: the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Met officer, the conduct of officers following the murder of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, the strip-searching of children such as Child Q, the conduct unveiled in the report of the Independent Office for Police Conduct into the Charing Cross police station and the

“seemingly incomprehensible failures to recognise and treat appropriately a series of suspicious deaths in the Stephen Port case”.

The list of failings from the inspectorate makes for grim reading and goes way beyond those more high-profile cases: it includes performance falling far short of national standards, a barely adequate standard of crime recording and the quality of basic supervision to officers. All that has undermined public trust, and we all have a role to play in building that trust back up. As the Mayor of London has said, a first and crucial step for the new commissioner will be to start rebuilding trust and credibility in our communities.

The Minister’s announcement about what needs to be done is incredibly weak. He talks about support for victims, but where is the victims’ law that the Government have been promising for years? We know there is a massive increase across the country in the number of cases collapsing because victims drop out—on his watch. He talks about reform to comprehensively address the strip searches on children, but he has totally failed to bring forward the new guidance on strip searches that we have been calling for for months. He talks about reforming culture, but he only refers to two long-term inquiries that may not provide answers, even though we know that action is needed now.

The Minister is right that the system for holding forces to account has worked in this case, but we need change to follow. We need a national overhaul of police training and standards. There is much to be done on leadership. We need a new vetting system. We need to overhaul misconduct cases, with time limits on cases. We need new rules on social media use. We need robust structures for internal reporting to be made and taken seriously, and we need new expected standards on support for victims, investigation of crimes, and internal culture and management. That is for the Home Office to lead.

The Met cut its police constable to sergeant supervision ratio after the Conservatives cut policing, and after the Olympics—when the Minister was deputy mayor—it was cut more than any other force. A police sergeant said this morning:

“I do not have a single officer that I supervise that has over 3 years’ service, so not a single officer that policed pre Covid.”

Does the Minister now accept that, no matter how much he promises in terms of new, young and inexperienced officers right now, the Met and forces across the country are still suffering from the loss of 20,000 experienced officers that his Government cut?

Policing should be an example to the rest of society, and supporting our police means holding officers and forces to the highest possible standards. The concerns today are about the Met, but we know there are problems in other forces, too. Can the Minister confirm how many other forces are in this “engage” phase, and which forces they are? Can he outline what the steps the Home Office is taking now to drive up standards in the police across the country?

The British style of policing depends on public trust. The public deserve a police service that they not only trust, but can be proud of. Victims need an efficient and effective force to get them justice. Our officers deserve to work in a climate without bullying, toxic cultures. We need to see urgent reforms. The Government can no longer leave our police facing a perfect storm of challenges and fail to lead that change.

[Kit Malthouse]

Madam Deputy Speaker, it is the case that I made amendments to the statement, and I apologise that they were made at the last minute. The reason is that I held the job of deputy mayor for policing myself for four years and I feel very strongly about this issue. I apologise to you. I feel very strongly because, had I been in the position that the Mayor and the deputy mayor are in—I must tell the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones)—I would have considered my position, after six years in control of the force.

I am disappointed in the hon. Member for Croydon Central. We have just heard a huge attempt at deflection, trying to move what is an incredibly serious issue for her constituents, as a London Member of Parliament, away from the local accountability structures that have obviously failed in these circumstances towards a national fog of issues that policing faces, in an attempt to absolve the Mayor of London of his share of responsibility for dealing with the issue.

I am not quite sure what the hon. Lady thinks the 145 members of staff in the Mayor’s office for policing and crime are for, if not for holding the Metropolitan Police to account and trying to identify these kinds of issues before they arise. It is disappointing that this decision seems to have come as a surprise to the Mayor’s office for policing and crime and, indeed, to the Mayor. I do not think the hon. Lady mentioned the Mayor once in her statement; I am sorry that she does not recognise that the primary accountability structure and primary responsibility for the integrity and trust that the people of London have in the Metropolitan Police is the Mayor of London.

Whatever one’s view, I do not think that there are many people in London—I speak not just as the Minister for Crime and Policing but as a part-time Londoner myself, given that I spend half my week in the capital—who do not believe that the Mayor of London has failed on crime in the capital and that he has been far too passive in his approach. I have done my best to step in to that void, and we have pushed the force hard on issues such as serious violence, murder and county lines, where we have offered significant funding. We have put more money into the Met so that, over the past three years, it has built the number of police officers up to the highest level the force has ever had in its history. The past three years have seen extremely good and generous financial settlements. There is no excuse beyond a profound failure of accountability.

Whatever one might think about the rights and wrongs—hon. Members can call it a political attack if they wish—the truth is that the Mayor must lean in. He is elected primarily to do that job; if he is unwilling to do it, that calls into question whether he should have the job at all.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

The Government introduced the role of police and crime commissioners to be the voice of the people and hold the police to account. PCCs are responsible for the totality of policing and should aim to cut crime and deliver an effective and efficient police service within their force area. That is simply not happening in London. This is Sadiq Khan’s second term of office. He has said that he has long known of the problems with the Met, so what has he done about them? He has undertaken one tangible action: to bully the police commissioner into resigning. That left a vacuum of leadership and we are still without a commissioner in London. The decision to place the MPS in special measures is his responsibility and he has failed to protect the public. Will the Minister consider removing responsibility for policing from the Mayor of London and introducing an intervention team to deliver on the first role of elected representatives to keep the public safe?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend reflects in his remarks the seriousness of the situation. He is right to point to the failings of governance. I was the first deputy mayor for policing and effectively the first police and crime commissioner in London. The whole idea was that we should be the voice of those people who elect us and share accountability with the force we govern, and, as he said, that we should focus on cutting crime. Obviously, the removal of responsibility would need primary legislation, but I hope the Mayor will now focus on the task in hand, which is to produce an action plan to sort this situation out and step into his responsibilities in a way I feel he has failed to do thus far.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, Dame Diana Johnson.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

The catalogue of failings at the Met is rightly a serious concern for the Home Secretary and the Mayor of London. The Home Secretary has said that the Met is just not getting the basics right, but sadly the Home Office is not getting the basics right either. When acting commissioner Sir Stephen House gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee in April, he said it was not just a case of “a few bad apples”, but a systemic problem that the Met needed to deal with. As the Met accounts for 25% of policing and has not only responsibility for London, our capital city, but national responsibilities and even international responsibilities, for example around the investigation of war crimes, what consideration has the Minister given not only to issues of performance, leadership and culture, but to whether there should be a review of the responsibilities of the Metropolitan Police?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee for her question. As she will know, we are in the middle of an inquiry by Dame Elish Angiolini into the first stage of the employment of Wayne Couzens and then more widely into the culture of the Met. Once we have seen that and digested the urgent work required to correct the situations we see presented in this report, we will have to consider what if any further measures may need to be taken to ensure that, as the right hon. Lady says, not only national but international confidence in the Metropolitan Police as our lead force is maintained.

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the thousands of police officers who do a great job in providing service to Londoners, but they need robust and focused leadership, and I think it is clear that we are still in need of that. We are now on our third commissioner in six years, soon to be fourth, but we have had the same Mayor of London and the same deputy mayor for the past six years. Does my right hon. Friend think that there should be more political accountability and that perhaps one of those two characters should think about their role moving forward?

[Kit Malthouse]

The creation of police and crime commissioners was designed to provide a focused point of accountability for the electorate. They replaced police authorities, which were opaque organisations in which no one person could be held responsible at the ballot box. As I said, if I had been in that job—I had the privilege of holding the post of deputy mayor for policing for four years—and I had had it for six years when this situation occurred, I would consider my position.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

The Minister will be aware of the seriousness of the issues set out in the inspectorate’s report. He should also be aware that Londoners do not want to see us in this Chamber passing responsibility between ourselves like some grim game of pass the parcel. Nothing in the inspectorate’s report will come as a surprise to London MPs because, in one way or another, they have dealt with these types of issues, which have affected our constituents. The Minister can try to lay blame where he wishes, but he has not dealt, as all of us have dealt, with people whose lives have been ruined and whose children have been targeted. He has not dealt with those people; otherwise he could not be playing politics with this issue. There is no question but that the Met needs reform, and no doubt that this situation did not come about in a month or two. Will he confirm that the two short-listed candidates for commissioner are Nick Ephgrave and Mark Rowley, and does he accept that it is unlikely that the Met can be reformed by men who have spent almost their entire careers in it? Does he accept that many of us think that the selection process for the commissioner needs to be reopened?

[Kit Malthouse]

Let me be clear: I am not playing politics; I am telling the truth, and every Londoner knows it. When the Prime Minister and I were at City Hall, we stepped forward and took responsibility for what was happening in London on our watch. We fought crime. We sat with the parents of murdered children and took blame and responsibility for it in a way that the current Mayor does not. Opposition Members can spend all the time they want attempting to deflect and make this a political matter, but that is the truth. Those Members who represent Londoners, on both sides of the House, know inside themselves what Londoners think about the Mayor’s performance on crime. The reason that this situation exercises me so much is that I have been there and dealt with it. Contrary to what the right hon. Lady says, over the past couple of years in this job I have spoken to and dealt with lots of victims of crime in London. In fact, only a few months ago I met four mothers of dead children brought to me by the Met who talked about the failures of dealing with knife crime and their willingness to step forward and help us to improve. So I ask the right hon. Lady, please, not to try to teach me any lessons about dealing with victims of crime. In terms of her wider question, I cannot confirm who is in the selection process, but we can only interview those people who apply.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

One of the principal problems, bluntly, with the Metropolitan police is the quality of leadership at the very top, which determines the quality of leadership at street level. As the Minister seeks very diligently to find a new Metropolitan Police Commissioner, will he bear in mind the precedent from some time ago of finding a commissioner from outside the police forces, and bear in mind that within the military establishment there is a cohort of utterly brilliant generals and leaders who could bring those skills to bear on behalf of the Metropolitan police?

[Kit Malthouse]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to recognise the importance of leadership. I am sure he will be encouraged by the significant investment that we have made in the College of Policing leadership programme, which was designed to produce the future policing leaders. I say from a personal point of view that whether outside people with different professions could run a constabulary is open to question. In the reverse case, I am not sure whether, for example, a police officer could command a battalion in the Army. Also, modern policing is a much more complex environment than it used to be. However, we hope that through the work we are doing on leadership we will develop leaders who can drive policing forward into the 21st century.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

The accountability of the Met is complex because, among other things, the appointment of the commissioner rests with the Home Secretary, having regard to the Mayor but not as a joint appointment. Given that it is impossible to overstate the importance of getting the next leadership of the Met right, can the Minister confirm today that the Mayor of London and the Home Secretary will jointly make the appointment, and not just the Home Secretary having regard to the Mayor?

[Kit Malthouse]

I have to confess that I am not entirely sure what the arrangements are between them, but I am sure that the Home Secretary and the Mayor will discuss the final choice of commissioner at some point.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

May I place on the record my thanks to the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove), who, as victims Minister, recently met a constituent of mine regarding a historical rape case where no justice for my constituent has been secured? We may think that the police dramas of the ’80s are fictional, but for many, historical corruption and cover-up is a reality, leaving victims such as my constituent severely traumatised. Will the Minister reassure the House that lessons will be learned from the victims, who in the past have been so let down by the police, and that their voice will be central to reform of the Metropolitan police?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am very sorry to hear about my hon. Friend’s constituent. One of the failings that is reportedly identified is the lack of support and information required to be given to victims. As I hope she knows, the victims Bill, which is in pre-legislative scrutiny, will bring into statute the support and information that victims should get, and I hope in future will get.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Rarely have I heard a more complacent and partisan statement by a Government Minister. He has been warned, as has the Home Secretary, countless times by Members on both sides of this House about the toxic culture of the Met. He did nothing and left it to the Mayor to change things by withdrawing his confidence in the now-departed commissioner. Was there not another example today of the completely perverse priorities of the Met in sending a posse of officers to hound the peaceful and non-threatening protester, Steve Bray, outside Parliament instead of tackling serious crime?

[Kit Malthouse]

It is the inspectors sent in by the Home Secretary under an inspection regime influenced and designed by me who have revealed the failings that have resulted in the incident today. As to the dismissal of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, that happened just a few weeks after the Mayor was pushing for a three-year extension.

[Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)]

The Mayor of London, supported by his deputy mayor for policing and crime, is the police and crime commissioner for London. I, as a London MP, feel that it is an appalling indictment of the police and crime commissioner for London’s performance that the Met has been put into special measures. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the police and crime commissioner for London—that is, the Mayor of London—needs to get a grip? May I ask in this Chamber that the Mayor of London stops his appalling sale of Notting Hill police station in my constituency, which will mean that there is no police presence in the north of my borough after the end of this year?

[Kit Malthouse]

As I have said, I profoundly hope that the Mayor will do his best to get a grip of this situation. [Interruption.] He has the authority and the mandate to do it, notwithstanding the shouting from the Opposition. I do not know how much more serious it can get for London’s police force. This is the first time in its history that it has been put into special measures. It is supposedly our premier—our biggest—police force, and the primary accountability is with the Mayor of London, as my hon. Friend says. He has to step forward and do his job.

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

We all knew that when PCCs were created, it was about putting clear blue water between accountability and our police forces. I hope that PCCs of all political hues across this country have listened to this outrageous statement by the Minister today, because I think they will be horrified. As the Minister will know, I have worked hard trying to find solutions to the county lines issues. I have worked hard with my local police force, under the leadership of Commander Richard Tucker. May I say to the Minister that all the solutions need us to have trust in our police forces at the very heart of our communities? What will the Minister be doing to ensure that this process reignites trust in our local forces?

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Lady is quite right, and she has been working hard on county lines. As she will know, we put significant funding into the Met police and four other forces to do that fantastic work. I referred in my statement to some areas of the Met police that are world-beating and of astounding performance, and one is the work on county lines. We will do our best to make sure that the commissioner selected has the right idea about reform, but I will also take a close interest in the engagement process with the inspectorate and make sure that that works accordingly.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

In 1829, the Metropolitan police was formed and London had a population of 1.8 million. Now it has a population of about 9.5 million. Is the Met police either too big to fail or too big to succeed, or has London become just too geographically large to police on the model that it has today?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend raises some interesting questions, but I believe that the Metropolitan police as currently constructed is capable of policing London appropriately and can and does show some astonishing performance in some particular areas of its activity. Certainly the work we have been doing, for example, on violence and knife crime, where we have been leaning in and providing significant extra resource, will I hope pay dividends over the years to come. We should all constantly pay attention to the structure and effectiveness of those police forces, and I am afraid that the report we have seen today tells us that there is room for improvement.

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)]

Policing confidence is at an all-time low under this Government. The Minister may say that the Mayor of London should consider his position, but perhaps the Government should consider theirs. As he says, this is the first time that the Metropolitan police has been under special measures, and that has been under the Government’s leadership. We on this side of the House have consistently called for reform and an overhaul of the vetting and training of officers, and the Government do not listen. At what point will they accept responsibility for their failures?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am absolutely willing to accept responsibility for systemic failures across the whole of policing where they occur. I do not know whether the hon. Lady was in the House at the time, but she will have heard me apologise profoundly for the problems we have seen in rape investigation over the past decade, for example, and put a plan in place to sort that out. Happily, that plan is showing early signs of improvement.

What is really depressing about this exchange is the unwillingness of the Opposition to accept that even a shred of responsibility or accountability should attach to City Hall, notwithstanding the fact that in law and in truth the Mayor of London is the primary accountability mechanism.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

Thousands of police officers in the Met put their lives on the line every day not knowing whether they will return home safely when they are trying to apprehend violent criminals and take them off our streets. Clearly there are some who are bad apples—we understand that—but in all this time, violent crime in London is up and the Mayor of London is totally silent. He is the one responsible to the people of London, and he must not abrogate his responsibilities. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that prior to Dame Cressida Dick being forced out by the Mayor of London, the Mayor was lobbying the Home Secretary to extend her contract for three years?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

First, I am happy to hear my hon. Friend celebrate the work of the many thousands of men and women in the Metropolitan Police Service who are out there today keeping us safe. We should never forget them, and they will be as disappointed by the events of the past 24 hours as the rest of us. They will turn their shoulders and their efforts to improving things, alongside their colleagues, and I look forward to working with them in doing that. He is right that the Mayor was pressing for an extension.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

This decision is long overdue, but I pay tribute to rank and file police officers and local police leaders in my own borough of Richmond upon Thames, who do a fantastic job week in, week out. However, Londoners’ confidence in the Met has plummeted to 49%. More than a third think the police cannot be relied on when needed. That level of public confidence is not just damning, but downright dangerous: without public confidence, the police cannot keep our streets safe and victims will not come forward. I am afraid that my constituents and Londoners across the city are seeing this partisan political point-scoring between Conservative Ministers and a Labour Mayor, which will do nothing to restore that confidence.

It is incumbent on all of us on all sides to work together with the Met police to start to restore public confidence. I have asked the Minister this question before, so I hope he will reconsider his answer. Will he break with precedent in the appointment of the new Met Police Commissioner and ensure that it is a cross-party appointment ratified by both the Home Affairs Committee and the London Assembly—not just a personal appointment by the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary or the Mayor of London?

[Kit Malthouse]

As I said earlier, this is not partisan; it is the truth. The process for appointing the commissioner is, I am afraid, laid out in law.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

The Met police has been strip-searching teenage girls and telling women worried about being attacked by police officers to flag down a bus. All the while, sexual violence and rape numbers have been going up. The Met police is failing women, so can the Minister please ensure that within the action plan is a plan to tackle systemic sexism? When we look at the new commissioner, we should make sure that tackling violence against women and girls is a priority.

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend makes a strong point. Although, as I am sure she will accept, on occasion police officers need to strip-search young people of all genders, that must be done within the law and appropriately. She will know that an inquiry is ongoing under Dame Louise Casey, looking at the culture of the Met and particularly these issues, and the Home Secretary has commissioned an inspection of the investigation of policing and violence against women and girls across the whole of UK policing. The conclusion of those, plus part 2 of the Angiolini review, will inform our work in this area, and I look forward to keeping her posted on progress.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The Minister was deputy mayor for policing in London when the worst cuts were imposed by this Government, and I do not remember him raising his voice against those cuts once. People cannot take a wrecking ball to the Metropolitan police and not expect problems like this to come about, but the issues go back many, many years. Daniel Morgan was killed in 1987, and it was 2011 before the Met admitted it was corruption that bedevilled that investigation. There was the bungled investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. We could go on and on.

Those things show that there are systemic problems within the Metropolitan police, so will the Minister admit that if we are to resolve these problems, appointing a commissioner from within the Metropolitan police is just not going to cut it?

[Kit Malthouse]

Obviously the decision on the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police is for the Home Secretary, who will advise Her Majesty on making the appointment in consultation with the Mayor of London. Just on two of the hon. Gentleman’s substantive points, first, I fought hard for resources for the Metropolitan police when I was deputy mayor for policing. In fact, we managed to maintain police officer numbers, such that it is starting from a very high base with the uplift, meaning that the Met now has the highest number of officers it has ever had in its history. That is not true of all forces across the country, because of decisions made by the police and crime commissioners. If he looks back at the record, he will see that I was successful in winning resources.

As for the Daniel Morgan investigation, if the hon. Gentleman looks at the papers he will find that it was a letter from me to the then Home Secretary that stimulated the meeting that resulted in the inquiry.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

This week, the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan made a statement about the malaise that the Metropolitan police finds itself in. He blamed a number of people. He blamed the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the outgoing Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Dame Cressida Dick. The one person who was entirely absolved from blame was the person who has been the police and crime commissioner for London for the past six years, and that person is Sadiq Khan.

