Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading - Day 1
Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Gentleman can yell from the Back Benches, but it is important to remember that when it comes to protecting victims, there are many victims of different offences and different crimes. I think he and all Members of this House should recognise that this Bill will absolutely provide additional protections for victims in high-harm cases such as domestic abuse and many other cases.

These reforms will be named Kay’s law in memory of Kay Richardson, who was tragically killed following the release of her husband under investigation, rather than on pre-charge bail, despite evidence of previous domestic abuse. It is impossible to imagine the impact of such an horrific crime on the victim’s loved ones, and we all have a responsibility to do all we can to prevent more victims and more families from suffering as they have. That is the point and the purpose of this Bill—it is an end-to-end Bill.

Before Opposition Members start to prejudge any aspect of this Bill and this Government’s work on victims, there will be plenty of time to debate this Bill. There will also be plenty of time to debate the role of victims and how the Government are absolutely supporting victims.

An essential responsibility and a duty on us all is protecting our children. I am truly appalled and shocked by each crime and every case of hurt and harm against young people from sexual abuse and exploitation. It is impossible to comprehend the motivation of those who perpetrate offences against children, and we have been reviewing the law in this area carefully to ensure that any changes we make are the right ones. Through this Bill, I intend to extend the scope of the current legislation that criminalises sexual activity with a child under the age of 18 by people who hold defined positions of trust to include faith leaders, sports coaches and others who similarly coach, teach, train, supervise or instruct a sport or religion on a regular basis.

This issue has some brilliant and long-standing champions. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), who even throughout her recent cancer treatment worked with me to ensure that we address this significant issue. I also thank the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who continues to stand by the many victims who were abused as youngsters and who were failed and ignored by those who should have supported them. I also thank Baroness Grey-Thompson for her tireless work on this issue.

Through this Bill, we will also introduce an important measure to help bring closure to families whose loved ones have gone missing. The House will know the horrific case of Keith Bennett and the struggles his family have gone through to find his body since his murder. In 2017, the police believed they had a further lead when it came to light that Ian Brady had committed papers to secure storage before his death, but a gap in the law meant that the police were unable to get a search warrant to seize those papers.

I know this is an important issue—indeed, it has been raised by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and others. I am therefore introducing new powers enabling officers to seize evidence that they believe may help to locate human remains outside of criminal proceedings, such as in missing persons cases, suicides and homicide cases where a suspect is known but cannot be convicted, such as where the suspect themselves has died. As I said to Keith’s brother, Alan, when I met him recently, I am absolutely determined to give the police all the powers they need to access any evidence that could help them to bring some closure in cases such as Keith’s. While I cannot guarantee that a loved one will be found, I can make sure that families are provided with every avenue that our legal system will allow in the pursuit of justice. This is why we emphasise the need to make our communities safer, and that is exactly what the Bill does.

The right to protest peacefully is a cornerstone of our democracy and one that this Government will always defend, but there is, of course, a balance to be struck between the rights of the protester and the rights of individuals to go about their daily lives. The current legislation the police use to manage protests, the Public Order Act 1986, was enacted over 30 years ago. In recent years, we have seen a significant change of protest tactics, with protesters exploiting gaps in the law which have led to disproportionate amounts of disruption. Last year, we saw XR blocking the passage of an ambulance and emergency calls, gluing themselves to a train during rush hour, blocking airport runways, preventing hundreds of hard-working people from going to work. Finally, I would like to gently remind the House that on one day last year many people across the country were prevented from reading their morning newspapers due to the tactics of some groups—a clear attempt to limit a free and fair press, a cornerstone of our democracy and society.

The Bill will give the police the powers to take a more proactive approach in tackling dangerous and disruptive protests. The threshold at which the police can impose conditions on the use of noise at a protest is rightfully high. The majority of protesters will be able to continue to act and make noise as they do now without police intervention, but we are changing it to allow the police to put conditions on noisy protests that cause significant disruption to those in the vicinity. As with all our proposals, the police response will still need to be proportionate. The statutory offence of public nuisance replaces the existing common law offence. Our proposals follow the recommendations made by the Law Commission in 2015. The threshold for committing an offence is high, with any harm needing to affect the public or a cross-section of the public and not just an individual.

