Public Order Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 16th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I apologise in advance to the Ministers for making their ears bleed. A lot of what I have just said is relevant to this group as well. In previous hours in this Committee, noble Lord after noble Lord from around this Committee—from the Benches opposite, the Cross Benches, lawyers, lay people, people concerned with the balance between peaceful dissent and other rights and freedoms for the rest of the community—has been really concerned about these new offences and the justification for them. There was a real consensus that it is for the Government of the day, and those who propose new restrictions of whatever kind on liberty, to make the case. Particularly when we are talking about coercive police powers at a time when there has been a bit of a crisis of trust in the police, which is not what we want, it is really important that the justification for new offences, new police powers and so on be made before we sign these blank cheques. It is no disrespect to the police. Every day that I come into this place, I am grateful to our wonderful police, who stand out there and protect us all as legislators. I am so grateful to them. Of course, it crosses my mind that I am criticising expansive police powers and so on, but I still feel that is my duty.

I will not take up too much time, but the case for these new offences has not been made by the Government. I tried to make my point in response to the debate on the previous group. We need a statement from Ministers about the existing public order statute book, what these existing offences and powers do and do not do, and what the gaps are thought to be, so that noble Lords in this Committee, including the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, who knows a little about the criminal law—he and I have debated it over many years; sometimes we have agreed and sometimes we have disagreed—can bring their minds to this schedule, which hopefully the Government will provide, and ask, “Is there really a gap?”

That has not been done to date, despite the fact that these measures are largely defrosted and reheated from a previous Bill and have been through the elected House. That forensic case, that examination of the existing statute book and where the gaps are, has not been made. I do not vote on people’s liberties to protest, whether I agree or disagree with them, unless I see the case being made. That is why I have taken the step of opposing so many of the clauses—and I apologise if that seems rude in any way.

Make no mistake: I would be doing this if it was my party in government or whoever’s party in government. Sometimes, when it comes to civil liberties, whoever you vote for, the Government get in. As legislators we have duties to be a little more careful and forensic before adding to the very expansive public order statute book, with people concerned for their basic protection—yes, from each other, but also from abuses of power. With that, I do not have to say anything more.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and in the widest sense I agree with her—but I come at it from a rather different angle. I am concerned about the integrity of the legal process.

I do not want to repeat what I said earlier. The Minister heard me referring to a very recent statute that came into force in August, I think from memory, which in my view covers all the conduct we are considering here. One has to consider the effect on the legal process of having different provisions, with very different consequences, which are not alternatives to one another; they have to be charged separately. It is not like wounding with intent under Section 18 of the Offences against the Person Act, where Section 20, unlawful wounding, is always an available alternative. These are quite separate offences, in totally separate Acts of Parliament, separated by a little time—though oddly, in this case, if the Bill is enacted, both introduced in the same year by the same Government.

We have to think about the way the process operates. The biggest Crown Court in London has a backlog, partly because of Covid, of nearly 4,000 cases, and we should consider the case management that is placed on the judges there. I have a particular interest in that Crown Court, which I place on the record. My interest in that court leads me to the view that the judges, the prosecutors and probably the defenders there are unlikely to be aware of the alternatives. However, as I suggested earlier, in another Crown Court another charge might be brought under the other Act of Parliament, and the judges there would know about the offences with the lower imprisonment maximum but would not know about the other statute. We will end up with a crowded calendar, with the Court of Appeal eventually having to say, “Why do we have two Acts of Parliament that deal with the same conduct but have totally different consequences?” I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, who is an experienced, busy and highly regarded lay magistrate, has similar experience of backlogs in the courts in which he sits in London, and the same is true in all the cities around the UK.