What is the point of Sadiq Khan, given that he is so utterly unable to influence affairs, and so utterly unresponsible for anything that has happened? Is it not now time to remove responsibility for the Metropolitan police from the Mayor of London’s orbit and return it fully to the Home Office?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend and I were London Assembly Members together, although he continued under the Labour Mayor and I never had that sad experience. He is right that a peculiarity of the Mayor’s term has been the seeming willingness to step away from the issues assailing the capital, rather than step into them. When we were elected to City Hall, we faced a similar spate of knife crime and teenage killings, and we stepped into that without reservation—some would say at enormous political risk. I hope that the current Mayor will take the political risk required to step in and sort out this issue for my hon. Friend’s constituents and those of many other hon. Members. As I said, following the work required to get the Met into shape over the next few months and years, we will have to consider what we should do further about the structure.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

It is 50 years since the Confait case of 1972, when a transvestite was murdered and burned alive in a house in my constituency. That led to the bringing forward of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which put in place provisions to ensure that there is an appropriate adult at a police station when children are there. The Metropolitan police has been failing in that area, as have police forces across our country, where appropriate adults have not been in place when children were presented in custody—and on average, children are in custody for 13 hours. Will the Minister agree to look into that as part of the failings of the Met police, and with other police forces across the country?

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Lady is right that a strip-search should not take place without the presence of an appropriate adult. I am sure she is aware that, notwithstanding the case of Child Q, the Met has now made other referrals to the IOPC. She raises a good point. I have asked questions internally in the Home Office about what more we can do to ensure that the rules are being adhered to.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

A significant number of Metropolitan police officers live in my constituency and I pay tribute to their work and professionalism. Thousands more of my residents work across Greater London and deserve to feel safe and secure while in the capital. Is it not a damning indictment of Mayor Sadiq Khan that the Metropolitan police now finds itself in special measures, despite significant additional resources?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend makes a strong point about our shared responsibility to support not only the police officers who do a brilliant job every day, but those who they seek to protect, and I agree. As I said earlier, if Sadiq Khan is not primarily responsible, I am not sure why he stood for election or why crime even featured on his election literature—I ask myself whether it will at the next election. He is absolutely the primary point of responsibility and he must step forward to take that mantle.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Minister’s statement was unworthy of this House, and even of the Minister. The danger is that it takes the focus of the debate away from the failings of the Metropolitan police and puts it on to personal and political responsibility.

The Metropolitan police has been failing primarily in two areas. The first, as the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) ably and rightly highlighted, is violence against women and girls, on which issue I have been working closely with my borough commander Sara Leach. Secondly, it has systematically failed on racism. I am fed up of people coming into my surgery because they are black and have been badly and violently treated or have had spurious prosecutions made against them by police officers. Mina Smallman’s two daughters were murdered in my constituency. It took two years for the Metropolitan police to get off its payroll the police officers who took photographs of them and circulated them to their colleagues and other people. That is a disgrace. I want to know not what anybody else is doing, but what the Minister will do to sort out racism and misogyny in the force.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

Obviously, the murder of the Smallman sisters was an appalling act that shocked the entire nation. Although it took a couple of years for the officers to be punished, they were in the end. There have been problems over the years with the speed of the police disciplinary process. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that police officers are entitled to due process, as everyone else is, but I hope he will also recognise that we have put measures in place to ensure that IOPC inquiries happen as swiftly as possible.

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about racism, I hope he will have seen that the National Police Chiefs’ Council has published its national race action plan and we are supporting its prosecution of that change programme. I am sorry about his opening comments. My statement may not have met with his approval, but the reason is that I feel incredibly strongly, having done that job before. I represented parts of central London for a significant proportion of my adult life and I feel it personally that the failure of governance, as well as leadership in the Met, has to be called out as well.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

In 2020, Greater Manchester police was put into special measures in part, certainly, due to a lack of accountability and scrutiny. Importantly, as has been highlighted, there was also a lack of care and services towards the victims of crime. Since, steps have been taken by the Minister and others to address that situation. What lessons can be learned to help and assist the Metropolitan police to get out of the appalling situation that it finds itself in under Sadiq Khan’s leadership?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is right that, sadly, the issues that we saw in Greater Manchester police have been reflected again in London. In the end, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) said, the solution is leadership. I was pleased to be able to assist the Mayor’s office in Manchester to find a great leader for Greater Manchester police, who I know is driving forward a programme of change and progress that Mancunians will be feeling on a daily basis on the streets. We must now find a great leader for the Met who can reproduce that here in London.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

As a proud south Londoner—I have lived in Brixton all my life—I know that if the Minister thinks that the issues in the Met police started under Sadiq Khan’s tenure, he is in cloud cuckoo land. From when I was a young girl, the issues with policing were at the forefront of the issues in my community, and they continue to be almost 40 years later. I do not want my young children to have to go through what men—my uncles and cousins—have gone through. That starts with our Met police taking seriously the community’s issues and realising that policing is by consent. The Mayor has clearly set out reforms, and I hope that the Minister will outline how he will support the Mayor to address those reforms, how he will welcome them and how he will work with the Mayor, instead of making the issue a political football.

[Kit Malthouse]

I am sorry that the hon. Lady feels that way. Certainly, when I was at the Met police, we did a lot of work to examine the problems with the culture. In fact, I instituted a race and faith inquiry at the Metropolitan Police Authority to look at exactly the issues that I know trouble her, as they have many people over the years. With a large organisation such as the Metropolitan police, that area requires constant attention. My sadness about the exchanges today is that no Opposition Member has once yet recognised the responsibility of the Mayor of London. If he is not responsible for policing and crime in London, I am not sure what he is doing in the job.

[Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)]

I am grateful for the Minister’s statement on the worrying underperformance of the Metropolitan police and the Mayor of London. On the wider point of underperforming police, it was recently reported that the comedian Joe Lycett was investigated for telling a joke at one of his shows. It was also reported that over the last three years, not a single burglary has been resolved in nearly half the neighbourhoods across the country. Does the Minister think those two stories are connected?

[Kit Malthouse]

I have seen both those stories; I cannot comment on the first one. On the second one, we are looking into those statistics carefully. Of course, now that we do not take into account when burglars stand up in court and say, “I plead guilty but I would like 120 other offences taken into account,” we are not necessarily sure whether we have caught the burglar in another area and have therefore solved the burglary. As my hon. Friend will know, last year we published the “Beating crime plan”, which has a chapter on “Excellence in the basics” and was specifically designed to drive forward the efficient and effective investigation of offences such as burglary.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Labour has called for a complete overhaul of police vetting, training, whistleblowing policies and misconduct proceedings. In the light of the Her Majesty’s inspectorate’s decision, will the Minister finally back our calls?

[Kit Malthouse]

We are doing significant work in all those areas.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Restoring trust in the police force can sometimes seem insurmountable, but does the Minister not agree that it must remembered that not all police are guilty? This report demands change, as it should, but it cannot be used as an excuse for abuse of the overwhelming majority of upstanding police officers who do their job to keep us all safe to the detriment of their own physical and mental health.

[Kit Malthouse]

Well, bravo to the hon. Gentleman—bravo! That is exactly the right sentiment. There are thousands of police officers out there every day who, if something happened to any of us, would run towards us to assist us. They get up in the morning and do their job to the best of their ability with integrity and honesty, and we should recognise that that is the case.

May I also say a word for the leadership of the Metropolitan police, who I know will be battered and bruised by the report today? I was heartened by their dignified statement following the issuing of this report, and I know that they will bend every sinew to bring in the changes that are required. In particular, the acting commissioner, who I know is a man of honesty and integrity and who has had a fantastic career in policing—he has put many villains behind bars and kept millions, unknowingly, safe in their beds at night—deserves our support as he drives forward the undoubted changes needed at the Metropolitan police.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

There are some moments when I feel ashamed of being an MP, and to be honest, the last 50 minutes has been one of those. I do not think Londoners really care about throwing blame here, there and everywhere; they just want to see something sorted. I would gently point out to the Minister that he knows that I think he has been a bit complacent about the Daniel Morgan situation, whatever he said earlier. He also knows that he was the person in charge when I had to sue the Metropolitan police, at enormous cost, to get justice for the victims of phone hacking at the News of the World, and there was massive corruption and a revolving door between Downing Street, the newspapers and the Metropolitan police. I think everybody just wants to hear answers on how we can make sure, for instance, that the situation that happened with Stephen Port and those murders, when homophobia clearly played a role in letting other young men die, will never happen again. So can he just give me one thing that he personally is going to do that will make sure that will not happen again?

[Kit Malthouse]

I will give the hon. Gentleman one thing, but I understand, and this seems to be a tactic by Opposition Members, that their deflection comes with, “Oh, this is a disgrace!” I really wish that somebody had acknowledged the role of City Hall, with 145 staff and a Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime. What on earth do they think they are for if it is not for this? In all honesty, if they represent Londoners and they think the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime has done its job in this case, then we are in a whole world of pain that we do not need. I realise that they are attempting all sorts of deflection, but I have to tell them that if I had been doing the job, I would not have allowed that deflection to take place, and I have to tell them that if it had been a Conservative in that job, I would have said exactly the same things.

On the hon. Gentleman asking for something concrete, I, for example, specifically changed the remit of the inspection regime away from pure process and efficiency towards crime fighting. It was the case that, until a couple of years ago, the police could get an astounding report from the inspectors while their crime performance was still poor. That is now not the case, and we are seeing these results coming through as the inspections start to land.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Minister for Crime and Policing told the House that he had only added the several paragraphs launching a political attack “at the last minute”. Those paragraphs were not included in the statement that either you or shadow Home Office Ministers were given. However, the list of questions circulated to Conservative Back Benchers, which I have here—it will have taken some time to prepare and to circulate, with input from the Home Office—repeats the same script that the Minister used in his attack. In fact, those questions include nothing on the actual failings in the Metropolitan police and nothing on the reforms that are needed to the Metropolitan police or to policing across the country, but only political attacks instead. It is not credible that these political paragraphs were only added “at the last minute”. Did the Minister give inaccurate information to the House?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her point of order. As I said previously, it is the usual courtesy for a Minister to give the Opposition an advance copy of a statement. The Minister has already apologised for adding material to the version given to the Opposition, but he may like to reflect on the point that the right hon. Lady has made—and I sense that he wishes to respond further.

[Kit Malthouse]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is certainly the case that the statement was moving with some fluidity over the last hour or so. I am sorry if it did not make it through in its completed terms. I did add a number of items myself at the end. It should come as no surprise that the approach in the statement was being discussed between us and the special advisers. In future, if there are late changes, I undertake that I will issue a late version of the statement that includes all of my remarks.

[Yvette Cooper]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. To provide reassurance to the House, will the Minister provide the email details and the internal records from his computer and from the computer on which the statement was drafted to show at what point this information was added to the statement, just so that we can be sure that the House has been given accurate information?

Community Payback

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ellie Reeves]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point about hours not being completed and communities not seeing justice done. He talks about Greater Manchester, but that is a problem up and down the country. I will say more on that later.

Community payback should act as an alternative to short prison sentences, which, under this Government, create only more hardened criminals. That is because our prisons have become colleges of crime: drug abuse in prisons has gone up by 500% in a decade, while the take-up of drug rehabilitation programmes is down by 12%; last year, assaults on prison staff went up by a fifth, but the recruitment of officers was still down on 2010; and inmates’ discipline is low, which means that taxpayer-funded compensation for prisoner-on-prisoner violence is high—it was £4 million in the last two years alone.

Instead of properly punishing and rehabilitating offenders, getting them ready to re-enter society, and preparing them for the world of work, short sentences spit offenders out from prison more immersed in crime than when they went in. That is exactly where tough, effective community sentences and tough, effective unpaid work schemes that are accountable to communities and victims could make a difference—but they are not making a difference, because they have been set up to fail.

The Lord Chancellor knows that community payback does not work because of the mistake that his party made in 2014 in rushing through a privatisation that the probation service did not need. Probation officers work incredibly hard and do an extremely important job, but they are being let down by this Government. The fragmentation that followed privatisation in 2014 dangerously reduced staffing, increased workloads and meant less supervision for offenders. The results have been dire: 4 million fewer hours of community payback were completed in 2021 than in 2017.

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

It was a pandemic!

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (James Cartlidge)]

It was a pandemic!

--- Later in debate ---

[Ellie Reeves]

Since the Conservatives took office in 2010, there have been cuts to police, stations have been closed, there are fewer police on the streets and there is less confidence among the public that the party has the ideas to tackle crime in our communities.

Victims cannot see judgments being handed down because their local courts have been sold off and cases are taking years to complete, and communities cannot see justice being done in their area because criminals are instead finishing their sentences on Microsoft Teams. What is more, these failings are killing judicial faith in the effectiveness of community sentences. Judges do not believe that sentences are being completed, so they are not handing them down. Instead, they are giving out more short custodial sentences in the Tories’ colleges of crime, and so the cycle of reoffending worsens.

[Kit Malthouse]

rose—

[Ellie Reeves]

Community payback can be fixed if the Government follow Labour’s plan. First, Ministers must end the chaos that they have created in the probation service by ruling out any further reductions in staffing.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

I rise both perplexed and pleased to respond. First, I am perplexed because, in seven years in this House, I do not think I have heard quite such a series of distortions of events, or indeed such a naked use of a global pandemic to derive political advantage. I know that when the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) goes to tweet or Facebook the clips of her being outraged in this debate, she will point out—to her, no doubt, small number of viewers in Lewisham West and Penge—that the pandemic had an impact on the whole of the country, not least the criminal justice system.

I am also perplexed at the sudden reversal in the Labour party’s view of community payback. It was only a year ago that the former shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), said that community payback

“has nothing to do with tackling crime”.

She accused us, in promoting community payback, of “stigmatising” certain sections of the community. She called our desire to have more community payback teams out in the community, doing exactly the kind of work that the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge now seems to celebrate, a “distasteful gimmick”, as did, at the same time, the now shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). So while I welcome the hon. Lady’s conversion, it is the cause of some confusion. Perhaps we are in happier, more Blairite times in the Labour party now, under new leadership, although how long that will last I do not know.

Having said that, I am pleased to celebrate the work that has been done on community payback, particularly over the last year as it has roared back into life, and to take the opportunity to pay tribute to the outstanding work of our operational staff across England and Wales, who, in spite of a huge number of challenges, have continued to deliver projects day in and day out.

The community payback requirement is of course delivered in groups, sometimes indoors—painting and decorating schools for example—and covid-19 had a severe impact on our ability to deliver. I am afraid that resulted in a backlog of cases where hours have not been met 12 months after sentencing, which is a stipulation of the requirement. However, we are committed to ensuring that all eligible offenders who did not complete their community payback because of covid-19 will be required to meet their hours.

The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge, on whom I wanted to intervene, seemed to indicate that hours had been written off from community sentences. She may not be aware of this, but we are not able to write off community sentence hours as that is entirely a judicial decision. We have undertaken to present every single case where somebody goes over their 12-month requirement period back in front of a judge for them to take a decision—to extend the time limit, we hope, but at the very least for those people to complete their hours.

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I sat as a magistrate in a breach court in Merseyside last week, hearing from the probation service on cases that it had not been possible to complete in a certain period of time, and the periods for delivery of that community payback were being extended. A point was made from the Opposition Benches that in Greater Manchester some payback cases were not being completed; of course where that is happening, the probation service can and does bring breach cases to court for magistrates to resentence or revoke the order.

[Kit Malthouse]

I salute my hon. Friend for doing his civic duty as a magistrate and he is right that these decisions are effectively for the independent judiciary and we are very limited in what we can do in terms of flexibility. My hon. Friend also rightly highlights that we regularly take those who fail to complete their community service requirement in front of judges for alternative sentencing or for reaffirmation of the sentence. I hope my hon. Friend made the right decision when sitting as a magistrate; I am sure he will have done.

In stark contrast, our brethren in Scotland decided, other than in certain cases, to write off 35% of the hours accumulated because of the covid-19 backlog. We in this part of the United Kingdom took a completely different decision, recognising the importance of sentencing both to victims and for rehabilitation and punitive purposes, so we are persisting. That does however mean that we have a backlog, but also that we had to develop some necessary solutions to make sure sentences were delivered despite social distancing regulations.

The independent working projects, which the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge mentioned, were introduced as a temporary delivery method in response to covid-19 restrictions and have enabled us to maximise delivery during the pandemic and as the probation service recovers from the impact of the pandemic. All the products created by offenders during these projects were for the benefit of the community or for local charities. They have included a range of robust and practical tasks such as producing hats and scarves for Ukrainian refugees and making face masks and personal protective equipment during the pandemic. I am sure the hon. Lady would not see those jobs as any less valuable than cleaning up a churchyard. Those projects are still being deployed in a limited and targeted way to support our recovery and will be phased out by the autumn.

We cannot shy away from the fact that the probation service and community payback were, like the rest of the country, deeply impacted by the pandemic. As a result we have built up a backlog of cases and we need to make sure those and future cases are all delivered within 12 months. We are boosting our delivery capacity and maximising our efficiency, and to do that we are investing an additional £93 million in community payback over the next three years.

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

On probation, I attended the justice unions parliamentary group yesterday and subsequently had discussions with members of Napo, the probation officers’ union. They were at pains to point out the huge caseload many of their members are carrying and the difficulties that presents in terms of assessing cases and identifying those suitable for community service and community payback.

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman is right that the probation service has a heavy caseload, and that is why we are in the process of recruiting significant numbers of new probation officers; there were 1,500, I think, last year with more to come in the year ahead. We have been given significant investment by the Government to expand that capability and I am very aware of the caseload pressures across the country. It is therefore even more important that we should be given the flexibility to enable people to complete their sentences within the 12 months so as not to add to the burden by having to represent those cases in front of magistrates if the deadline is not met.

This significant investment will enable us to increase the delivery of community payback from the pre-covid benchmark of around 5 million hours a year to an unprecedented 8 million hours a year. These hours will be put to good use, with a particular focus on more outdoor projects that improve local areas, allow the public to see justice being done and build confidence in community sentences. We will be delivering more placements that restore pride in communities and add value to the work of local charities, building on the success of projects like one in south Yorkshire which saw offenders undertake 2,500 hours of work to transform a derelict building into a community centre for disadvantaged young people. The ramp-up will be facilitated by the recruitment of about 500 additional community payback staff who will bolster resources in every probation region. In January, we launched a national recruitment campaign and successful candidates are now commencing in post.

[Alexander Stafford]

I thank my right hon. Friend for mentioning south Yorkshire. He will know that, in March, a group of offenders came to Rother Valley under this scheme to help clear up Maltby. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we need more of these schemes across Rother Valley and Yorkshire so that people can see the value of community payback, and that it is often better to have people out working in communities rather than serving shorter sentences in prison?

[Kit Malthouse]

I completely agree and am pleased to hear about the projects in my hon. Friend’s constituency. As he will know, I have urged all Members across the House to nominate schemes in their constituencies to be fulfilled and I need everybody’s help to get us to the target of 8 million hours. If we all pull together I hope we will make sure that not just my hon. Friend’s constituency but every part of the country is looking spick and span.

This investment is also enabling us to establish new national partnerships with major organisations and charities, which are also joining this coalition to get to 8 million hours, bringing forward high-quality local projects and initiatives to be replicated in communities across England and Wales. This includes our groundbreaking partnership with the Canal & River Trust, which sees offenders clearing litter, tidying towpaths and maintaining beauty spots along 2,000 miles of waterways. The work of offenders on community payback has delivered at Perry Barr in Birmingham, clearing a towpath near the site of this summer’s Commonwealth games, which is testament to the impact such projects can have on local places and people.

[Stephanie Peacock]

The Minister talked about the number of hours completed and has spoken a lot about the impact of the covid pandemic but the fall in the number of hours completed began in 2017; what is his answer to that?