We must give the courts the tools to deal effectively with the desecration of war memorials and other statues. Through the Bill, we will toughen the law where there is criminal damage to a memorial by removing the consideration of monetary value of damage. Those changes will allow the court to consider the emotional and sentimental impact, not just financial, so that the sentence can reflect the severity of harm caused. For what it is worth, that does not just mean statues. It will cover a range of memorials with low monetary but high sentimental value, for example gravestones, war memorials, roadside tributes to people killed in car crashes and the memorials to people who have been murdered, such as the Stephen Lawrence memorial. I would like to thank my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) and for Bracknell (James Sunderland) for their important work on this issue.

I am also clear that no one should have to put up with disturbances and disruptions on their doorstep. Unauthorised encampments can create significant challenges for local authorities, and cause distress and misery to those who live nearby. As we pledged in our manifesto, we will make it a criminal offence to live in a vehicle on land without permission and we will give the police the power to seize vehicles if necessary. I can assure the House that the new offence has been framed in such a way to ensure that the rights of ramblers and others to enjoy the countryside are not impacted.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

What consideration has the right hon. Lady given to the rights of generations of Travellers and Gypsies, who have often been around longer than some of our property laws, who might want to pull up on a roadside for a night? What consideration of their rights has been given in the Bill, which will automatically criminalise them?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that there was an extensive public consultation on this issue and all those points were considered at the time.

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[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Because the existing laws deal with those issues. The Conservative party is not making the case for the additional powers.

The right to protest to those in power—including the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), who waves his Order Paper at me—is extremely precious. I declare an interest as a proud trade unionist and refer to my relevant entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests on support from the Unite union and the GMB. Whether it is our trade unions or another group that wants to make its views known loudly in our streets, we curtail their ability to do so at our peril. The right to protest is one of our proudest democratic traditions, and that this Government seek to attack it is to their great shame. Our existing laws on protest strike a careful balance between legitimate rights and the need to keep order. Our laws on protest do not, and never should, seek to shield those in power from public criticism and public protest. We on the Opposition Benches will oppose a Bill that puts at risk the whole right to protest, hard-won by previous generations, that is part of the fabric of British democracy. In seeking to preserve the right to protest, we on these Benches stand in a long tradition of British democracy. It is this Government who seek to undermine those traditions.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the inclusion of parts 3 and 4 of the Bill undermines victims, the police force and the whole point of what the Government are trying to do to reform our criminal justice system and make it work for the people? The Government should withdraw parts 3 and 4 and get on with deliberating on some of the detail that could be half good.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Parts of the Bill could have been removed and we could have had a cross-party discussion on making the rest of it work. The Government have failed to take that approach.

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[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

This is a Trojan horse Bill, and the Home Secretary is Sinon at the gates of Troy saying, “I’m the only one left! Please let me in with this fantastic Bill that’s going to do all the things that you Opposition Back Benchers have been asking me to do.” Well, we see that hidden in the Bill, there are some nasty and pernicious laws. Many of the good things in the Bill could be achieved by either amending or bringing forward separate Bills, such as the Death by Dangerous Driving (Sentencing) Bill, promoted by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May).

Instead, the Government have put forward a Bill that is so big, so expansive and so diverse that it covers two Departments, so that they can squeeze the good things in as well as those that deny the rights of people. If we allowed this to stand, every Government would do it, would they not? They would put pernicious rules into what, in public speaking, we call a “something sandwich”, where you put the bad in the middle and sandwich it with the good. That is what the Bill is. I will come on to what the particularly bad things are, but there are also great missed opportunities. I sat on the upskirting Bill Committee. We pushed amendments, and the Government accepted that they would explore bringing forward misogyny as a hate crime. Where is that in this Bill? That could have been included, and it is so disappointing that it is not. There are clearly missed opportunities.