[Kit Malthouse]

There was a decline between ’17-18 and ’18-19, but the hon. Lady will remember that the last three years of decline were covered by a lockdown; the lockdown began in the first quarter. And while there was a decline it is worth pointing out that there was also a very significant decline in the previous year because this is an activity which, as I have said, takes place in groups and we were not allowed to meet in groups. I know it is not often the case that the word fairness is used in our antagonistic form of democratic debate, but it would be unfair of Opposition parties to decry the work of the probation service and community payback supervisors and say that they should have been doing that group work during the pandemic.

[Stephanie Peacock]

Will the Minister give way?

[Kit Malthouse]

No, I want to make some progress. [Interruption.] I will give way in a moment, but I have just given way to the hon. Lady.

[Stephanie Peacock]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

All right, go ahead.

[Stephanie Peacock]

It is disingenuous of the Minister to call me unfair. He clearly misheard my intervention; I was talking about 2017 but he is talking about 2020. Will he answer the question about 2017?

[Kit Malthouse]

As I have said, the baseline was at or around 5 million hours a year for quite a period. It fluctuated from year to year because of a number of factors, not just the delivery but also whether magistrates were giving community sentences in volume, which is not something we can influence. But I am more than happy to write to the hon. Lady with the hours as we see them. [Interruption.] I do not have them to hand, but I am more than happy to write to her about those hours. Look, the number fluctuated at about 5 million-odd, and we want to get it to 8 million. We have been given £93 million and 500 more supervisors have been recruited to get us there. I hope that Opposition Members will acknowledge that community payback was impacted, and had to be, by the pandemic. I know that the Labour party would not seek to make political advantage out of the impact of that awful disease when we had to bear in mind the safety of Ministry of Justice staff.

The Opposition have submitted their own proposals on improving local engagement and participation, which the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge referred to. However, I am afraid that her quango-tastic response to the issue is both unnecessary and, I am afraid, overcomplicated. In reality, community payback is already delivering for local communities, and the Government are only strengthening our engagement with key stakeholders. We recognise that local engagement is an integral part of the community payback offer, and the probation service already works closely with local authorities, police and crime commissioners and voluntary organisations to identify demanding placements that benefit communities. We also encourage members of the public to take part and nominate community payback projects in their areas via an easy-to-use form on the gov.uk website. I urge you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to make some nominations in your own constituency.

Furthermore, we have just introduced a new statutory duty via the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 that requires the probation service to consult with key community stakeholders on the delivery of community payback in local areas. The duty will encourage greater collaboration with key partners such as PCCs and ensure that projects benefit communities and are responsive to local needs. The new statutory duty will cement and formalise existing relationships and create a consistent consultation process across England and Wales. That in turn will guarantee that local people have a say in the types of projects delivered in their areas, ensuring that our placements are responsive to the community’s needs.

The impact of such collaboration was evident during the community payback spring clean week, which was delivered in support of Keep Britain Tidy’s campaign in March. Between 25 March and 1 April, community payback teams were mobilised across England and Wales to deliver clean-up projects that visibly improved local areas and green spaces. More than 1,500 offenders collected 2,200 bags of litter, removed eyesore graffiti and cleared vegetation from public spaces. They delivered 10,000 hours of hard and productive work at about 300 projects. The initiative was widely supported by many hon. Members and PCCs who visited projects. The spring clean week is a superb example of the impact that meaningful and robust community payback can have on local areas.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I want to take the Minister back to the 8 million hours of community payback that he set out. We all support more hours of community payback, particularly on meaningful projects such as some of those that he has just listed. He skirted over the fundamental problem, though, which is that in June 2011, 185,265 community sentences were handed down—13% of all sentences—but by June 2021 that had fallen to 72,021, which was just 7% of all sentences. He said that there is little that he can do to make the courts award community sentences, but, if he is to make those 8 million hours a reality, he will have to do something to encourage them. What is he doing to ensure that more community sentences, where appropriate, are given out to perpetrators of crime?

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right that the decision on a sentence is a matter for the magistrate or for the judge at the time. It is for them to decide what is a fitting punishment and, indeed, what is likely to deter the offender from reoffending. The fall that he pointed to will be entirely down to judicial discretion.

We can do a certain amount of marketing to judges and sentencers. In promoting my own pet project of alcohol abstinence and monitoring orders—the new sobriety tags that have been brought in—I have been attending judicial training courses to explain to sentencers how the sentence works and its effectiveness. In the end, a judge or magistrate wants to know that a sentence is effective, and if we can demonstrate through our work that it is effective, punitive and satisfies the public interest, and the local community sees value in that sentence, I am sure that magistrates and judges will step forward with much greater enthusiasm and help us to fulfil that 8 million hours target. The hon. Gentleman identifies the interesting point—no doubt it will be embarked on with the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge)—of explaining to those who give out sentences the growing importance of this work across the whole of the country.

I hope that all hon. Members in the Chamber will become my Twitter followers. One of the great pleasures of my day is to tweet my “payback of the day”. Pretty much every day, I put out “before” and “after” pictures of a project taking place somewhere across the country showing the fantastic work that offenders have done. We seem to specialise in cemeteries—a lot of work is going into cleaning them and smartening them up. Some of the transformations have been extraordinary. I visited a project in Eastleigh, near my constituency, and what struck me was the value that the offenders themselves saw in the work. Local residents had been over to congratulate them, thank them and understand what they were doing—the offenders all wear high-vis that has “community payback” written the back—and the offenders felt a sense of pride. They had been working in a churchyard, making it look very smart and tidy, and in fact a couple of them said that they were interested in a career in landscape gardening as a result.

Across the House, we agree on the value of community payback. I hope it is agreed that the service suffered during the pandemic because of the nature of this group-based work, but that the staff at the probation service and the community payback supervisors were innovative in inventing solutions to help us deal with the backlog. Nevertheless, we all need to put our shoulder to the wheel to get us from 5 million hours to that target of 8 million hours, by which time I hope there will not be an area of the country that is not clean, scrubbed and free of graffiti and litter.

While I realise that the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge is trying to use the debate to confer some kind of political advantage, I know that she recognises—she is generally a fair-minded individual—that the staff were struggling during the pandemic, as were so many services. Now that her party has happily reversed its position, we share the view that the community payback is an incredibly valuable part of our criminal justice system, and I hope that we will all work together to promote it. I look forward to receiving a nomination from her for a scheme that she would like to see done in her constituency. Perhaps she and I could visit it together and congratulate the offenders on their work.

As for the hon. Lady’s overall claim that somehow the Conservatives have gone soft on crime and are no longer the party of crime and order, I gently remind her that she voted against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act and its measures to put rapists and other serious offenders behind bars and to deal with a variety of other criminals. Until the Labour party becomes more action and less talk, I am afraid that it will not be able to aspire to the crown, which we currently proudly hold, of being the primary defender of law and order in this country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

T5.   We should all be concerned about the length of time and the frequency with which minors are detained in police cells. Cells are made for adults, yet minors are being detained in them for as long as adults and data shows that the average time spent in police custody is increasing. That is despite legislation saying that minors should be detained only for the shortest appropriate period. What are the Government doing and how do they plan to re-address that?

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

In the past few years, we have been working closely with the police across the whole of the UK to drive down the number of minors held in custody and the duration of that. As the hon. Lady will know, the appropriate adult scheme is in place to make sure that minors who are detained are accompanied by adults who, as I say, are appropriate. If she has specific cases she wants to raise with me, I would be more than happy to look at them, but thus far the trend has been improving.

[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

T3. Last week, I was delighted to hear the Home Secretary recognise the national success of Southend police’s Operation Grip and call for it to be rolled out around the country. Does she agree that Southend police’s Operation Union, which adopts an events mindset to policing our seafront, should also be rolled out nationally, especially to coastal areas?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is right on the national Grip funding roll-out, which originated from a visit I made to Southend two years ago, where I was so impressed by the data-driven hotspot work that we managed to get the money out of the Treasury to spread it further. I certainly look forward to seeing the results of Operation Union. If it is equally successful, I do not see why we would not roll that out too.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

T9. It is quite ironic that while we have been in the Chamber we have received an email to say that the Home Office MP inquiry line has collapsed because of heavy use. I am quite tempted to run through my 200 outstanding cases that are waiting for answers from the Home Office; instead, perhaps a Minister could confirm to me that Zill-e Huma, who is waiting for a spousal visa for her husband, will get that processed before her baby is born at the end of July.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

T8. After repeated calls to the Labour South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner to reopen police stations in our towns and villages, he has reopened the station at Edlington, with a population of 8,000. I have been leading a campaign for the return of a police station to Dinnington, with a population of 13,000. Does my right hon. Friend agree that a town of that size must have a police station and that the commissioner should reopen the premises in Dinnington without delay?

[Kit Malthouse]

As usual, Mr Speaker, it is no surprise to hear my hon. Friend standing up for his constituents and fighting for their interests. He is right to look for greater police presence in his constituency, and when we finish recruiting 20,000 police officers, we will need somewhere for them to put all their stuff. Having that somewhere in his constituency would make sense.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

A total of 5,279 children were strip searched by the Metropolitan police between 2019 and 2021, 75% of whom were from a black, Asian and minority ethnic background. This data covers only children who were strip searched after an arrest, which means that the number of children strip searched among those not arrested will be even higher, such as in the case of Child Q who was never actually arrested. The Home Office will require police forces to provide this data on strip searches only on a voluntary basis. Can the Home Secretary say why she will not commit to making it mandatory for police forces to produce this data?

[Kit Malthouse]

Although the case of Child Q was deeply regrettable and the Metropolitan police have offered their apologies in that case, I am sure that the hon. Lady will accept that, sadly, there are circumstances where these kind of searches of all manner of people are warranted. She raises a good point about transparency, and I know that all police chiefs across the country have it at the forefront of their minds that their legitimacy is built on public confidence about what they do and I will certainly explore the idea that she suggests.

[Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)]

Neighbourhood crime and antisocial behaviour is better tackled with the police visibility and responsiveness that a town centre police station can provide. Will my right hon. Friend give his support and encouragement to efforts by north Wales police to reopen a police station in the centre of Prestatyn, possibly at the redeveloped old library site?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am more than happy to support my hon. Friend in seeking the best for his constituents, as I did on Friday in Tiverton where the front counter of the police station is due to open in November. I hope and believe that his constituents will benefit from the significant uplift in capacity and funding that we are giving to police forces, which will allow them to do exactly as he asks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Residents in Osterley contacted me last week. They have been suffering for months from antisocial behaviour, drug dealing and assaults, which came to a head last week. Councillors and local police have been working together to try to tackle the issue, but their efforts are hamstrung because there just are not enough police officers to do regular patrols in hotspots. Does the Home Secretary regret the 10 years of police cuts that leave my constituents and many others feeling unprotected?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am quite surprised to hear that given that I believe the hon. Lady is a London MP and the Metropolitan Police currently have more police officers on their roster than they have ever had in their history.

[Jill Mortimer (Hartlepool) (Con)]

My team and I have been fighting for many hours to get a visa for a little Ukrainian girl, Alisa. She has been classified as an unaccompanied minor, although her aunt Viktoria provided evidence that she is her legal guardian many weeks ago. The situation is now grave as the family’s 90-day Polish visa is about to expire and they will have to return to the war zone. That is unacceptable. I know that an unaccompanied minors policy was finally agreed last week, but I fear that a failure to process these applications swiftly enough will soon lead to a humanitarian emergency for this family and others like them. Can my right hon. Friend please tell me what can be done to resolve this case and finally bring this family to safety in Hartlepool?

Public Order Bill (Fifth sitting)

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 16th June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Order. Before we begin I have a few preliminary reminders for the Committee. Please switch electronic devices to silent. No food or drink is permitted during the sittings of this Committee, except for the water provided. Hansard colleagues would be grateful if Members could email their speaking notes to [e-mail] or, alternatively, pass on their written speaking notes to the Hansard colleague in the room.

Clause 6

Powers to stop and search on suspicion

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

I beg to move amendment 25, clause 6, page 8, line 23, at end insert—

“(ha) an offence under section (Offence of causing serious disruption by tunnelling) of that Act (offence of causing serious disruption by tunnelling);

(hb) an offence under section (Offence of causing serious disruption by being present in a tunnel) of that Act (offence of causing serious disruption by being present in a tunnel)”.

This amendment applies the stop and search powers in section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 to an offence relating to tunnelling under the new clause inserted by NC5 or NC6

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Government amendment 26.

Government new clause 5— Offence of causing serious disruption by tunnelling.

Government new clause 6— Offence of causing serious disruption by being present in a tunnel.

[Kit Malthouse]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your wise guidance, Mr Mundell, for our contemplation of this legislation today. The amendments make it clear that the protest tactic of building tunnels in order to disrupt legitimate activity while endangering the protesters themselves and the police and emergency services who respond will not be tolerated. The Committee heard last week how HS2 had been targeted on multiple occasions by people building tunnels that have caused enormous cost to the project, with three removal operations alone costing in excess of £10 million.

Even more recently, we have seen protesters from Just Stop Oil engaging in this dangerous and reckless activity at sites in Essex and Warwickshire. Aside from the costs, however, it is the risk of a fatality at one of the sites that concerns us most. Whatever hon. Members think about the merits of a particular cause and the right to protest, we can all agree that such an utterly reckless practice must not be allowed to continue.

Although the individuals may be willing to put themselves at risk, it is not acceptable that they endanger those who are called upon to remove them and repair the damage inflicted. The tunnels are often structurally unsound and poorly ventilated. In addition, the protesters resist removal, increasing the risks for those we ask to enforce the law. While removing protesters from the Euston Square tunnel, for example, HS2 reported that a protester removed part of the shoring, causing a tunnel to collapse on a contractor.

New clause 5 therefore creates a new offence of creating a tunnel, which will be committed when an individual causes serious disruption by creating a tunnel. Their action must cause, or be capable of causing, serious disruption to an organisation or two or more individuals—as we have seen in earlier clauses in the Bill—and the person must intend the tunnel to have a consequence or be reckless as to the consequence. To deter a committed cohort of protest tunnellers, the clause enables a maximum sentence of three years’ imprisonment and/or a fine. The clause also includes a reasonable excuse exemption, as have previous clauses.

New clause 6 is designed to cover those who occupy a tunnel as well as those who constructed it in the first place. They will be liable to a similar penalty of up to three years’ imprisonment and/or a fine. The threshold of serious disruption for this offence will be the same as in new clause 5. For both clauses, the tunnel has been defined as any excavation, whether it leads to a destination or is enough to permit the passage of an individual. We have also included in scope any extension or enlargement of existing natural or artificial excavations. The breadth of the definition will ensure that all stages of this dangerous tactic will be captured.

Government amendments 25 and 26 extend the Bill’s suspicion-based and suspicion-less stop and search powers to include equipment that may be used for creating or being present in a tunnel. It is clear that the police need powers to tackle tunnels proactively before they occur. Those two amendments, alongside new clause 7, which we will debate later, will allow the police to take the necessary preventive action against those they believe may be intending to tunnel, protecting the public from serious disruption.

Finally, the level of sentences for these new offences reflects the level of harm that tunnelling can cause. Not only do they cause significant disruption and cost millions of pounds to clean up, as we heard, but they place protesters and, critically, emergency workers at extraordinary risk of serious injury or death. We therefore think it is completely proportionate that the maximum sentences for these offences are as high as I have set out, for the reasons that I have set out.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again today, Mr Mundell.

We move on this morning to powers on stop and search. In this group, the Government are making changes, including to clause 6, through two amendments and two new clauses that deal with tunnelling, which follows the evidence we heard from HS2 about problems that were seen at its sites. It is interesting to note in the news today that an absolutely stunning Anglo-Saxon burial site has just been discovered on the HS2 route—140 people were buried with an amazing array of items. That is tangential, but interesting.

[Kit Malthouse]

We cannot backdate the charges.

[Sarah Jones]

No, we cannot, as the Minister says. Government amendments 25 and 26 apply the stop-and-search powers of clauses 6 and 7 to the new offences related to tunnelling that are included in Government new clauses 5 and 6. These amendments will make it a criminal offence to cause serious disruption by creating and occupying tunnels; going equipped to create tunnels will also be criminalised. The changes include the proposed new maximum sentence, as the Minister said, of three years’ imprisonment and an unlimited fine.

I think we can all agree again today that the digging of these tunnels is incredibly disruptive and dangerous, and obviously hugely costly. As the Government’s note says, they are filled with lethal levels of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide and the tunnels can become death traps, not just for those inside them and members of the public but for those who are required to undertake rescue operations.

HS2’s written evidence gives a clear picture of the danger and disruption, including:

“delay costs, policing, local authority costs, or the additional security costs to maintain a safe and secure compound once protestors have been removed. For a typical tunnel removal operation, HS2 Ltd employs specialists in soil composition, mine rescue, drone operation, health and safety, and paramedics. Protestors are either unaware of the danger of the situation they put themselves in, or have absolute faith in HS2 Ltd’s ability to extract them safely. The risk of a fatality occurring during a tunnelling protest is significant.

Protestors rely on HS2 Ltd’s contractors to monitor air quality, supply air and to remove human waste from the tunnels…During the Euston eviction operation, a protestor removed shoring that caused a tunnel to collapse on a rescue contractor. Whilst the latter incident caused only minor injury, the ongoing threat to the lives of HS2’s staff and protestors is clearly in evidence.

Air quality is often poor inside make-shift tunnels and sometimes…deadly. Deadly levels of carbon monoxide and dioxide were found in tunnels at Small Dean, for example, and the removal team had to provide an air supply to avoid the occupants being overcome and experiencing breathing difficulties. The provision of a constant air supply is not always possible as some ground conditions mean that there is a risk of further instability and risk of collapse being created if the soil is dried out by the provision of air. Tunnels can be extremely deep and are often inadequately shored creating a very real risk of collapse”.

Nobody has the right to put other people’s lives in danger with this kind of dangerous act. As we heard, the removal operation following tunnelling by protesters at Small Dean in Buckinghamshire in 2021 added more than £4 million to the cost of HS2.

The act of digging a tunnel by a group such as Just Stop Oil or those at HS2 in Euston is already a criminal act—we have had this conversation already. Like most of the offences introduced in this Bill, tunnelling is already covered by existing offences. Aggravated trespass with a prison sentence of three months and criminal damage with a prison sentence of up to 10 years could both apply here.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Lady has raised the issue of the aggravated trespass offence on a number of occasions as a charge that can be used, so I asked my team to look at why aggravated trespass is not necessarily ideal. What we have found is that in a number of situations, not least with HS2, defendants against aggravated trespass in court claim that they are disrupting unlawful activity. That shifts the burden of proof on to, in this case, HS2 to prove that what it was doing was lawful. For example, at the Euston Square Gardens tunnel aggravated trespass was used, and HS2 was required to present to the court what work was being carried out on the land at the time the protesters were in the tunnel and show it was lawful. The case was dismissed by the judge on the grounds that no construction was being carried out on the land at the time. This failed to recognise that HS2 could not start substantive work on the land because protesters were in the tunnel. This specific offence will cover that.

I am sure the hon. Lady also recognises that a tunnel may cross between different ownerships of land and between public and private land. That legal complexity causes a problem. While I understand that she is cleaving to aggravated trespass in many of her oppositions to these clauses, actually, this issue of the protesters being able to reverse the burden of proof is hugely problematic. That is what we are seeking to address.

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the Minister for that substantial intervention. I would answer with the words of the police themselves on that very point. The National Police Chiefs’ Council lead in this area said of the Government’s plans to make it an offence to cause serious disruption by tunnelling—or be present in a tunnel or equipped for tunnelling—that:

“Whilst forces have experienced tunnelling in recent operations, we do not believe that a specific offence around tunnelling will add anything above and beyond our current available powers.”

I think that is really significant. The police have not asked for this offence, and they do not believe it is necessary at all. They believe the existing powers they have are enough to deal with these protests. This is a point we keep coming back to. We have talked through this. I will not read it out again, but I was looking for my list of all the other offences people can be charged with in different circumstances. The police have a raft of powers and say themselves that in this case they do not need these powers. They have broad catch-all ones such as breach of the peace and very specific ones with options for long custodial sentences to deal with and manage protests that are disruptive. Two key issues come up time and again with these new offences. They are either going to be difficult for the police to put in practice or they will make no different to the time it takes to deal with the disruption.

[Kit Malthouse]

Sorry, I should have been clear in what I said earlier. I heard the evidence by the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead. The problem is not necessarily the police’s ability to remove and charge those individuals. The problems, as I outlined in the example I used, come in the courts. The current suite of offences that are being incurred gives wriggle room for protesters to make this claim and reverse the burden of proof. I am sure the hon. Lady will agree that what happened at Euston Square was very dangerous, and I hope she agrees that an offence was committed, but at Euston Square they were able to avoid punishment for what they did by using this technicality.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s frustration, but I listen to the police when we look at what they need. They are saying that this will not help them. I would listen to them, and I would look at the existing powers. I want to read some more of the written evidence from the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on public order and public safety, who states:

“A specific offence would likely not change how these are operationally handled as whatever the offence the practical safety considerations of dealing with people in tunnels would remain. There is current legislation, such as that contained in the Criminal Damage Act 1971, that creates offences of damaging property and having articles to damage property. With the associated powers of search these allow the Police to find articles or equipment intended to cause damage. An additional significant concern is that any specific offence relating to tunnelling would apply to private land. This again could place a significant responsibility on policing. We ask that if considered that this offence is restricted to public places.”

That was the NPCC highlighting a few concerns it has with the plans.

Clause 6 and new clause 5 seem to apply to tunnelling everywhere except

“to the extent that it is in or under a dwelling”,

so any offence to do with tunnelling applies to private land, even if it is under a dwelling—essentially, a place where people live. Take the example of protests taking place against a particular farmer for growing a crop in a private field that protesters oppose or for another matter. If the protesters tunnel under the private field, which could cause disruption and is annoying for the farmer, but it does not destroy the crops, what should happen? There are some complications in terms of the police concerns, which we need to bring to light here.

Chris Noble said in his oral evidence:

“this probably goes to the core of one of the key issues that police are keen to discuss within the Committee—the vast majority of that work is done by the landowners and private companies that are skilled and experienced within this work. While I have some dedicated resources allocated to that at present, if that responsibility was to significantly shift to policing, it would cost me… in the region of £80,000 a day to resource that. It would need significant officer resources, which clearly would need to come from elsewhere”.

That is crucial.

He said:

“The key… is not so much even, necessarily, an offence around tunnelling, because we may well have powers that, broadly speaking, exist to deal with it—we are keen to develop that conversation. The challenge is in preventing it in the first place, and then in how we can work with industry and landowners”

so we can

“potentially remove individuals more quickly.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 12, Q14.]

The challenge is how to prevent tunnelling. The new powers replicate powers the police already have, and we agree with the NPCC on a lot of their concerns.

The NPCC also raised concerns about the responsibility that the new offences will place on police. The Bill has drawn out a bit of conflict between the police and private companies, which is interesting. John Groves from HS2 said:

“Certainly, there is frustration from my team on the ground that the police are not more direct with some of the protesters”.––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 23, Q43.]

Then we have the police asking the Government to consider that this offence is restricted to public places. Surely the intention of Government legislation like this is to make the lives of the police and private companies building infrastructure easier. It is perhaps problematic when complications are raised on both sides. We need to be mindful of the position that this may put the police in, blurring the lines of public and private that we understand. Policing of protests is called public order policing for a reason: it is usually about protests happening on public land.

[Kit Malthouse]

I understand the argument that the hon. Lady is making, but I think we have accepted the principle that what these people are doing is not protesting. They are effectively committing a crime, and it is a well-established principle that regardless of whether a crime—for example, a burglary—is committed on public or private land, the police will apprehend, prosecute and investigate. Unless the hon. Lady is saying that tunnelling is a legitimate protest—notwithstanding the dangerous things that we have all talked about, and the cost—I do not understand her argument. Secondly, it is worth bearing in mind that regardless of whether the cost falls on HS2 or the police, it is falling on the taxpayer.

[Sarah Jones]

The point I was trying to make was to echo the concerns that the police have expressed about the expectation on them to go and do things on private land, the cost associated with that, and the need to deal with that issue. To reiterate, they have said that they think there are already suitable powers for them to stop people when they are committing a criminal act, which we agree tunnelling is. They have said they do not need this extra power. There is also criminal damage, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, so there are different forms of offences that we can look to.

With regard to the new powers, there is also the issue of training. According to the Police Foundation, over the seven years up to 2017-18, 33 forces reduced their budgeted spending on training in real terms by a greater percentage than their overall reduction in spending. Some 40% of police officers say they did not receive the necessary training to do their job, so I am concerned that many things in the Bill, particularly the new clauses, need to go along with properly resourced training to make sure that people understand and know what the new powers are. We have talked about the complexities of introducing new laws and expecting the police to understand them all many times before, not least with all the covid legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

I refer back to the fact that the police themselves do not share the hon. Lady’s view. In this case, what they are saying is perfectly sensible. I do not think anybody is saying that we want people to be tunnelling in dangerous situations and putting people’s lives at risk; nobody wants that. Everybody agrees that there should be criminal sanctions. That is not the point.

Moving to deterrents and whether this measure would act as one, companies like HS2 hope that it will. It said many times in evidence that it was not an expert on the legal side, but that it hoped the measures would be a deterrent. HS2’s written evidence refers to how it is pursuing the route-wide civil injunction. It reads:

“Whilst, if granted, it is hoped that the route-wide injunction will significantly reduce disruption to the project caused by trespass and obstruction of access, it is unlikely to eliminate the problem.”

HS2 also writes that civil injunctions

“serve as a relatively effective deterrent to unlawful (in the civil legal sense) activity by some groups of protestors”.

We will talk about injunctions later, but as HS2 says, it is a relatively effective deterrent—if not also expensive.

The Government will take ages to implement more offences. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North made a speech on Tuesday about the court backlog. If we are adding new and complex criminal offences, maybe we need to sort the court backlog and the record 708 days it takes on average from offence to completion of a case. That is an extraordinarily long period of time. The longest delay from offence to completion was in Bournemouth, which recorded waits of 23 months in 2021.

I will conclude my remarks at this point by reiterating that we think tunnelling is very dangerous and that it is a difficult issue. There are existing laws in place, and we do not think that these measures are the answer. Therefore, we are not entirely convinced by the Government’s arguments today.

Amendment 25 agreed to.

Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

[Kit Malthouse]

It is clear that police need the powers to proactively prevent criminal protest activity before it occurs. The hon. Lady has put great store by the evidence of the National Police Chiefs’ Council. She will recall it specifically saying that the ability to stop and search people in and around protests would be helpful, and in its report on the policing of protests, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services argued that stop-and-search powers would improve the police’s ability to prevent serious disruption.

Clause 6 extends existing suspicion-led stop-and-search powers to a range of protest-related offences. Police officers will have the power to stop and search anyone they reasonably suspect is carrying items that could be used for locking on, obstruction of major transport works, interference with key infrastructure, public nuisance, obstruction of the highway or the new offences of tunnelling and being present in a tunnel, which have been tabled as Government amendments to the Bill. Existing safeguards, including statutory codes of practice, body-worn video to increase accountability and extensive data collection will continue to apply to ensure that the police use stop and search in an effective and proportionate manner.

While I understand the concerns that have been shared about the expansion of stop and search widely in society, it is clear that these powers are required to allow the police to take the necessary action to prevent the small minority of determined protesters causing serious disruption. I commend the clause to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

For the sake of accuracy, when I was Deputy Mayor for policing, stop and search increased. The hon. Lady is quite right that it decreased in the second half of the Mayor’s eight-year term. By then, we had got on top of the number of knife crime murders that were happening across London, not least in her constituency—although she was not the Member of Parliament then.

I want to address the issue of disproportionality. No one would deny that when stop and search is used for violence, there is disproportionality, particularly in London although not uniformly across the country. However, we are talking about stop and search in protest situations. For those numbers to show up in stop and search relies on the population in a vicinity of protest being disproportionately reflected demographically. I worry that in their desire to undermine the policy, the Opposition are conflating the two. There is no reason why people showing up to an Extinction Rebellion protest should be stopped and searched disproportionately compared with their demographic background, unless half the people who show up to the protest happen to be from a minority background. We would hope that the stop and search numbers would reflect the population coming to the protest.

The Opposition seem to think that the country is filled with police officers just waiting for their moment to stop and search us, or just looking for an opportunity to be difficult. The hon. Member for Bristol East spoke about the police wanting to be difficult, as if they ever want to be difficult. That indicates a lack of trust in the ability of our police to exercise, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North said, exactly the kind of discretion that we ask them to use every day on the streets, whether in a protest environment or not. I know that the hon. Member for North East Fife has great experience of the fact that we rely on our police officers to use their discretion and judgment. In these circumstances, we are talking about suspicion-led stop and search. There have to be legitimate reasons why the police would stop and search somebody.

[The Chair]

This is turning into a speech.

--- Later in debate ---

Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

[Kit Malthouse]

Clause 7 builds on the Government’s plans to give the police the powers they need to prevent serious disruption at protests by introducing suspicion-less stop and search powers. The hon. Member for Croydon Central referred in her previous speech to both suspicion-led and suspicion-less stop and search.

Although the extension of suspicion-based stop and search powers, provided for by clause 6, will help the police to manage disruptive protests more effectively, it is not always possible in high-pressure, fast-paced protest environments for officers to form reasonable suspicion that individuals may be about to commit an offence. Clause 7 therefore introduces a suspicion-less stop and search power for the offences covered under clause 6.

If an officer of the rank of inspector or above believes that any of the specified offences may be committed in their police area and that individuals are carrying prohibited objects for the commission of those offences, officers may stop and search individuals and vehicles within the area specified by the senior officer, whether or not they suspect those individuals are carrying prohibited objects. If such items are found, the police may seize them.

These powers are modelled on existing suspicion-less stop and search powers available under section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. The powers are well understood by the police, and emulating them prevents confusion between the powers and the complication of officers’ training. As with section 60, powers under clause 7 may not last longer than 24 hours unless an officer of superintendent rank or higher deems it necessary to extend them by a further 24 hours. Such an extension may happen only if senior police officers deem it necessary to prevent the offences in scope from being carried out or to prevent prohibited objects from being carried.

The hon. Lady criticised both suspicion-led and suspicion-less stop and search, and I hope I can allay some of her concerns. As with all stop and search powers, we believe, as she does, that no one should be stopped based on a protected characteristic, and there are safeguards to ensure these powers are used proportionately. This point was emphasised by Her Majesty’s inspector in the recent report on the policing of protests, in which he recognised that

“the proposed new power has the clear potential to improve police efficiency and effectiveness”

in managing protests, so long as they are

“subject to strong and effective safeguards”.

As the hon. Lady knows, we intend to amend PACE code A. We regularly review safeguards, and we now collect more data on stop and search than ever before. That data is posted online, enabling police and crime commissioners and others to hold forces to account. It is also important that communities hold PCCs to account through the electoral process, as I am sure she would agree.

We have responded to the “Inclusive Britain” report by saying that we intend to enhance the safeguards through the development of a national framework for scrutiny of stop and search by local communities, and through the consideration of any unnecessary barriers to the increased use of body-worn video. We also asked the College of Policing to update its stop and search guidance to ensure fair and proportionate use. The updated guidance, which is available to all forces, was published in July 2020 and provides best practice examples of community engagement and security. HMICFRS continues to inspect regularly on stop and search.

[Sarah Jones]

It is slightly worrying how the Minister talks about this differently from his own police. The NPCC and the College of Policing talk about it in a very different way. They say that stop and search is an important tool—on which we all agree—but that its implementation is disproportionate and lots of work needs to be done to fix that. The Minister seems to be saying that it does not need to be fixed. Perhaps he should talk to the NPCC, the College of Policing and those who put that report together to ensure that they are on the same page as him.

[Kit Malthouse]

Notwithstanding the hon. Lady’s patronising tone, I speak to the National Police Chiefs’ Council and senior police officers all the time. In fact, I have lived the stop and search journey for the last 14 years. I have probably spent more time than most talking to people in communities that are affected by violence and where stop and search is regularly utilised about its challenges and its efficacy in protecting people.

I repeat what I have said in the House: I have often been challenged during those 14 years on the disproportionality in the use of stop and search, but I have never been challenged on the disproportionality in the people who are killed with knives. No one has ever said to me that it is a total disgrace that the vast majority of those people are young black men. I would welcome that challenge and a proper set of solutions to that problem.

[Sarah Jones]

That is a completely unreasonable distinction to make. I have challenged the number of young black men who have been murdered in my constituency many, many times. Indeed, that is why I set up the all-party parliamentary group on knife crime and why I have worked on that exact issue ever since I entered Parliament. The two things are not comparable. Just because most victims of knife crime murders happen to be young black men in London, that does not mean that the majority of black people are criminals.

[Kit Malthouse]

No one said that!

[Sarah Jones]

No, but I am saying that the two are not connected, and we cannot connect them. The victims are often young black people—I find that as awful as anybody else would, and I have campaigned to do something about it—but that is not the point. The point is that stop and search is disproportionate not because of the nature of crimes, and not because of the victims of crimes, but because it is disproportionate.

[Kit Malthouse]

I understand what the hon. Lady is saying, but there are complicated reasons why stop and search is disproportionate. Some of them are to do with geography, some with offence types, and some with the way that section 60 is used. I do not think that it is entirely cultural within the police.

There are other disproportionalities of concern. On cannabis possession in London, for example, which the hon. Lady mentioned, there is a strange disproportionality that does not, in my experience, reflect the pattern of cannabis use in London. We need to pay some attention to that. Having said that, I do not necessarily think that that problem and the solutions to it should be a barrier to using the stop-and-search power.

We heard clearly from the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s lead for public order that the use of stop and search—both suspicion-led and, in a fast-moving protest situation, suspicion-less—would be useful and enable police to get ahead of and prevent some of those offences. Indeed, I think I remember him saying that if police had those powers, it would result in less of an infringement on the rights of protestors. We therefore believe that the case has been made.

[Sarah Jones]

I will spend a bit of time of clauses 6 and 7 as they are the two important chunks that address suspicion-led and suspicion-less stop and search. The further stop-and-search clauses contain additional but less significant provisions.

Clause 7 addresses peaceful protest as if it were a social ill akin to knife crime, terrorism, serious organised crime or other situations in which people are stopped and searched. Section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act already allows officers to stop and search those whom they have reasonable grounds to suspect possess stolen or prohibited articles. For the purposes of section 1, prohibited articles include any item that has been made or adapted to be used to cause criminal damage. That would cover most of the scenarios that the Government are worried about.

The issue is that lock-ons, which we have debated and agreed have caused significant problems, are infrequent compared with protests as a whole. There might be a very large protest of 100,000 people, with 10 people or fewer trying to do something disruptive or illegal. That does not make the entire protest illegal; it makes those protestors unlawful. Our concern about the even broader extension of the powers, and the Bill more widely, is that we are not criminalising the criminals; we risk criminalising the vast majority of the people who want to protest and have their say on the issues of the day.

I am sure Matt Parr must be pleased, because we talk about him so much in Committee. The Minister is absolutely right that he agreed that the power could be a useful tool, but he listed a lot of concern in his report about how it would be implemented:

“Current suspicion-less stop and search powers for weapons…are intended to be used by the police to combat serious violence and the carriage of ‘dangerous instruments or offensive weapons’. Using a similar suspicion-less power to target peaceful protesters, who may cause serious (but non-violent) disruption, is a significantly different proposition. Given the potential ‘chilling effect’ on freedom of assembly and expression in terms of discouraging people from attending protests where they may be stopped and searched, we would expect any new suspicion-less powers to be subject to very careful scrutiny by the courts.

Such powers could have a disproportionate impact on people from black, Asian and other minority ethnic groups. We have repeatedly raised concerns about the police’s disproportionate use of stop and search in previous inspection reports…If and when contemplating the use of such powers in future, forces will need to carefully consider the demographic composition of the protest groups concerned. The importance of this issue should not be underestimated.

We would wish to see appropriate legal thresholds and authority levels set for authorising the use of the power, and the use of such powers monitored in a similar way to existing stop and search powers…When a person is stopped and searched, they may make an application for a written statement that they were searched. We would also wish to see high standards of training, vigilance and caution in the use of such a power”.

It is a well-used expression, but this is using a hammer to crack a nut. We do not want all the peaceful protesters to be hammered by the legislation when they are not doing anything unlawful.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

The clause makes further provision as to how police officers should authorise the aforementioned stop and search. It extends to the British Transport Police. It is self-explanatory.

[Sarah Jones]

Amendment 8, tabled by the hon. Member for Glasgow North East, is supported by me and the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), and we believe the clause should be struck from the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 8 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 9

Further provisions about searches under section 7

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Kit Malthouse]

The clause provides that anyone searched or who has their vehicle searched under the new suspicion-less stop-and-search powers is entitled to apply for a written statement from the police confirming that they have been searched. That is in line with the existing stop-and-search powers, and a number of forces will allow a person to do that electronically. It also allows the Home Secretary to make regulations, subject to the negative resolution procedure, governing the retention, keeping and disposal of prohibited objects seized by the police under these powers.

[Sarah Jones]

We agree with amendment 9, tabled by the hon. Member for Glasgow North East, and we would leave out the clause.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 9 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 10

Offence relating to section 7

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Kit Malthouse]

Anyone who intentionally obstructs a constable exercising suspicion-less stop-and-search powers under clause 7 commits an offence, with a maximum penalty of one month’s imprisonment or a level 3 fine. That is in line with other stop-and-search powers.

[Sarah Jones]

We support amendment 10, tabled by the hon. Member for Glasgow North East, and we would leave out the clause. We do not support the measure. Liberty has suggested that a consequence of the offence is that it could be used to target legal observers who may be stopped and searched on their way to a protest for carrying items such as bus cards or for wearing an identifiable yellow bib. There are legitimate concerns that should be considered, so we do not support the clause.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 10 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 11

Processions, assemblies and one-person protests: delegation of functions

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Kit Malthouse]

The clause reflects a request from the Metropolitan Police to reflect the differential rank structure with regard to the delegation of powers of authorisation such that an assistant commissioner in the Metropolitan Police can delegate the authorisation powers to a commander, which would be different from other forces in the rest of the UK, but it seems a sensible and proportionate measure, given the differential rank structure.

[Sarah Jones]

We have no issues with the clause. To quote Matt Parr in the evidence session:

“That strikes me as entirely pragmatic. If you look at the Met, the real expertise in public order tends to be at commander rank, rather than above, where people get a bit more generalist. The deep professional experts in London, in my experience, are the commanders. That strikes me as perfectly sensible.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 13 June 2022; c. 56-57, Q117.]

We agree.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 11 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 12

Serious disruption prevention order made on conviction

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

I do not wish to add to what the hon. Lady has said, other than to say that we agree with the amendments.

[Kit Malthouse]

The amendments, I am afraid, are a deliberate attempt to water down the courts’ ability to place an SDPO on those who are intent on repeatedly disrupting the lives of others, as we have talked about a lot during our consideration of the Bill. Amendments 38 and 39 attempt to raise the burden of proof required for SDPOs from

“on the balance of probabilities”

to “beyond reasonable doubt”, in effect requiring the criminal rather than the civil standard of proof. Amendment 38 raises the burden of proof required when considering whether an offence constitutes a protest-related offence for the purpose of making a serious disruption prevention order. Amendment 39 does the same when a court considers whether a person has engaged, in the last five years, in previous behaviour that would qualify them for an SDPO.