Part 3 of the Bill is particularly problematic, and notably the use of the phrase “serious unease”. To tell the truth, I find myself feeling serious unease when certain Government Members speak and I disagree with them, but in a democracy, I can feel unease, disagree and even think that they are saying things that are offensive, but they are not criminalised. During the Brexit debates, in the main, the protests outside this place by UKIP and Brexit party supporters and by the remainers were eccentric and annoying to many of us at the time, but to me, it summarised the beauty of British democracy when those peaceful protesters, sometimes of opposing forces, were ringing bells and shouting into horns. Now there is the idea that the police could say, “You’ve gone a decibel over—you’re a criminal.” Many of the people on protests will not even know that the police have laid orders down, because it will not be widely known, so we will be criminalising people without them even knowing it.

I have not even got on to some of the really pernicious measures in the Bill, such as those on Traveller communities. If we had decent move-on sites and decent support from local authorities and made sure that we worked with the community, we could resolve the problems. Surrey has no move-on sites whatsoever—no wonder there are problems in that county. Those are the things we need to deal with rather than criminalising. The idea that someone in a layby over one night could be considered a criminal—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I was so carried away with the hon. Gentleman’s rhetoric that I did not notice he had exceeded his three minutes. I apologise to everybody else.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I completely sympathise with the hon. Gentleman’s sentiment. Having been in this House for nearly seven years, I have often realised that we mistake the introduction of legislation for actually doing something out there on the street. Although we can and should legislate to make things crimes and to better dispose of them, we actually need somebody to take off their bicycle clips, walk out of the office or station and do something different out there on the street to make those of us in society who feel unsafe—particularly, sadly, women and girls—feel safer.

We are trying to give concrete life to that through schemes such as the safer streets fund, where we are specifically spending money on public realm improvements, whether that is CCTV or better street lighting, in areas where women and girls feel unsafe. I hope that the huge increase in police numbers that we are seeing at the moment will see more uniforms out there on the street in those areas where women and girls feel unsafe. There are wider cultural issues that we also need to address. The hon. Gentleman is right to point out, however, that legislation will only take us so far and that what is required is action out there on the streets.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

It sounds a bit like the Minister is saying that the words we say in here do not really matter, but the legislation that we pass here, including making misogyny an aggravating factor, sends messages to people out there. When I sat on the Committee of the Voyeurism (Offences) Act 2019, the Government were clear that although other laws could be used to stop the awful practice of upskirting, it needed to be in a clear law against it. During the passage of that Act, they promised that they would look at and bring forward a measure to make misogyny an aggravating factor in hate crime. Why are they delaying on the promises that they have made?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am sorry, but I am not sure that the Government ever made that promise. [Interruption.] Hold on, I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has read the Law Commission’s report. Has he read it?

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I have read the section that the Minister is referring to.

[Kit Malthouse]

The Law Commission report is unequivocal about the dangers that it may present. The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) is shaking her head, but the report’s conclusion says:

“We recommend that sex or gender should not be added as a protected characteristic for the purposes of aggravated offences and enhanced sentencing.”

That is the specific recommendation in the report. The Law Commission has much greater and more skilled legal minds than mine, and other groups do not support the amendment.

I realise that the issue is of great importance to hon. Members, and we must all reflect on the feelings of insecurity that women and girls feel in the public realm, but we are being told by the experts—by the Law Commission—that the measure is likely to do more damage than good. That is not necessarily a substitute for us not doing anything and I have outlined what more we may do, but the point is that we have to listen to the experts. To be honest, I am quite surprised that a party led by a former Director of Public Prosecutions would seek to ignore the Law Commission.