The amendments would make it more challenging for a court to place an SDPO on prolific activists who engage in criminal or unjustifiable behaviour. As this is a court order, I see no issue with requiring the civil burden of proof. The Opposition have shown much enthusiasm for injunctions, which operate to a civil burden of proof, and the same burden would be required here. For the avoidance of doubt, for someone to be convicted for breaching an SDPO, the criminal burden of proof would apply.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I want to query the Minister’s use of the phrase “unjustifiable behaviour”. What would that cover?

[Kit Malthouse]

We have discussed the range of offences that offenders commit. In presenting the requirement for this order to a court, the police would have to make a case that a series of offences had occurred, or indeed that serious disruption had been caused by the individuals’ behaviour, to warrant this order. We will come on to the substance of those matters, and we can debate it at that point. For the reasons I have given, we do not agree with the amendment, and we hope that the hon. Member will withdraw it.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

This is a probing amendment to get the Government’s view on the matter. The Minister has made it clear that he thinks the civil burden is appropriate at this time, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Scott Mann.)

Drugs Strategy Guidance

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Written Statements

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

As the cross-Government Minister with responsibility for combating drugs, I am pleased to announce today the publication of guidance for local partners helping to deliver the commitments and ambitions laid out in the 10-year drugs strategy by this Government in December.

This is an important next step in the ambitious whole-of-Government plan to cut crime and save lives, and sets out a framework to help local partners reduce drug-related harm and monitor their progress.

Drugs can have devastating effects on individuals, families and neighbourhoods, and the cost to society is nearly £20 billion a year in England alone. Drug-related deaths are at the highest levels recorded, and drug use is associated with nearly half of all homicides and acquisitive crimes such as robberies, burglaries, and thefts. The drivers behind drug-related harm are clearly complex and cut across the responsibilities of a range of different organisations.

As a result, dedicated funding of nearly £90 million was announced with the strategy in December, taking the investment in combating drugs to £3 billion over three years across enforcement, treatment and recovery, and demand reduction.

Now, as the focus turns to implementation and delivery, local partners such as local authorities, public health services, police forces, prisons, and probation services are being asked to step up and fulfil their collective role as the engine room of this drugs strategy. It is these local delivery partners that are best placed to address the needs of their local communities.

The new guidance provides an important framework for how local partners in England should work together to reduce drug-related harm and drive join-up across sectors and a framework for Combating Drugs Partnerships. A single senior responsible owner (SRO) in each locality will chair these partnerships and be responsible for reporting to central government on local cross-cutting delivery against the national combating drugs outcomes framework, alongside their own specific organisational objectives.

The outcomes and metrics included in the framework aim to provide a clear line of sight between action and the impact experienced by individuals, families, and neighbourhoods across the country and in local areas. This is how delivery of the commitments and ambitions of the 10-year drugs strategy to level up the country will be most effectively monitored. The potential benefits are significant and wide-ranging, including improving people’s safety, productivity and wider health and well-being.

I look forward to confirmation of the partnerships and working with the local SROs.

While this guidance is aimed primarily at partners in England, we have referenced Wales where it touches on reserved matters. More broadly we will continue to work with the devolved Administrations to embed collaboration on these issues.

The guidance will be available on gov.uk and placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

[HCWS103]

Public Order Bill (Third sitting)

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Wendy Chamberlain]

As this is my first Bill Committee, I was worried that I had already made a mistake. I am glad to hear that the issue causing us difficulty was beyond my purview.

As I say, I have policed events and protests; Lord Paddick has been the commander at them. I highlight the evidence that we heard last week from police officers, particularly Chief Superintendent Phil Dolby, who leads on the management of such events. What really came through for me in the evidence was the need for ongoing dialogue and agreement with those exercising their democratic right to protest. I have concerns that the legislation will hinder that dialogue. As former Chief Constable Peter Fahy said, we do not live in France or any other country with a paramilitary aspect to their policing. We do not want any legislation to risk our approach. I have concerns about that balance, about unnecessarily criminalising protesters, and about bringing into the scope of the legislation people who have nothing to do with a protest.

Chief Constable Chris Noble observed in his opening remarks last week that the vast majority of protest activity is non-contentious. I urge us all to remember that in our deliberations. The provisions in the Bill were introduced into the Police, Crime, Sentencing Courts Act 2022 when it was in the Lords last Session, and they were resoundingly opposed in the other place, so I am surprised that the Government are pretty much reintroducing the same measures and are not taking the experience in the Lords into account. I thank Lord Paddick, who spoke strongly against the provisions; the Chair may find that some of my remarks bear a resemblance to his.

Clause 1 will criminalise people who lock on even if there is no disruption caused, as long as there is potential for disruption. Amendment 29 would remove the words

“or is capable of causing”

which are incredibly broad and uncertain. If the Government are determined to create these additional offences—it appears that they are, given that we are back considering this Bill—the law that introduces them must be legal. These provisions are vague, undefined and open to subjective interpretation, as we will see in the law courts if the Bill as drafted passes into law.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council said in evidence that it is concerned about the phrasing, as it will be open to interpretation, and the onus will be on officers to decide the meaning. As I said in our evidence session last week, the first officer to attend a protest, whether they be a police constable, sergeant or inspector, is in charge and takes control and command—they lead. No one officer has the overall picture necessary to make such decisions, and I argue that this measure places the onus on individual officers to decide its meaning. Not only are the police unable to enforce such restrictions, but, as we have heard from organisations such as Amnesty International, the lack of certainty and broad scope makes the conduct in question illegal from the outset. That is not what we should intend to do in legislation. The provision severely curtails the fundamental human right to protest peacefully and will further damage our global reputation.

The clause potentially criminalises all sorts of protests. What about a counter-demonstration to stop holocaust deniers marching past a synagogue? If protesters linked arms to protect the synagogue, they could be caught by this clause. There is no definition of “capable of causing”. We do not criminalise behaviour that might cause crime. We prosecute people who have caused crimes.

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

Amendments 29, 46 and 30 target clause 1, which introduces a new offence of locking on. Locking on is an extremely disruptive and often dangerous tactic that can place both protesters and police at extreme risk. It is unacceptable that protesters can use bike locks, glue and an imaginative range of other equipment to inflict disruption on businesses and the public, and the testimony we heard in the oral evidence sessions highlights the need for the Government to act.

Amendment 29 would raise the threshold of the offence by requiring a person’s lock-on to have caused, rather than be capable of causing, serious disruption before they were liable for the offence. That would not account for situations where, for example, a person locks on with intent to cause serious disruption but is quickly removed by the police before serious disruption can be inflicted. If there is to be a deterrent effect, it is important that those who commit acts that could cause serious disruption face appropriate penalties. I do not see the value of accepting the amendment.

Amendment 46 would inadvertently lower the threshold for serious disruption; it would remove the statement that serious disruption is caused by a lock-on only if the disruption applies to two or more individuals or the activities of an organisation. It is entirely reasonable to assume that if someone commits a lock-on that causes serious disruption to one or more person, they may be arrested and charged with the offence. I am not sure the hon. Member had the intention of lowering the threshold of application of this clause.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I am looking at subsection (2) which says:

“It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under subsection (1) to prove that they had a reasonable excuse for the act mentioned in paragraph (a) of that subsection.”

Will the Minister please explain what is meant by that, and who might be caught by the Act? Who would actually have a reasonable excuse? Can he give us an example?

[Kit Malthouse]

The notion of reasonable excuse is well defined in our common law and is adjudged by courts daily, particularly in protest situations. We have seen that over the last few months. Although I assume that the hon. Gentleman seeks some precision in definition, “reasonable excuse” is for the courts to define, and they do so regularly.

Amendment 30 would raise the threshold for the offence of locking on by requiring individuals to have intended their lock-on to cause disruption, rather than having been reckless about that. Recklessness is, however, also a very well understood term in criminal law, and it applies to numerous criminal offences. I do not see the value in removing it from this clause, not least because, as I am sure the hon. Member for North East Fife knows, it is a well-known term in Scottish law and is often used in Scottish courts to adjudge an offence. For the reasons I have set out, I ask hon. Members not to press the amendments.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank the hon. Member for North East Fife for tabling her amendments, which we are happy to support. She spoke clearly and eloquently about them, and I echo some of her arguments. We agree with the narrowing of scope proposed in amendment 29, which would mean that locking on must cause disruption, rather than just being capable of doing so. The Minister has already spoken, but I think there is an issue with the wording, and with defining an act as being capable of causing disruption. The definition is so broad and imprecise that it could include almost anything.

[Kit Malthouse]

On Cromwell Road in west London, a lorry pulled up and scaffolding was quickly brought out and semi-erected, but as Territorial Support Group 5 happened to be on the scene, the scaffolding was quickly removed. That offence was capable of causing significant disruption, but because of swift police action, it did not. Does the hon. Lady believe that an offence was committed in that case, and that the sentence should deter those people from trying again?

[Sarah Jones]

It was jolly good that the police were there and able to deal with that case. We do not need new legislation to enable them to do their job, which they did swiftly and well.

We will come on in more detail to the fundamental flaws in the Bill, but our underlying argument is that it will not deal with the small number of repeat offenders who come back time and again. It may, however, criminalise people who protest peacefully. Whatever the Government intended, that is not necessarily how the provision will be interpreted. That is why laws need to be drafted very clearly. As the former Prime Minister has said on several occasions, she might have thought that she would interpret her powers very sensibly when she was Home Secretary, but who knows who will come next? If we do not have sensible people making decisions, we do not necessarily want them to be able to interpret these very broad powers, so the law needs to be precise.

The hon. Member for North East Fife referenced Lord Paddick, who made the point that if the locking on

“were on a different road or at a different time, it would be capable of causing serious disruption. But if it is 3 am on a Sunday, is that still capable of causing serious disruption?”—[Official Report, House of Lords, insert date in form 1 January 2057; Vol. 816, c. 980.]

That is a good and interesting point. We are happy to support the amendments put forward by the hon. Member for North East Fife.

Amendment 46 addresses another of our concerns. All those who gave evidence last week discussed the scale of the disruption caused by protest. We were all horrified by the astronomical costs involved, such as the £126 million that High Speed 2 spent on protester removal, which might rise to £200 million next year. However, under clause 1, the offence is triggered where a lock-on causes disruption to just two people. There is clearly a huge difference between the enormous scale of disruption caused to HS2, or by lock-ons on the motorway, and disruption caused to two people. They are simply not the same thing, and it is problematic that the clause appears to conflate them.

[Sarah Jones]

Sadly, the Government are good at wasting taxpayer money. We have seen lots of cases of the profligate use of funds; let us hope this will not be a similar case.

[Kit Malthouse]

To be clear, all the people who currently lock on are arrested and charged with other offences, including in Scotland. It is not necessarily the case that more people would be arrested. In fact, given the specificity of the offence, and as we hope that the sentence that we attach to it will prove a deterrent, in time fewer people will commit this offence and cause serious disruption; there will therefore be fewer arrests. Is that not the point of the laws we pass in this place?

[Sarah Jones]

The point is that the offence would not be a deterrent, given that there are plenty of other things that people are charged with, and imprisoned and fined for. It would not be a deterrent to those difficult people who come back time and again, as they can already be arrested, charged and sent to prison for a multitude of existing offences.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

The intent behind the amendment—to prove whether an unlimited fine is proportionate or not—is sensible. It is difficult to find examples of offences that have resulted in huge fines, and I wonder whether the Minister could provide some examples of the scale of fines for the offence set down in clause 1. I know that the coalition Government introduced an unlimited fine in 2015 under the terms of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. The explanatory notes to those regulations state:

“For the most serious offences tried by magistrates that maximum is generally £5,000 although for certain offences where the financial gain from offending is substantial—for example in some environmental offences—the maximum fine can be as high as £50,000.”

How will the offences we are considering compare? I understand that when a similar amendment was considered during the passage of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, the Minister in the other place said,

“We think that an unlimited fine is appropriate in the case of these new offences; a level 1 or level 2 fine…would not…in our view…reflect the seriousness of the conduct in question. An unlimited maximum fine allows courts to determine the level of any fine on a case-by-case basis, having regard to the gravity of the offence and the ability of the offender to pay.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 November 2021; Vol. 816, c. 994.]

It would be helpful if the Minister could shed some light on an estimated fine that he believes could reflect the seriousness of the conduct in question, which, as we have just debated, is so broad in scope.

[Kit Malthouse]

I have already spoken about the harm that locking on can cause and we feel strongly that those who commit locking on should face a sentence proportionate to the harm they cause. The maximum fine of £500, which the amendment provides, is simply not proportionate to some of the offences we have seen and the courts should have the discretion to impose an unlimited fine on a case-by-case basis. Judges do this on a regular basis within the framework set for them, dependent on the individual’s circumstances, their relative wealth and the likely deterrent effect the fine will have.

Although I understand and hear what the hon. Member for North East Fife says about what happens north of the border with malicious mischief, it is the case that in theory that offence carries an unlimited fine and, indeed, an unlimited prison sentence, notwithstanding the guidance judges operate under. I am conscious that the fuel protestors recently arrested outside Glasgow have all been charged, as I understand it, with malicious mischief. We will wait to see what the result may be, but I have no doubt that Scottish judges will look to the circumstances of those individuals and the damage and disruption they caused while they decide what the fines should be. Although she might say that that is not more draconian, we are simply seeking to mirror what would be experienced north of the border, and I urge the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

We ask the Minister to accept that because malicious mischief is a crime of common law there are unlimited fines and imprisonment attached to it. We have no legislation that does not have a fine scale within it, which is why I think we should ensure that we have something on this. My amendment is very much intended to probe what the Government would consider reasonable, so I have no intention of pressing it to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

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[Sarah Jones]

I thank the hon. Member for her remarks. I hope she will forgive me, as I do not have the evidence in front of me, but as I recall it, clearly the charge made there did not lead to the outcome that those people had intended. Perhaps there were other offences, of aggravated trespass, for example, which is imprisonable and could have led to a charge.

Trespass laws can apply even on public roads, when someone is not using them for a permitted purpose. Other legislation is also available. In the evidence session, the Minister suggested that some existing legislation does not allow prison sentences, but it does. Wilful obstruction of the highway comes with a fine but in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022—

[Kit Malthouse]

It does now.

[Sarah Jones]

Well, it does not, because it has not been implemented. When it is, there will be six-month sentences attached to that. Criminal damage can lead to up to 10 years in prison, depending on the value of the damage. Aggravated trespass can lead up to three months in prison, a fine, or both. Breaching an injunction, as we have heard, can lead to two years, a fine, or both. Public nuisance can lead to 12 months on summary conviction, or 10 years on conviction on indictment.

Failure to comply with a condition can lead to a fine, but one year in prison if someone incites someone else to breach a condition. Organising a prohibited trespassory assembly can lead to three months in prison, a fine, or both. Participating in a trespassory assembly can lead to a fine. It is clear there is a broad list of offences of which criminal protesters can be found guilty. On fines, as we discussed, the law changed in 2015, to allow magistrates courts to issue unlimited fines for serious offences. Prior to that, there was only an unlimited fine in the Crown court.

Conditions on protests only need to be applied to public land. That was again an issue that the Minister raised in the evidence session. The de facto position on private land is that permission for protest is not granted, unless an invitation has been extended by the landowner. If people protest on private land, they could be found guilty of either aggravated trespass or trespassory assembly. Even if the threshold for those offences is not met, they would still be committing an offence, merely by their incursion on to private property and, whether they were aware of doing so or not, of the more basic offence of trespass, which is a civil wrong, not a criminal one.

Two things are required to commit aggravated trespass: trespassing and intentionally disrupting, obstructing or intimidating others from carrying out lawful activities. Further, a senior police officer has the power to order any person believed to be involved in aggravated trespass to leave the land. If they refuse to do so, that is an additional offence. The maximum penalty is three months’ imprisonment or a fine of £2,500, or both. First-time offenders would likely get a fine of between £200 and £300. I could go on, but I will not.

There are several examples in recent history of the police responding to lock-on protests. In September 2020, 80 Extinction Rebellion protesters were arrested and charged with obstruction of the highway after blocking printer works at Broxbourne and Knowsley. In October 2021, Kent police arrested 32 people for obstructing a highway and conspiring to commit public nuisance on the A40 and M25. In early 2021, the police used trespass offences to clear anti-High Speed 2 protestors from Euston Square. The police are entirely able to use reasonable force—indeed, they should be encouraged to do so—to, where necessary, unlock people who are locked on.

In the case of Insulate Britain, people have been jailed for defying a court order preventing them from protesting on the M25. Five Insulate Britain campaigners who had held a demonstration on the motorway in September were jailed and all charged with contempt of court. Ben Taylor, Ellie Litten, Theresa Norton, Stephen Pritchard and Diana Warner were given jail terms, each lasting between 24 and 42 days. Eleven others from that group received suspended prison sentences. A number of High Court injunctions were put in place after Insulate Britain’s road blockades last year. Nine other Insulate Britain campaigners were given jail time or suspended sentences. Two protestors were handed prison sentences of two months and 30 days, while seven others received two-month suspended jail terms for breaching injunctions.

As Liberty has pointed out, people have not gone to prison in some cases, but have in others. The courts look at the location and the manner of the protest. They are very unsympathetic to protesters who block the M25, because they have a damaging effect on people who have nothing to do with their cause, but more sympathetic to those who demonstrate against the actual object of their protest, because they do not affect the public in general.

Sometimes the police do not use the powers at their disposal. There is a number of reasons for that, including lack of training. We heard from John Groves from HS2, who said:

“Certainly, there is frustration from my team on the ground that the police are not more direct with some of the protesters”.––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 23, Q43.]

Part of that is about resources. We do not have the French system, nor do we want it, but in some cases we do not have enough people. As Peter Fahy said:

“There is not a standing army waiting to deal with protest. They come out of normal policing when they are required to do so, and the amount of neighbourhood policing that is affected by just keeping up with that demand is…quite acute.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 63, Q123.]

The other reason why the police do not always act on a raft of existing legislation—as HS2 found, to its frustration—is lack of training. We have debated several times the report by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services. Written by Matt Parr, it looked at protest, the nature of protest and what should be done. Most of its recommendations had nothing to do with changing the law, focusing instead on training for officers. Its findings included that,

“protester removal teams…are trained to remove protesters from lock-on devices. But we found that forces do not have a consistent way of determining the number of trained officers they need. As a result, the number of specialists available varies widely throughout England and Wales.”

Matt Parr also highlighted that

“the police should develop a stronger rationale for determining the number of commanders, specialist officers and staff needed to police protests.”

He looked at whether chief constables were making good use of their legal services teams, and at a raft of different systems for gathering intelligence on protests and for dealing with them when they happen. In the evidence that Matt Parr gave us, he was really clear and enthusiastic that his changes are beginning to be implemented in the way in which he wants them to be. Before seeking to change things again, we need to wait for the implementation of all of those recommendations—which he has said will significantly improve the police response to protests—and of the Bill that has recently been passed.

The police seem to be in possession of some very useful powers to help deal with lock-on protests when they go beyond the scope of a legitimate protest. Even if we look further back into history, we find really good examples of peaceful lock-on protests and of the police making good use of the powers available to them when they need to.

For example, people look back on the Greenham Common women’s peace camp as a protest by a group of women who made good points and achieved some success. It involved a series of protest camps against nuclear weapons at RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire. Women began arriving in 1981 after cruise missiles were stored there, and they employed lock-on tactics by chaining themselves to the base fence. The camps became well known in 1983—I was 11 at the time—when, at the height of the protests, about 70,000 people formed a 14-mile human chain around the base. It is interesting that we are talking about the methods used by Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil as if they are a new phenomenon. I do not remember it, as I was too young, but it must have been quite something to have 70,000 people form a 14-mile human chain—a lock-on—around the base.

Another encircling of the base occurred in December of that year, with 50,000 women attending. Sections of the fence were cut, but the police acted and arrested hundreds. Protest activity continued to occur at Greenham, and the last missiles left the base in 1991, following the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty. The Greenham women clearly left their mark on history. They used peaceful lock-on tactics, and when they entered the RAF site, they were arrested by the police. As today, the women were apparently subjected to abuse and hatred. Vigilante groups attacked them with slogans such as “Peace Women: You Disgust Us”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Not all lockons are a criminal offence and nor should they be, but where people are locking on in a way that is dangerous and disruptive, that should be an offence.

[Kit Malthouse]

Does the hon. Lady accept that, in the Bill as drafted, the reasonable excuse defence and the serious disruption requirement mean that not all lock-ons will necessarily be a criminal offence? If something similar to the St Stephen’s Hall example given by the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton were to occur, that would not necessarily cause serious disruption to the life of the community, and would therefore not necessarily constitute an offence under the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I echo what my colleague on the Front Bench, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central, was saying about how we approach the policing of protests in this country. Obviously, Bristol has had quite a reputation for protests, particularly around the time of the events involving the Colston statue. We know that the people involved in that protest were eventually acquitted of criminal damage.

I have been out with the police to see how they approach things. There were a number of weekends in a row when there were protests against the Bill that has become the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. People were, quite rightly, very unhappy about what the Government were trying to do. I went out with the police and also went to the operations centre to see their approach; what they wanted to do was to facilitate protest. They wanted to facilitate peaceful protest and were very good at trying to ensure that it did not turn into something that put people at risk. For the most part, they were successful. Can the Minister say where the parameters of the clause come in?

There are historical examples. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central mentioned Greenham Common, but if we look back at the suffragettes, part of their tactics was to tie themselves with belts or chains to Buckingham Palace or Parliament. In January 1908, Edith New and Olivia Smith chained themselves to the railings at No. 10, which would not happen now, while one of their colleagues, Flora Drummond, went inside to disrupt the Cabinet meeting. I dread to think what the response would be now; they would not get anywhere near it. They chained themselves because that they wanted to make their voices heard. If they were immediately arrested, they would not have the chance to make their speeches, so it was a tactic to stay in place and at least get a few sentences out before they were removed.

[Kit Malthouse]

We might as well address that point straight away. As I said to the hon. Member for Croydon Central earlier, there are two tests that the police or, indeed, the courts will have to apply. The first is that serious disruption is caused. I am not sure necessarily that somebody chaining themselves to the railings outside this place would cause serious disruption. Secondly, there would be a defence of reasonable excuse. In the case of the suffragette who chained herself in St Stephen’s Hall, we would imagine that there may well be other offences but I doubt that this provision would apply. Indeed, if someone were able to chain themselves to the railings serious disruption would not necessarily be caused. We are trying to address some of the events we have seen over the last couple of summers, not least the fuel protests, which have been dangerous and caused massive and serious disruption to the community.

[Kerry McCarthy]

The Minister has rather pre-empted what I was going to say. The suffragettes knew that they would be arrested but took the decision because they felt their cause warranted it and they knew, roughly speaking, what the response would be and the sort of punishment available. If people are going to engage in this sort of activity and knowingly do things that would break the law, when we have an offence that treats something so seriously, my concern is at what point people can make that calculation on whether they are going to be arrested and taken to court under lesser legislation or whether the clause will be invoked. Its vagueness means that it is not clear where those parameters are.

This silly example is more for the Committee’s amusement: we had the case of an Extinction Rebellion protestor in Bristol who tried to glue himself to the doors of City Hall. However, they were automatic sliding doors, so the moment someone approached them, they opened. I think it was caught on camera, but every time he tried to glue his arms to the door, they opened. He could not manage to do it. I do not suppose the protestor would be dealt with under an offence of this kind and he probably deserves a prize for entertaining everybody.

That was an aside, but to give an idea of the sort of calculations people make, in my constituency I have a good activist on disability issues who has disabilities himself. He has a personal assistant who went on a protest with him, and he insisted that his personal assistant chain handcuff him to the pole by the door of a London bus. There was a big protest of disability activists blocking the streets—I think it was around Piccadilly Circus—to protest about accessibility and public transport. When the police came along, they did arrested not the guy who was chained up but the personal assistant for locking him to the pole. It was the personal assistant’s birthday and he spent the night in the cells, while somebody else managed to get my friend, the activist, home.

There is a clause in the Bill about locking somebody else to something and that raises interesting issues about the situation for a personal assistant. They are there to act at the will of the person they are assisting and to do anything they ask. If somebody were asking a personal assistant to commit a criminal offence, such as assaulting someone or something that is generally regarded as beyond the pale, the assistant would not do that. If disability activists want to exercise their right to protest, are they allowed to exercise their right to break the law as well? Personal assistants are not meant to have their own opinions on such matters; they are meant to do as they are asked.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy]

The Parliamentary Private Secretary asks why not. That is quite worrying. Would that cause serious disruption, if he had one hand attached to the door and was wiggling backwards and forwards as everyone went in and out? That is exactly my point. If that is deemed to cause serious disruption, that is very worrying. I cannot think of many locking-on offences that would not be deemed serious disruption. It proves my point if the PPS thinks that the provision would cover a case as ludicrous and minor as that. That proves my point, so I will sit down and ask the Minister to explain where the middle ground and that clarity is.

[Kit Malthouse]

Clause 1 is a key part of the Government’s plans to protect the public from the dangerous and disruptive tactic of locking on. Recent protests have seen a minority of selfish individuals seek to cause maximum disruption by locking themselves to roads, buildings, objects and other people. That has seen traffic disrupted, public transport impacted and the transport of fuel from terminals ground to a halt, to name just a few examples.

Such tactics cause misery to the public, with people unable to access their place of work or schools, or to attend vital hospital appointments. It is impacting people’s ability to go about their daily lives and is causing considerable anger. The Committee will remember the frustration and anger expressed by members of the working public at Canning Town station in 2019, when protesters from Extinction Rebellion glued themselves to a Docklands Light Railway train during the morning rush hour, risking their own safety and that of the travelling public.

I welcome the condemnation of some of those protests by the hon. Member for Croydon Central, and her possibly belated support for the increase in sentencing in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which has just received Royal Assent. As she said, there is now a suite of offences that may or may not be committed. To address the point made by the hon. Member for Bristol East, we want people thinking about using this tactic to make a calculation about whether and how they break the law. It is not a human right to break the law. If people calculate that they want to do that, they must, as she said, face the consequences. In employing dangerous tactics and causing disruption, those who call themselves protesters, but are in many cases trying to effect a mass blackmail on the British public, should make a calculation about whether they are causing an offence, and there should be an air of jeopardy to what they do.

[Andrew Bridgen]

The hon. Member for Bristol East said that many of these people’s protests might be spontaneous and not pre-planned. Does the Minister agree with me that it would be very unlikely that people would have the equipment to lock on if it was not a pre-planned protest?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend makes a very strong point. Certainly a lot of the most disruptive protests that we have seen will have taken meticulous planning and preparation and the acquisition of materials, not least the adhesive chemicals required, scaffolding poles and vehicles. We have seen all sorts of tactics employed, which, as he rightly says, take serious preparation to put into effect.

[Kerry McCarthy]

To clarify, when I was talking about protests in general and people breaking the law during a protest, I was not talking about locking on.

[Kit Malthouse]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Croydon Central.

[Sarah Jones]

To be clear, the clause makes it an offence to attach oneself in any way to any person, which means that any form of linking arms is a criminal offence. Does the Minister genuinely believe that a group of women standing outside Parliament locking arms would be committing a criminal offence as soon as they do that?

[Kit Malthouse]

That is just nonsense. The hon. Lady will not address the issue of disruption or reasonable excuse. I am sure the police are able to determine and the courts will interpret what is designed in this legislation. She has said rightly that the people we are talking about should go to prison. She said they are committing crimes. The only dispute between the two sides of the Committee is what offence they should be charged with, which is what we seek to provide.

Opposition Members have sought clarity and precision. We have seen that those who are arrested and charged in these circumstances are charged with a range of offences—obstruction of the highway, aggravated trespass, which the hon. Lady referred to, and criminal damage and public nuisance, depending on where the offence occurred and the circumstances. Unfortunately, we have seen situations where, on technicalities, a lack of precision in our ability to deal with the offence has meant that people have got off. For example—

[Alex Cunningham]

rose—

[Kit Malthouse]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, there were protesters who locked on to a printing press in Knowsley in Liverpool. They were charged with aggravated trespass, but avoided conviction because the prosecution was unable to prove where the boundary was between the private and the public land. We are trying to provide precision in that offence area, and that is what this part of the legislation does. Aside from the disruption and anger that they cause, lock ons also waste considerable amounts of police resource and time, with specialist teams often required to attend protest sites to safely remove those who have locked on.

The hon. Member for Croydon Central seems to imply that we should have at-height removal teams on stand-by in all parts of the country 24 hours a day, but it is not realistic for British policing to do that. Some lock ons, particularly those that occur at height, place both the police and protesters at serious risk of injury and even death. For example, protesters at HS2 sites have deployed bamboo structures, necessitating the deployment of specialist teams who are trained to remove them at height at considerable risk to themselves and the protesters they are removing. That is why the Metropolitan Police have asked us to provide them with more powers to tackle that kind of reckless behaviour, and the Government have now responded.

[Sarah Jones]

I just want to clarify what the Minister says because he misrepresented my point, which was not that we should have thousands of officers ready in a kind of French-style tool. My point related to the points that Matt Parr made about how forces do not have a consistent way of determining the number of trained officers they need. There are not enough specialist roles in the right places at the right time. That was his recommendation, and there is a programme of work to fix that. I am arguing that we should wait for that fix so that the police can do the best job that they can.

[Kit Malthouse]

As the hon. Lady rightly says, Mr Parr said, I think, that the responses had been exemplary. Work is ongoing. She referred to the printing press incident in Hertfordshire, and she put the problems experienced down to the delay in the police getting there—in the middle of the night, in some numbers—to remove protesters who had managed to erect scaffolding very quickly and glue themselves effectively to the top of it. It is just not realistic for the police to be there in seconds to deal with such an incident. I believe that the hon. Lady said that the main problem was the delay.

[Sarah Jones]

Nothing in the Bill will fix that type of delay.

[Kit Malthouse]

No, but the point is that the clause will make such protesters think twice about their actions, because the offence that they are committing when charged is not necessarily vague.

[Dr Huq]

Will the Minister give way?

[Kit Malthouse]

Just a minute.

The clause creates a new offence of locking on that will be committed when an individual causes serious disruption by attaching either themselves or someone else to another individual, an object or to land, or attaching an object to another object or land. Their act must cause or be capable of causing serious disruption to an organisation or two or more individuals, and the person intends or is reckless as to that consequence. The offence carries a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment and an unlimited fine.

Referring only to the act of locking on rather than to the equipment used recognises that protesters deploy a wide range of equipment to lock on, from chains and bike locks to bespoke devices, and ensures that the offence will keep pace with evolving lock-on tactics. The offence can be committed on either public or private land, and that ensures that those who use that tactic in, say, an oil refinery do not evade arrest and prosecution for the offence. Furthermore, new stop and search powers that we will consider shortly will allow the police to take proactive action to prevent locking on in the first place, by seizing items that they believe will be used by protesters to lock on.

[Alex Cunningham]

The Minister has just referred to oil refineries and private space. Chris Noble said in his evidence

“If we moved more into a private space than currently, we would see that as potentially being incredibly significant for money and opportunity lost in terms of policing communities. Those abstractions would probably quite fundamentally change my local model of policing, in terms of being able to maintain that.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 13, Q17.]

Does the Minister accept that he is putting greater pressure on the police, and certainly on their resources?

[Kit Malthouse]

As I said earlier, I do not accept that because if we get the cocktail of deterrent correct, and get those protesters—

[Alex Cunningham]

It is not going to be a deterrent.

[Kit Malthouse]

He has to see all the clauses in the round. If we get those protesters to think twice about their actions, we hope that they will desist—

[Alex Cunningham]

But they won’t!

[Kit Malthouse]

Or at least they will be incarcerated, such that they will not be able to continue with their protests.

[Tom Hunt]

The Opposition are arguing that the Bill will not act as a deterrent and will not bother some of these extreme protesters. If that is the case, why are they being so strong in their opposition to the Bill?

[Kit Malthouse]

That is—[Interruption.] It is a strong point.

[The Chair]

Order. Minister, just a moment. We are actually dealing with the Public Order Bill, and I would like a little bit of order in here as well. Can we stop shouting across the room and keep some order?

[Kit Malthouse]

We are trying to provide some precision in the offences that the police are able to charge offenders with in certain protest situations that have evolved in the past couple of years. Lock ons have caused significant distress, alarm and disruption to the community. The police, particularly the Metropolitan police, have asked us to introduce the offence and we are pleased to be able to help them. We heard in evidence to the Committee from the operational police chief that he thought that the legislation would help with the situation. We also heard from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services, notwithstanding the fact that he thought there was an exemplary response to his original report, that what we were doing seemed sensible. The clause will ensure that those who resort to inflicting misery on the public by locking on will face the maximum sentences, proportionate to the serious harm that their actions cause.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.



Clause 2

Offence of being equipped for locking on

[Sarah Jones]

I beg to move amendment 47, in clause 2, page 2, line 13, leave out “may” and insert “will”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Chamberlain]

My party and I are happy to support Labour’s amendments 47 and 48. The scope of my amendments 32 and 33 is similar.

The intention of our amendment 32 is to probe what might be criminalised in connection with an offence. The theme this morning has been the broadness of the legislation as drafted, and the Opposition are looking to get some definition of what that might look like. Amendment 33 intends to ensure that the person who is prosecuted for the offence of being equipped also did the locking on themselves.

My concerns are linked to those set out by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Croydon Central. As she asked, will the provision of food and drink to someone engaged in protest activity be included? What about medical supplies, if a protester is injured in the course of the protests? What about a parent, simply worried about the safety of a young adult, who makes sure before they go to a protest that they are wearing sturdy clothing? What about the community group that lends its loudspeakers to an event?

The scope is so broad that such people, arguably, could get caught. This morning, we have discussed how the law will be interpreted. Those interpretations, given the Bill’s existing scope, are valid. What about people who happen to be caught passing a protest while carrying material used for locking on? For example, lots of MPs cycle in to Westminster, and demonstrations happen in Westminster all the time. Are MPs to be caught by this legislation simply because they are carrying their bike locks as they make their way into the estate? Under the Bill, that could theoretically happen.

While the police may not prosecute MPs, we know from the evidence we heard last week and from other evidence that sections of the population are overly policed. We will discuss the stop-and-search powers later—I am sure that Members will have much to say then—but if the evidence currently says that black people are eight times more likely to be stopped and searched, it follows that black people will also be disproportionately criminalised for carrying innocent items in the wrong place at the wrong time. As such, I am keen to hear from the Minister what this clause includes, and for amendments to be tabled that will limit its scope appropriately.

Amendment 33 addresses some of those problems. As drafted, the Bill allows for someone to be prosecuted for carrying an item that someone else uses to lock on. This has the potential to criminalise people who are peacefully protesting, or indeed those who are not protesting at all. We need to be clear: it is not a crime to attend a protest, nor is it a crime to carry the sorts of household items that are used for locking on—if that were the case, how would anyone purchase those items? Doing so without then breaking the law, simply put, cannot be a crime.

[Kit Malthouse]

I will speak to the amendments now, and then speak more substantively on stand part.

The amendments seek to raise the threshold for the offence of going equipped to lock on. Amendment 47 would raise the threshold for that offence, requiring that individuals “will” intend that the equipment be used in the course of locking on, rather than “may” intend. It is important that the police can protect the public from the possibility of someone locking on. Raising the threshold of the offence to “will” rather than “may” would restrict its effectiveness and the ability of the police to take proactive action against lock-ons, which we heard from the operational police chief during our evidence session was critical to minimising disruption.

Amendments 32 and 48 would remove from the scope of the offence of being equipped to lock on, someone who carries equipment intended to be used in connection with the locking-on offence, rather than in the course of that offence. Amendment 33 would also narrow that offence by applying it only to the individual who commits a lock-on. These amendments would mean that during disruptive protests, those who deliberately brought lock-on equipment to hand over to fellow protesters for them to use would not be criminalised for doing so, effectively allowing protesters to continue to legally provide lock-on equipment to others and removing a key deterrent aspect of the offence. Doing so would severely limit the effectiveness of the offence in stopping the use of lock-ons from spreading during a fast-moving protest situation, and I am afraid that we cannot support it. We ask that the amendment be withdrawn.

[Sarah Jones]

Given the vote that we have had on a similar measure, I see little point in pressing amendment 47 to a Division. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I beg to move amendment 34, in clause 2, page 2, line 17, after “fine” insert

“not exceeding level 1 on the standard scale”.

A person convicted of an offence of “being equipped for locking on” may be subjected to a fine. In the Bill there is currently no limit on the fine that may be imposed. This amendment would place a maximum limit on the fine.

The amendment is very similar to the amendment to clause 1 that I tabled previously. It ensures that any fines levied for the offence of being equipped for locking on are quantified, rather than left as an unlimited fine. I have very little to add beyond the remarks that I made regarding my previous amendment.

[Kit Malthouse]

As I made clear when speaking to the hon. Lady’s previous amendment, we disagree with lowering the maximum fine available for this offence. We feel strongly that those who commit lock-ons and carry lock-on equipment should face a proportionate sense of the harm they cause. The maximum fine that the hon. Lady proposes, £200, is simply not proportionate; we believe that the courts should have discretion to apply an unlimited fine. As such, I encourage the hon. Lady to withdraw her amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

The clause creates a new criminal offence targeting people who have an object with them in a public place with the intention that it will be used in the course of or in connection with the commission of the new offence of locking on, as we have been debating. The punishment for the offence is an unlimited fine.

Our concerns about the clause should be read and understood in conjunction with our concerns about clause 1. This very short clause is too vague and ambiguous to be useful. Line 12 talks of an “object”, but that object need not be related to protesting at all. All that is required to be criminalised under this offence is that a person might have intended to use the object—potentially, any object—in a certain way. Perhaps more pressingly—I will come back to this later—the object does not have to be used by the person who has it in their possession. It needs to be used only

“in the course of or in connection with”

a lock-on.

It is so important that we consider the limits of the legislation that we create in this place. None of us who works here in Parliament is a stranger to protests. We see them outside our offices almost every day. The example of the bike lock is real and I do not think it has been meaningfully disputed by the Minister. Perhaps it is in someone’s bag or attached to the bike, but that makes no difference.

Someone could wheel their bike through Parliament Square—multiple protests might be going on at once, which is not uncommon—and be in potential breach of this legislation. No proof that the bike lock is to be used in a lock-on is needed, only that it “may” be. Hard-working, law-abiding people simply trying to get in to their place of work are at risk of being found to have committed this offence. The original drafting of the clause is deeply ambiguous.

It was notable that so many of our witnesses last week spoke of the deterrent effect that they hoped the Bill would provide—a desire for something to be done to act as a deterrent. John Groves from High Speed 2 Ltd hoped that

“this legislation is about the deterrent effect”.––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 18, Q28.]

Nicola Bell noted:

“what is included in the Bill, I hope, offers that deterrent.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 20, Q37.]

We have real doubts, however, as to whether the Bill will provide anything close to a deterrent to hardcore repeat offenders. Instead of providing a deterrent to the hardcore of the protest movement, who are intent on causing disruption, such people might be delighted that their lock-on protests would be criminalised. We were told last week that those protesters

“will not be deterred by this legislation.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 44, Q91.]

For them, going to prison for the cause is a badge of honour.