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[Kit Malthouse]

Obviously, it is hard for me to predict how often these things will be used. I will come on to talk about the noise provision more specifically, but it is worth pointing out that it is not common for conditions to be placed on protest generally. The National Police Chiefs’ Council tells us that in the three months to April ’21, there were 2,500 protests, and conditions were put on them no more than a dozen times. The Metropolitan police has confirmed that in 2019—hon. Members have to remember that in London, a protest takes place pretty much every day, and sometimes several in one day—it put conditions on only 15 times and, in 2020, only six times. Admittedly, 2020 saw a suppressed number of protests because of the pandemic, but this is nevertheless rare, and the police take care in placing such conditions.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Will the Minister give way?

[Kit Malthouse]

I will make a little bit of progress.

On my previous point about the Lords accepting the need for protection outside schools and vaccination centres, we believe it should not just be people working in those two types of facility who are protected from highly disruptive protests. The Government continue to believe it is essential that the police are able in some circumstances to place conditions on protests to prevent noise causing serious harm or impinging on the rights of others. The vast majority of protests in England and Wales will be unaffected by this legislation. The power may be used only in the most exceptional circumstances where police assess the noise from protests to be unjustifiable and damaging to others. I can assure the House that conditions will, by law, be imposed only where necessary and proportionate, with due consideration to all our freedoms of expression and assembly. The police are already legally bound to assess this balance with the powers they currently have.

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[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

Like many colleagues, I welcome enormously the steps that the Government are taking in respect of the Vagrancy Act. I will say no more about that and seek to concentrate on two of the most important aspects of the Bill for my constituents. They are two of the most important aspects where we need to be steadfast in not accepting some of the amendments that would weaken some of those key provisions.

The first is a point that has been aired a great deal in a lot of public correspondence: noise nuisance. The Environmental Protection Act 1990 set the legal framework and definitions that local authority noise teams need to use when seeking to address the disturbance being caused to the peaceful enjoyment of one’s home or property and the peaceful enjoyment and ability of people to go about their duties in their place of work. The Minister, like me, is an emanation of local government, so he will be aware of the frustrations that so many people express time and again, when they are unable to gain that peaceful enjoyment. The powers are weak, and the ability to ensure that action is taken to address disturbance is found to fall short. Many of my constituents will welcome the fact that the Government are taking steps not just to make protests, which sit outside the definitions of that Act, actionable under law and by the police, but to address the persistent disruption that can be created by noises that are not exceptionally loud, but designed to make it difficult for people to go about their duties or to enjoy their home or place of work in peace. Given the age of that legislation, the Bill takes a reasonable step.

The Bill mentions that the Minister is of the view that nothing is incompatible with the rights under the European convention. I am a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights—I know that other members are present in the Chamber—which has taken evidence on a point that the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) highlighted. I simply say how much I welcome the unamended powers in part 4 of the Bill, which seek to strengthen the position in respect of unauthorised encampments.

Again, as an emanation of local government, I am aware that my local authority and my neighbouring local authority spend hundreds of thousands of pounds of council tax payers’ money every year to clean up the consequences of unauthorised encampments in public parks and places that are normally enjoyed by our constituents going about their business, but who are prevented from enjoying those spaces by their unauthorised and unlawful use. The strengthening of those powers will make a material difference to our ability to maintain our constituents’ quality of life. For those reasons, I strongly support the Government in taking forward those powers unamended.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

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

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

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

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

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Ian Levy (Blyth Valley) (Con)]

I will be brief, as I realise that time is pressing.

My father, sadly, passed away in September last year. Some years earlier, on his way home from work, he was involved in road traffic accident that left him almost dead and crippled, lying in a field. He never walked again. He was crippled by a hit-and-run driver, but because he received treatment in hospital very quickly, he survived, and because protesters were not blocking the road to the hospital he attended, he survived. My father went on to see marriages, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. My parents enjoyed years of marriage and had their 63rd wedding anniversary. I strongly believe that if protesters had blocked that road to the hospital A&E where I saw my father with his leg just about hanging off—it was absolutely horrific—[Interruption.] Thank you very much. In that case, I would not have had that time with my father, so I will be supporting this Bill tonight in memory of my father.