Sir Peter Fahy said:

“I do not know whether there is actually any evidence that people are deterred...but clearly some people are so determined, and have a certain lifestyle where it does not really have any consequence for them, that—if anything—it makes them martyrs.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 58, Q120.]

However, we must absolutely not ignore the people who will be deterred, those who are not willing to go to prison, but who might not do anything illegal at a protest—those who just want to express their democratic right.

The title of Matt Parr’s report was “Getting the balance right?”, and it seems abundantly clear that the Government have not got the balance right with this legislation. I note that, with regard to lock-on, he was

“impressed by forces for the work they have done to make sure that PRTs”—

protester removal teams—

“are able to deal safely with lock-ons.”

He noted:

“It is vital that PRTs remain up to date with the rapidly evolving problems presented by lock-on devices.”

I agree, and much of the evidence from last week suggests that improved sharing of best practice, more resources and better training would help the police to deal with nuisance protests much better—without the need for this specific legislation.

Lord Rosser noted in the other place:

“The reality is that powers already exist for dealing with lock-ons. What we should be looking at is proper guidance, training and…improving our use of existing resources and specialist officers.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 17 January 2022; Vol. 817, c. 1433.]

Matt Parr’s report also notes that most interviewees, who were junior police officers, did not wish to criminalise protest actions through the creation of a specific offence concerning locking on. With regard to his fifth proposal, Matt Parr noted explicitly that the purpose was not to create an offence of lock on during a protest. He did not call for that in his report.

The Government have brought back these overreaching clauses without any real evidence that they will work. Our witnesses were unable, quite rightly, to comment on the new clauses with any specificity. Elizabeth de Jong was unable to be specific about how the clauses would help. She noted:

“I can see a direct reference to locking on.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 33, Q59.]

Steve Griffiths stated:

“I am really here to talk about the impact of disruption, and I am probably not qualified to comment intensely on the Bill.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 34, Q60.]

He later noted:

“I cannot really talk about the policy itself”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 39, Q81.]

Those witnesses were right: they were present to define the problem as they saw it, and not to tell us that the legislation will work: that is our job. In the Opposition’s view it will not work. It is fair and understandable that the witnesses instinctively feel hopeful about something being done, but they did not claim that they had the expertise to know that.

The clauses, which make provision for the offences of locking on and going equipped to do so, are ill thought through and represent a knee-jerk reaction to events that have caused real disruption and annoyance—no one disputes that. There were criminal acts that were infinitely more disruptive to people and the police acted. There is no evidence that the clauses will act as a deterrent and it seems likely that they will be welcomed by the hard core of protestors who are willing to go to prison for their cause. The clauses will, however, deter those who come to protest peacefully, and that is our concern.

[Kit Malthouse]

Clause 2 supports the new offence of locking on created by clause 1, and specifically it creates a new criminal offence of going equipped to lock on and cause, or risk causing, serious disruption. During fast-moving protest situations, the police need the power to proactively prevent individuals from locking on to roads, buildings and objects, as we heard powerfully from the operational police commander during our evidence sessions. Therefore, along with the associated stop-and-search powers, which the Committee will scrutinise later, the new offence will allow the police to prevent lock ons before they occur, taking punitive action against those who attempt to lock on and deterring others from considering doing so.

Much has been made of criminalising people who happen to be carrying everyday items such as bike locks—the hon. Member for Croydon Central raised that—near a protest. To be clear, that will not be the case; the offence will be committed only when someone is carrying an object with the intention that it may be used by themselves or someone else in the course of, or in connection with, committing a lock-on offence as defined in clause 1. The police will need reasonable grounds for suspicion to arrest someone for that offence. There is a clear difference between a person pushing a bicycle past a protest and a person walking purposefully towards a gate with a lock in hand.

As the hon. Member for North East Fife knows from her policing experience, the offence of going equipped is well used by the police in England and Wales, and indeed in Scotland, in the prevention of burglary. I have had individuals arrested in my constituency who were going equipped to commit a burglary, and I am not aware of a plethora of plumbers, carpenters or builders with vans full of tools being arrested in my constituency on the basis of their going equipped, or having the capability to break into my home. The police are well able to adduce intention—and often that is tested in court—in charging someone with going equipped.

As we heard most powerfully from the operational police commander in our evidence session, the ability to stop and search, which we will consider later, and the ability to charge with going equipped would allow the police to operate in a situation where there would be less infringement on people’s right to protest, rather than more. He was strongly supportive.

[Dr Huq]

I remind the Minister that it is not just the Opposition who think that the locking on offence and the offence of preparing to lock on is a crazy idea. The last time the matter was subject to a vote in the Lords it was defeated massively, in a vote of 163 to 216. Has he got any new arguments for them, because the offence of being equipped to lock will never make it to a vote? Is there not a definition of insanity that is repeating the same action and expecting a different result? That saying is attributed to Einstein. I just wonder what new arguments the Minister will pull out of the bag for the Lords.

[Kit Malthouse]

As I understand it, one of the main arguments used in the House of Lords to vote against the measures in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill was that they did not feel that the matters had been properly scrutinised by the House of Commons. Those measures were introduced as amendments in the Lords, and therefore would not have gone through Committee here. So here we are, listening to their advice and subjecting the measures to democratic scrutiny by a forensic Committee of which she is a part, in the hope that the House can now the support them. We can then signal to the Lords that the intention of the democratic House is to strengthen the police’s ability to deal with this difficult and dangerous tactic.

Anyone found guilty of the offences will face a maximum penalty of an unlimited fine. I commend the clause to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Ordered, That further consideration of the Bill be now adjourned.—(Scott Mann.)

Public Order Bill (Fourth sitting)

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Sarah Jones]

I am speaking to the amendments, which we have some sympathy with, on behalf of the hon. Member for North East Fife, who is not in her place at the moment. We are moving on from the lock-on offences we debated this morning to a new offence of obstruction of major transport works. Amendments 35 and 36 would remove some of the language that perhaps makes the scope of the clause too broad. We have already covered the principle behind the objections to the present clauses, which are similar to those on locking on and being equipped to lock on. These clauses are broad, and indeed potentially infinite, but as was said this morning, restrictions on people’s fundamental rights must be limited to what is absolutely necessary.

I repeat that no one is denying that people who commit criminal acts should be arrested and charged—in many cases, we know that that is why protesters do what they do—but there are already laws to deal with these behaviours. The Public Order Act 1986 contains offences of organising or taking part in a prohibited trespassory assembly. Where a chief of police reasonably believes there will be a trespassory assembly that may result in serious disruption to the life of the community, they can place a pre-emptive ban on it, and breaching that ban is a crime.

The key point we seek to make in thew amendment is that there must be a balance. The Government should not go too far down the road of criminalising protest; that is not what happens in our democracy, and that is why the hon. Member for North East Fife tabled amendments 35 and 36.

Amendment 35 would limit the offence of obstruction to blocking the core activities of major transport works, removing clause 3(1)(a)(iii), which appears to be a catch-all for any protest near or relating to major works. Would that provision also catch construction workers who are on strike at their own places of work or a protest at the entrance to the land where works are being done?

Amendment 36 would remove reference to interfering with or moving apparatus, because the provision in the clause is broad and goes too far. The disruption from apparatus being moved is not such that the Government should seek to introduce legislation to stop peaceful protest.

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

Amendments 35 and 36 take issue with the scope of the offence of obstructing major transport works. I understand that the hon. Lady is concerned about the wide scope of the offence, but it is clear from the evidence that the Government need to protect vital transport construction sites across the country. I think the whole Committee was shocked to hear evidence from HS2 that the cost of protest to the scheme was £122 million and likely to rise to £200 million.

Amendments 35 and 36 attempt to limit the potential acts that fall within the offence by removing references to any acts that obstruct steps “in connection with”, or “reasonably necessary” to facilitate, construction or maintenance of a particular project. They would also remove references to acts that interfere with, move or remove any apparatus that relates to the construction or maintenance of major transport projects.

As I said, I understand that there are concerns about the wide scope of this offence, but a balance needs to be struck. Protest against transport sites comes in many different forms and is constantly evolving, as a small minority seeks new ways to inflict further disruption. It is entirely proportionate for this offence to capture behaviour that obstructs any stage of these projects. Furthermore, it is right that this offence should protect from interference key machinery, materials and other necessary apparatus, without which construction or maintenance of projects cannot occur.

It is worth remembering that we are talking about projects that have been decided through a democratic process. In many ways, individuals seeking to impede such projects are latter-day King Canutes. seeking to stop something that has been decided by the House of Commons or other democratic process and should therefore be allowed to take its course.

[Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that the health and safety measures that are so vital to protect everyone, as well as equipment, on construction project sites are simply not respected by those seeking to disrupt, and that that puts everyone at risk?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, which we have seen throughout some of the protest tactics that we aim to deal by means of the Bill. They include a complete disregard for the safety not just of the protesters but of the workers on the sites affected and indeed the police, who have to go and remove the individuals.

[Sarah Jones]

What is the Minister’s view on the Prime Minister’s intention to lie in front of bulldozers at the start of the construction of the third runway at Heathrow?

[Kit Malthouse]

The Prime Minister was then Mayor of London and made his views known in a light-hearted way to indicate his opposition. If he had lain down in front of the bulldozers on a project democratically decided by the House, he would have committed an offence. Having said that, it is fair to say that the leaders of all major parties at the time went and planted trees at Sipson in the hope that a forest would flourish there. We will see whether those trees last. In any event, for the reasons I have outlined, I urge the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment, with which the Government cannot agree.

[Sarah Jones]

Given that the amendment is not mine and I have only supported it in principle, I will not press it to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Sarah Jones]

I beg to move amendment 37, in clause 3, page 3, line 3, after “fine” insert

“not exceeding level 2 on the standard scale”.

A person convicted of an offence of obstructing major transport works may be subjected to a fine. Under this clause there is currently no limit on the fine that may be imposed. This amendment would place a maximum limit on the fine.

I think that if the hon. Member for North East Fife were here, she would say that this amendment makes the same point that she has made in previous amendments and that she has nothing to add.

[Kit Malthouse]

We oppose this amendment for the same reason I have given in consideration of previous amendments in a similar vein. Lowering the maximum fine for the offence to £500 is simply not proportionate. The penalties available under the Bill must be proportionate, otherwise they will not be a sufficient deterrent. I urge the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment.

[Sarah Jones]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham]

With that third reprimand, Chair, I shall wind up my remarks.

[Kit Malthouse]

I think we can take from that that the hon. Gentleman is voting against the clause. As the hon. Member for Croydon Central says, the clause creates a new offence of obstructing major transport works. We heard in strong evidence from the police, High Speed 2 and others why the offence is needed, and why the offence should ensure that all stages of construction and maintenance are protected from disruptive action, including necessary steps prior to construction, such as ecological surveys, and why the offence should also cover the removal of, or interference with, apparatus needed for construction.

I reassure the hon. Lady that “apparatus” is a usual term in legal circles; any strict definition in the Bill might result in the Bill not being future-proof, or in its being too definitive in a way that protesters could find a way around. I am sure that it will not be beyond the wit of courts to interpret what “apparatus” means. When they do, anyone found guilty of the offence will face a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment, an unlimited fine or both.

As with other offences in the Bill, we have provided a reasonable excuse defence. In reference to something the hon. Lady said earlier, there is a defence for trade disputes, so those on strike will have a defence against this kind of offence. As she pointed out, “major transport works” are defined as works that have either been authorised by an Act of Parliament, such as HS2, or by a development consent order under section 114 of the Planning Act 2008, such as the Silvertown tunnel. The definition ensures that transport works of strategic importance in England and Wales are protected.

The hon. Lady raised the issue of human rights. That is a common issue that courts have to address when looking at offences committed by all sorts of people in all sorts of circumstances, and it is something we are used to. I confess that I am confused by the hon. Lady’s position. She is encouraging and supportive of national injunctions, which carry unlimited fines and prison terms that depend on the views of the judge at the time. They also provide less protection for the accused, as judges generally require a lower burden of proof in deciding whether the case is proven. Of course, we heard strong evidence last week that injunctions are cumbersome, long-winded, expensive for people to put in place and unpredictable in their efficacy.

[Sarah Jones]

We will talk properly about injunctions under the new clauses, because we have a new clause on that. To clarify, we are not calling for big thing called a national injunction; we are calling for a national approach to dealing with all the complications that arise when there is a large infrastructure issue, and when we might need local authorities and the private sector, working with Government, to do what is needed as quickly as possible. We did not suggest a national injunction that is one chunk of a thing.

[Kit Malthouse]

Maybe I misheard the Leader of the Opposition on the television when he called for exactly that: a national injunction. The hon. Lady has neatly pointed out the complexity—for example, in HS2, there are different landowners, geographies, areas and phases of development—of obtaining an injunction that covers the whole of the works. The point still stands that, as far as I can see, she is content for people to be punished and to go to prison under an injunction, but strangely not under a criminal charge. I do not understand that asymmetry. As far as I can see, a criminal court has greater protections for our fellow citizens who are accused of such crimes—not least a higher burden of proof—than the civil courts, where injunctions are heard.

[Sarah Jones]

The Minister made that point to several of the people who gave evidence to us, but they did not accept it. Our point is that the Bill automatically criminalises things that are not criminal offences. An injunction is time-limited, specific, and pertains to an area where serious disruption is being caused; that is not the same as a lock-on offence, which might just be some women locking arms and therefore automatically committing a criminal offence. Those are very different things.

[Kit Malthouse]

Part of the hon. Lady’s repeated case is that there are already plenty of criminal offences with which we could charge all these people. There is no one yet who she thinks should not have been charged with an offence. Some of them, I am afraid, seem to get off on technicalities and through loopholes; I outlined a couple of examples. High Speed 2 in particular expressed frustration at the police’s inability to get some charges to stick. We are trying to satisfy the hon. Lady’s requirement for more specificity in charging decisions, as well as creating a sentencing regime that we hope will act as a deterrent. It is unacceptable that a handful of individuals repeatedly delay and add costs to important works that have been through the democratic process. They are vital to the levelling-up agenda, and the measures in the clause will support them.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 3 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 4

Interference with use or operation of key national infrastructure

[Sarah Jones]

I beg to move amendment 49, in clause 4, page 4, line 30, leave out “interferes with” and insert “prevents”.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Does anyone else want to speak?

[Kit Malthouse]

I have a speech. The amendments are concerned with the scope of the new offence of interfering with the use of key national infrastructure. Amendments 49 and 50 replace the words “interferes with” with “prevents”. We assume that the intention is to raise the threshold of this offence to actions that completely stop a piece of key national infrastructure from being used for its intended purposes, although in fact subsection (4) already defines “interferes with” as preventing use or operation. Amendment 51 supports the change by removing that definition.

I understand what I presume are the hon. Lady’s concerns about the scope of the offence, but I do not see a need for the amendments. Subsection (4) already defines interference with key infrastructure as an act that

“prevents the infrastructure from being used or operated to any extent for any of its intended purposes.”

Removing that subsection and replacing “interferes with” with “prevents” would leave the threshold of the offence undefined, leading to ambiguity over what sort of acts it would apply to.

Furthermore, I reiterate that it is vital that this offence applies to a range of disruptive actions against infra-structure, rather than ones that halt operations completely. As we have seen during protests by groups such as Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil, even acts that delay the use of infrastructure—for example, acts that stop roads being used by the public—can cause severe disruption. Ambulances cannot get through, key deliveries are delayed, contracts cannot be fulfilled—the list goes on.

Fundamentally, the Government consider acts by a small number of determined, disruptive protesters who significantly delay the use of key infrastructure to be just as damaging as those that prevent its use entirely. I therefore encourage the hon. Member for Croydon Central to withdraw the amendment.

[Sarah Jones]

I think I might have handed my speaking notes to Hansard in my previous handover of information. We have tabled three simple amendments to clause 4, which is on interference with use or operation of key national infrastructure. It is similar in some ways to the previous clause, which looked at major transport works.

A person commits an offence if

“they do an act which interferes with the use or operation of any key national infrastructure in England and Wales”

and

“they intend that act to interfere with the use or operation of such infrastructure or are reckless as to whether it will do so.”

In amendments 49 and 50, we seek to replace “interferes with” with “prevents”. We believe that it is a stronger word and has the clarity that the law requires. The term “interferes with” is broad and difficult to interpret; “prevents” is much stronger.

In amendment 51, we seek to remove a passage that says:

“For the purposes of subsection (1)”,

which is the offence itself,

“a person’s act interferes with the use or operation of key national infrastructure if it prevents the infrastructure from being used or operated to any extent for any of its intended purposes.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

I beg to move amendment 52, in clause 4, page 5, line 18, after “newspaper printing infrastructure.” insert—

“(j) emergency services.”

The amendment adds emergency services to the list of key national infrastructure in clause 4(6), on page 5. This is really a probing amendment. As we have already discussed, we have issues with the entire clause. However, there is something interesting in how one defines national infrastructure.

Labour is the traditional party of work and workers, and over the last several years, we have spent much time clapping, thanking and cheering key workers in the emergency services, particularly through the covid pandemic. As shadow Minister for police and the fire service, I spend much time in and around the blue-light services, as I am sure the Minister does in his role. We see at first hand the incredibly important work that they do, night or day, come rain or shine. I therefore find it strange that the Government have not added emergency services to the list of key infrastructure. I actually think that the fire service, the ambulance service and police forces are just as important, in terms of infrastructure, to the continued smooth running of our country as all the other things on the list. They keep people safe and secure and save lives in a multitude of ways.

Let me explain our amendment a little further. We do not think that protests should be able to stop the emergency services from doing their jobs. An ambulance should not be stopped when rushing a patient to hospital. A fire engine should not be halted when people are trapped in burning buildings, and the police must be able to reach the scene of a crime as quickly as possible. We know that time is often of the essence in those things. However, I should also make it clear that we do believe that there is scope for protest, in some instances, around such sites, for instance with protests against the closure of a GP surgery, a police station—the Minister may well remember several of those from his time at City Hall—or an accident and emergency facility.

In April of this year, for instance, protesters staged a protest in Shropshire, in a little town called St Martin’s, at the closure of a GP surgery. The surgery in St Martin’s, Shropshire, has been closed since March 2020 and made an application to the health board to close permanently. Hundreds of people have signed a petition calling for the practice to remain in the village. In recent years, there have also been protests in Lincolnshire at the closure of A&E services in Grantham.

Those are very legitimate protests; they are examples of local people taking a stand at closures that will really affect their local area and the health of their families and neighbours. The key point is that they were done in proportionate ways. It is important that we make that distinction; they did not and do not stop the emergency services. Our amendment to this clause provides protection for emergency services but does allow for legitimate protests around sites that may come under the aegis of the emergency services, such as a police station or an A&E site.

I think that we can all agree that the emergency services do an exceptionally important job, and the Minister might therefore like to comment on their inclusion on this list of key national infrastructure. Would he not agree that blocking a police car as it races towards a crime, such as domestic violence, ought to be considered interfering with key national infrastructure?

I hope that I have given Members on both sides some food for thought about what should come under the definition in the clause. Emergency services are an essential service, and if an oil refinery is going to have such offences applied to it, the logic stands that emergency services infrastructure should too.

[Kit Malthouse]

I must say that I have some sympathy with what the hon. Lady is trying to achieve. However, her Government, she will be please to know, got there before us by creating the Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Act 2006, which has already created an offence of intentionally obstructing an emergency worker from exercising their functions, punishable on summary conviction by an unlimited fine.

[Sarah Jones]

There are lots of other bits of legislation that can stop protests and stop people from interfering in all kinds of different ways. The key point that we were trying to make is that if we define national infrastructure, it is peculiar not to include emergency services in that definition.

[Kit Malthouse]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point, although it was only a breath ago that she was telling me that the clause was broad, and, now, she is attempting to broaden it. As I said, we already have significant legislation that will assist us. We should not forget that some of the offences that we have already considered will assist. The police use the roads and therefore our ability to deal with people glued on to the roads will be critical. The police need fuel and ambulances need fuel, so locking on to fuel depots will similarly be covered.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

I absolutely agree; the struggle within policing to have enough people to do the day job is already bad enough. I have been to Berwick, and very often in the summer months, when there are vast numbers of holidaymakers at the caravan parks, the police will only have one or two officers on. If there is a fight and they choose to arrest somebody, they then have to take that person into custody, which means there is no one left, so they have to make very difficult decisions. In the case of a protest, the police can have a negotiation and allow people to make their point, which is what protesters want to do and what we all want to facilitate. Then, the police can get to the stage where they say, “You are now causing serious disruption, so now we need to begin to use some of our powers.” That is a much preferable way of policing.

The police did not ask for most of these powers, and there has not been a proper consultation process with them on this piece of legislation. The big piece of work that was done by Matt Parr took place before the then Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill and, as we heard in evidence, some aspects of this Bill were considered by him, but some were not, including the infrastructure and transport sections. There has been no proper consultation with the police on these clauses.

The police should not have to make decisions about definitions of vague terms in legislation. They will look like political decisions and put even more pressure on the police. During progress of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, many Members from different sides of the Chamber made that point in the House.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council wrote:

“It is essential that any powers or legislation are straightforward and capable of use by officers and staff at all levels. Experience has shown that unless legislation is clear and simple for use in complex and fast-moving public order situations that it can fail to have the positive impact intended and sometimes create an expectation that cannot be met or lead to unintended issues.”

I also note the points in the NPCC’s excellent evidence about police responsibilities on private land. It wrote:

“We want to ensure that any new legislation does not inadvertently transfer or encourage reliance on policing for security or reduce the ability or necessity of organisations to obtain injunctions. This would not only be a fundamental change in the role of policing but would create a significant capacity issue that would detract from force’s wider duties to prevent and detect crime.”

The NPCC argues that,

“police powers that are practical for use on the front line…Police responsibilities on private land—The funding and resourcing of Home Office police forces is applied primarily to ensure effective policing of public spaces.”

There is an interesting section on this issue that I will not read out, but I am sure the Minister has seen it and will be thinking it through.

The NPCC goes on to say,

“we believe that the question of the responsibility for policing of private land is key. There is a question about the definition of ‘key national infrastructure’, and we would have concern about an explicit duty being placed on policing to deal with activity on private land.

We would be concerned about the impact to our operational response were the responsibility, risks, and costs for securing these sites to be moved from private sector organisations to the police. The impact on police resources, especially for the forces where much of this key infrastructure resides, could be substantial. We believe there is potential for other agencies and organisations to have the powers which would go some way to prevent this.

We believe that there needs to be a strong rationale behind what is considered key national infrastructure, taking into consideration the potential impact of any disruption taking place, so that there is no risk to confidence in policing in being seen to protect private business interests or placing an unreasonable burden on policing that will detract from our core mission.”

We argue that it is not fair to keep piling on new offences. In his evidence, Sir Peter Fahy talked very well about expecting the police to make sense of the new offences, then interpret them and then do all the work.

The Government could do more to work with the police, those who run public and private infrastructure and local authorities to support the right to peaceful protest, to work together to safeguard essential infrastructure, to review the measures that they have just introduced before coming back for more, to work on training, guidance and the resources that public order teams need, and to work on streamlined plans for injunctions that could protect the smooth running of essential infrastructure, if needed.

I again make it clear that we do not support those hardline protesters who keep returning to make people’s lives a misery. We do not believe that clause 4 will fix the problems that our evidence sessions highlighted. It will not speed up the removal of protesters who are causing serious disruption or be a deterrent for those who want to break the law. It risks creating more flashpoints for the police.

Our national infrastructure needs protecting. We hear the anger, irritation and upset when critical appointments are missed, when children cannot get to school and when laws are broken. Of course, the police must act but, unamended, the legislation is too broad to be workable.

[Kit Malthouse]

As the hon. Lady said, clause 4 introduces a new criminal offence of interfering with the operation of “key national infrastructure”. As we heard in our evidence, recent actions by protestors, including activity blocking or obstructing our printing presses, roads and fuel supply, have inflicted misery on the hard-working public.

As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said on Second Reading, the Government cannot stand idly by and let small groups of disruptive individuals prevent people from getting to their places of work by blocking trains and roads, or stop vital supplies of fuel reaching the public by preventing oil tankers from leaving terminals across the country. Such actions cause enormous damage and have a serious economic cost. For example, policing Insulate Britain’s sit-down protests on our major highways cost £4 million, while the policing cost alone of responding to Just Stop Oil’s campaign against terminals and fuel stations is over £6 million in total so far. It is clear that we have to act.

Individuals commit this offence if they intentionally or recklessly engage in an act that prevents the use or operation of key national infrastructure to any extent, including through acts that significantly delay the operation or use of such infrastructure. The range of infrastructure covered by this offence will ensure that our major transport networks, and our energy and fuel supplies, are protected. I will say more on this issue when the Committee scrutinises clause 5.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

We have seen some new tactics, but the tactics are mainly old. I understand that Swampy, who we will remember from decades ago, is in a tunnel somewhere under HS2¸ so these things do come around again.

As for the Minister’s point about the police, it is important to note that there has not been a proper consultation on the clauses on infrastructure and transport. I have spoken to lots of police officers about the Bill, and there is not as much knowledge about it as there might be, because there has not been a proper consultation process, whereas there was with the previous piece of legislation. The police quite rightly do not take a political position, but there are plenty of people who have concerns about the breadth of this legislation, not necessarily because they do not want new powers—some of them are saying, “We need new powers”—but because they worry that interpretation of the Bill, which is so broad, will put them in a very difficult position.

[Kit Malthouse]

I am glad that the hon. Lady accepts that the police are asking for more powers; indeed they are.

[Sarah Jones]

Some.

[Kit Malthouse]

And they have specifically requested a number of the powers in the Bill. The person who, as I hope she will agree, was the most credible witness was the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s lead for public order and protest, who said positive things about the legislation.

The hon. Lady is perhaps struggling with the notion that while we can define offences and human behaviour in this place, there is an entire industry of lawyers out there who then go on to interpret what we say. There are common terms that might appear that have particular meaning in colloquial English that have developed meaning over time in the courts. “Serious disruption” is the one that the hon. Lady is speaking to, and I will give some thought as to whether we need to think more about that, but “serious disruption” to the life of the community has been an established part of public order policing and indeed general policing for some time—at least, I think, since 1986 and the Public Order Act of that year. That Act has been interpreted through the courts in a number of ways, which means that it is well understood by police, lawyers and indeed protesters.

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

As the Minister will be aware, in my constituency, we have significant amounts of fuel infrastructure. Indeed, in the recent Just Stop Oil protests, more than half of the arrests made nationally were made in my constituency. The proposals in this legislation absolutely reflect the conversations that I have had with the local police and with local authorities. I pay tribute, through the Minister, to the great efforts of the local police and local authorities to ensure that the disruption caused did not spill out into the wider community, because the role of Thurrock in the dispersal of fuel across the country is significant, so things could have been much worse. These proposals will make it much easier for the police to act and will make them more fleet of foot.

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend; she makes a very strong point and she is quite right; that is my experience of talking to the police officers dealing with those protests. She points to the importance of particular locations in our fuel supply network. A number of key, large, strategic fuel depots take the bulk of the load, and even a small interference with their ability to get fuel out could have a significant ripple effect that would be felt by the public.

The hon. Member for Croydon Central seems to be under the impression, or possibly trying to create the impression, that the police will change their practice and thousands of protesters will be locked up. I am confused; she seems to imply that those who are disrupting High Speed 2, for example, deserve to be arrested. She said that the cost was “horrifying”—I think that is the word she used. She accepts that HS2 has been approved by a democratically elected Parliament, and was voted for unanimously across the House. It was supported by all parties, and those protesters are seeking to frustrate that democratic decision.

All we are talking about is what offence those individuals should be charged with. We are seeking to give the police more of the options that they have asked for, and more tools to use. That reflects the fact that a number of individuals have avoided charges on technicalities, because of the complexity of the operations and the landownerships involved.

[Sarah Jones]

At the risk of more repetition, the point is if there is a new offence of locking on, the police might see people linking arms at a protest and think, understandably, “That is an offence! I need to arrest them.” I did not make the point earlier, but there is also an issue around resources. I wanted to ensure that I mentioned to the Minister the issue around resources for protests. For example, the number of police horses has been cut significantly in recent years. They are a very useful tool in managing protests. I am sure that the Minister understands that, and has seen how successfully police horses can manage a crowd. In this cost of living crisis, the cost of horses has gone up by £2,000 or £3,000, so the police are finding it difficult to replace horses. That is slightly niche, but it is a very important part of our ability to protest. I ask the Minister to support our police horses as much as he can.

[Kit Malthouse]

I am always keen to support all forms of non-human participants in crime fighting, from dogs to horses. I am not sure what relevance that has to the legislation. The hon. Member is right that in certain crowd-control situations, police horses can prove enormously calming to a crowd, which is important. However, that is a crowd situation. Horses are often used in the control of football crowds, as she will know. In a protest situation, particularly a violent protest situation, they are often used more as a dispersal tool. That is where I have seen them used. We have to be careful about straying into police tactics, rather than the legislation, which is our responsibility.

The hon. Lady seems conflicted: she is happy for protesters to be arrested and charged under current offences, or for them to go to prison under an injunction that may have been obtained by HS2, News International or any other site owner, but she seems strangely reluctant to achieve the same effect through the criminal charge that we are putting in place through this legislation. I find that asymmetry difficult to explain.

I explained earlier how seriously the Government take the offence in clause 4, and the maximum penalties available reflect that. Individuals can face a maximum penalty of 12 months’ imprisonment, an unlimited fine, or both. It is completely unacceptable that small numbers of protestors can attack the vital infrastructure that keeps this country running. This Government stand on the side of the public, who want to go about their lives free from the disruption and misery that these protesters can cause.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 4 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5

Key national infrastructure

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Sarah Jones]

The clause defines the different types of key national infrastructure for the purposes of clause 4. I was critical of the breadth of clause 4 earlier. It defines “interference” incredibly broadly as any act that

“prevents the infrastructure from being used or operated to any extent for any of its intended purposes.”

Given that low threshold, we should be wary of the risk to the protections afforded to protest under articles 10 and 11 of the Human Rights Act 1998.

As we heard from legal experts in the evidence sessions last week, the courts have a tendency to look more kindly on disruptive protests when they are directed towards the perceived social, environmental, political or ethical ill identified by the protesters and take place at the site of that perceived ill. It is worth exploring that in a little more detail, as it is important to keep that in mind when looking at the raft of infrastructure that the Government have deemed worthy of the title “key national”.

Let us start with the Greenham Common protests, which were motivated by a desire for nuclear disarmament and carried out in opposition to the Government’s placing of missiles on its Berkshire base, RAF Greenham Common. Crucially, the protests were carried out on that site. Hands were held, arms interlocked and songs sung around the base. There were shows of solidarity, kindness and compassion at Greenham Common, as well as criminal behaviour, which was dealt with. Whatever our views, those protests hold a special place in our national history and consciousness.

[Kit Malthouse]

Greenham is on the edge of my constituency, as I am sure the hon. Lady knows. I hope that she will accept that defence installations are not defined as key national infrastructure in this legislation.

[Sarah Jones]

Why not, when nuclear energy is? My point is broader: it is not about the definition but the way that courts define whether a protest is significant. The kind of punishment they give often depends on whether the protest is near the thing being protested about. I will explain what I mean. If we look at more recent protests, such as the Insulate Britain protests on motorways, there is no clear relation between the issue being protested about and the site of the protest. In other words, there is no direct link between insulation and the M25. The M25 has nothing to do with poorly insulated homes. It is not the Government Department responsible for insulating homes. I can see why Insulate Britain might choose to protest outside a Government Department.

I am sure that Insulate Britain would argue that there is a link between the M25 and insulation, but when the courts passed their judgment on Insulate Britain, they came down much more harshly because there was no connection between the place and the people whom the protesters were interfering with and the issue that they were arguing about. Members of Insulate Britain have gone to prison for the M25 protests because the courts take such a dim view of that lack of connection.

The point about clause 5 is that often these key national infrastructure sites are key to the point of the protest. As Liberty notes,

“one of the key ways that people seek to make their protests effective is to draw attention to sites of power”.

The manner and location of protests are key to their power. Had the suffragettes not protested in Downing Street or Parliament, but outside a building a few hundred metres away, their protest would not have had the same impact. Had the Greenham Common women not been allowed to protest around the site of the missiles, and had they instead protested in Basingstoke, they would not have had the same impact.

[Kit Malthouse]

I understand the parallel that the hon. Lady is trying to draw with the Greenham Common women. I do not think that they were necessarily responsible for winning the cold war, although I do believe a woman—the then leader of our country—was. Does the hon. Lady understand that although the Greenham Common protest has passed into lore, it did not actually interfere with the operation of the base? Missiles came and went, the Americans flew in and out, and the base was supplied; there was no interference. Strictly in terms of the offence that we are talking about, the protesters did not commit an offence.

[Sarah Jones]

I think there was interference, in that they broke through the perimeter on several occasions.

[Kit Malthouse]

But they did not interfere with the operation of the base.

[Sarah Jones]

That must have interfered with it to some degree.

[Kit Malthouse]

That would have been another offence, because—

[The Chair]

Order. Can we keep to the clause, please?

[Sarah Jones]

Subsection (2) concerns road transport infrastructure. As I have mentioned, we already have laws to protect roads. Wilful obstruction of a highway comes with a fine, and the Government’s recent Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 increased the maximum penalty for that offence from £1,000 to an unlimited fine and/or six months’ imprisonment. Earlier, the Minister made a remark about the Labour party’s position. To clarify, we tried to limit the scope of that piece of legislation so that it applied only to motorways and A roads, and not to very small roads, and we would have supported the provisions had the Government accepted our amendment. Given the changes made by the 2022 Act, we do not understand why clause 5 on transport infrastructure is necessary. As the Labour party has said all along, there are already laws to protect roads.

I turn to rail. Let us imagine that there is a Starbucks on a train station platform, and a group of children have chosen that platform on which to protest about the lack of corporation tax that Starbucks pays in the UK. It could be platform 4 in Taunton, which I imagine would be delightful today. It could be at London Marylebone—perhaps after the protest—or at platform 1 at Coventry; there are Starbucks franchises on all those platforms. Such protests would be legitimate, I believe. This speaks to the importance of the place and manner of protests.

It is busy at Taunton, and the protestors delay the driver in getting to his train by half an hour. Does that count as infrastructure being significantly delayed? They do not mean to block the driver; that was not their intention. Under the Bill, would the Minister consider those children, or the adult who is with them, to have committed a criminal offence? Such broad-brush legislation opens up all kinds of possibilities.

[Kit Malthouse]

I am sure that the hon. Lady will accept that protesting on a crowded railway platform, particularly if fast trains pass through it—she mentioned Tiverton Parkway—is quite dangerous, for other passengers and for the protesters. Does she not agree that there should be some way for us to control that kind of behaviour? Byelaws on the railway need to be obeyed.

[Sarah Jones]

There are byelaws, and there are others laws that could be used in that situation. My point is that two children protesting outside Starbucks might be considered to have committed an offence under clause 5.

On airports, we know from evidence that all the people who cut through the fencing surrounding Stansted airport and made their way to the Boeing jet were arrested. The police had the powers to deal with them and did. Once again, the right to protest is not absolute, but the Bill will prevent potentially peaceful protests.

There was an interesting debate about newspapers in one of the evidence sessions. The hon. Member for North West Leicestershire challenged David Dinsmore on whether his newspapers counted as national infra-structure. David Dinsmore argued that they did because of the importance of providing facts to a wide audience, especially during the pandemic. When challenged about the importance of social media—I get much of my news online, as I am sure many people do—David Dinsmore pointed to the elderly section of the population, who are less likely to get their news online or via Twitter. Their daily newspapers—whether tabloid or broadsheet, printed on pink or white paper, and ranging from the Daily Mail to The Guardian—are still important. That might well be the case, but let me quote from the clause:

“‘Newspaper printing infrastructure’ means infrastructure the primary purpose of which is the printing of one or more national or local newspapers.”

The definition of a “local newspaper”, however, is relatively broad: it must be

“published at least fortnightly and…in circulation in a part of England and Wales”.

A newspaper may include “a periodical or magazine”.

Let us explore that a little more. My purpose, again, is to test the limit cases of legislation. It is important to tease out the consequences and show up the broader inferences. To take the newspaper with the widest circulation in the country, just under 1 million people read the Daily Mail, and it is sold across the country. It is a national newspaper—of that there is no doubt. David Dinsmore said:

“Between The Sun and The Times, we would normally expect to sell about 2 million papers”

on a Saturday. He went on:

“We also print for The Daily Telegraph. We print some of the Daily Mail and some of the Financial Times, and we also deliver a direct-to-consumer service, although we do not print them, for The Guardian out of the Broxbourne site”.––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 46, Q96.]

He makes a fair argument for that printing press providing a national service of sorts.

What other publications are included, however? There are all manner of small newspapers, including the Leicester Mercury, the Bristol Post, the Oldham Advertiser and The Rochdale Observer. Does the Minister think that those fall under the definition of “key national infrastructure”?

What about slightly more esoteric publications? I have a staffer who reads the London Review of Books, which is published every two weeks; its printing is therefore protected under the clause. I do not believe that even my staffer would argue that its printing was of key national importance, however much they enjoy it. Does the printing of the Angling Times—circulation 25,878—come under the legislation, or the Horse & Hound or Cycling Weekly? The Minister is keen on shooting. Is he among the 21,303 subscribers to the Shooting Times, and would he defend its printing as being of key national importance? I produce those examples only to highlight what we see as the flaws in the clause.

The clause is an extension of clause 4, in that it provides the definitions of key infrastructure. As I said, we have issues with clause 4, and have already debated it. We believe that infrastructure needs protecting, and we hear the anger, irritation and upset when critical appointments are missed and delays felt, but we have problems with the scope of the clause, especially given that, as we have debated, it does not include other definitions, such as one for emergency workers. Much of the infrastructure listed in the clause is already protected in law under existing police powers, and there are loopholes and inconsistencies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

The clause supports the new offence of interfering with the operation of key national infrastructure created by clause 4 by defining the categories of infrastructure in scope of the offence.

The offence will cover major roads, railways, airports, harbours, and downstream oil and gas infrastructure in England and Wales. It will also cover newspaper printing presses, onshore oil and gas exploration and production, and larger-scale onshore electricity infrastructure. Minor infrastructure such as undesignated roads and small-scale power stations will be out of scope, as will offshore infrastructure, because much of it lies outside our territorial waters.

We recognise, however, that protest tactics evolve, and that it is entirely possible that infrastructure currently out of scope will be targeted. We have therefore included a delegated power to allow the Home Secretary to amend the list of infrastructure in scope of the offence. That will ensure that the clause keeps pace with evolving protest tactics.

I do not know about you, Mr Dowd, but I am extremely pleased to know that, once the clause passes into law, the production and distribution of the Andover Advertiser in my constituency will be protected, because it is a weekly local newspaper. The hon. Member for Croydon Central is right that local newspapers have a valuable role to play. As she knows, that industry has evolved, such that lots of newspapers are printed in the same place—rare now is the newspaper that has its own presses—and protection of the promulgation of the views in printed matter is critical.

The Ottomans banned the printing press, because they felt that it would impact on their ability to rule their empire. Those who seek to smash the presses, or to delay them, or stop the views coming out of them, should be dealt with most severely. That is what we are attempting to ensure through clause 4, as added to by clause 5, which I commend to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 5 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Scott Mann.)