Public Order Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I have often said in this House that the first question we should ask when confronted with a new Bill is: “Is this necessary?” This point was touched on by the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, a few minutes ago. I do not believe that this Bill is necessary much at all, and I certainly do not think that Clause 9 is necessary.

I would like to make an appeal to your Lordships tonight. Why can we not convene a meeting before Third Reading, because in our House it is possible to bring forward an amendment on Third Reading. It is very important that my noble friend Lady Sugg should be prominently involved in that. She has genuinely tried—and I respect and honour that—but I do not think she has got it quite right, and I say the same to my noble friends Lady Morrissey and Lord Farmer.

I think we need to have a round table to discuss whether it really is necessary to keep Clause 9 in the Bill and what we should replace it with, if anything. I do not believe we have the solution tonight. Each of the amendments before us has certain merits but not a single one of them covers all the problems as perceived in the past. I still think that it is possible to deal with those things, such as the problems just referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Winston, with laws that are already on the statute books—books that are far too cluttered already.

Can we not just pause, reflect and discuss, and see if Clause 9 is necessary, which I do not believe it is? Can we decide what we would replace it with and which elements of the three sets of amendments before us tonight can best be combined to give protection, if it is needed, to those who are harassed—there is not a great deal of evidence but I accept that it happens—and to protect the freedom not just of speech, which is so important to all of us, but of private prayer, without which you will wrench the soul from a community? Nobody can stop my praying privately, because you do not know when I am doing it. It is important that we recognise that freedom of speech without freedom of religion is hollow and false. We have to preserve them both.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, to which I have added my name. I do not support the review in the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Farmer. Everybody has been careful not to say that there is no evidence but that there is insufficient evidence. I think there is clear evidence that there is a problem. In fact, the international response of other jurisdictions shows that it is not just a UK problem; I am afraid it is a more widespread problem than that. I think there is a need for a new law, and I support this particular amendment because it is a reasonable response to an unreasonable challenge at the moment.

I did some research with officers who are trying to deal with these problems at the moment to see whether this response looked reasonable. First, those who oppose Amendment 45 say that it prohibits protests. Of course, that is true, but we had that this afternoon here: you cannot protest here. It is not the only place in the United Kingdom where people cannot protest. We are talking about 150 metres around a relatively small group of places, that are the only places women can approach for this sort of treatment—it is a legal treatment though I accept that people have strong views about it. One hundred and fifty metres is really quite a small area.

Secondly, people say that public space protection orders should be used as an alternative. I am afraid that the problem is that they are not working in the way that was intended because they were not intended for this problem; they were intended to help local authorities deal with various unspecified problems. In some areas, drivers were parking up because they were trying to get to a certain place and people who lived in that area were having problems with engines running all the time, so it was used for that sort of thing. It is a very vague power which has been useful with many problems, but it has not proved particularly helpful with this one.

One of the challenges is that local authorities have many priorities, and this is not always one of them. They have challenges around budgets, so they cannot always go to court—so often, even if there is a problem, these protection orders are not being applied for.

The second problem is that, with each local authority approaching this in its own local way, the wording is inconsistent. The police are asked to apply them consistently, but each wording is different—whether there is intent there or whether there is not—and that really has caused a challenge.

The police have been criticised a couple of times today for their lack of action sometimes, but they are taking action in some of these cases: in fact, there have been complaints about the fact that they have arrested people who were praying. Although that has been used as an example of something draconian, in the cases where people have been praying the CPS has declined to prosecute. All that the police have done is make an arrest. They do not decide to prosecute: that is the decision of the prosecutor. In these cases—for example, in the West Midlands case—the decision has been based partly on the fact that no one can be sure whether a person who is praying is going to protest against or support abortion, so how could they possibly make a decision about prosecution?

Secondly, there was a case where an individual had displayed within a zone a protest sticker or protest banner within their vehicle that talked about murder and abortion. In that case it was not about a lack of evidence; the CPS decided it was not in the public interest to continue. So I am afraid we are not seeing prosecutions and we are seeing dilemmas, and people are saying that there are complaints about people’s behaviour.

Another challenge is that the women who are most affected by this do not want to make complaints. Why would you? You are at your most vulnerable. You do not want to be identified. You certainly do not want to go to court and be a witness. In some people’s cases, they have come to mainland UK to receive abortion services, not having been able to obtain them in another part of the UK—so why would they want to advertise the fact that they have got involved in an abortion service? So this has relied a lot on the staff.

The staff’s view is also important. Every patient who is affected—badly, in my view—is affected only on the occasion when they seek assistance, but the staff are there all the time, day in, day out. Imagine the pressure on them as they go to their job, which they take to be helping somebody to improve their life, or at least to travel forward in a different way.

The aggravated feature for me of the behaviour being complained about is that these women are en route to a treatment that they cannot obtain anywhere else. As I mentioned earlier in my question, I do not really think these are protests. Where there is not an order in place, the people protesting are directly outside the entrance or exit of these buildings, directly approaching the women who are going to seek a service. This is not about trying to convince the Government. It must be the least effective form of protest if it is trying to influence the Government. People in here are saying they did not even know there was a problem—so how can it possibly be that that has been an effective form of protest? I am afraid that is not really a sound argument.

If that is the best place where somebody can seek to influence someone, there is already a law saying that when someone is seeking abortion services, they should seek advice about other options. If they need financial support, adoption or any of the other things that might help somebody in these terrible circumstances—the dilemmas that I sure they must face—the law says they are entitled to that support from the medical advisers and from other people who will help them. The least effective way, surely, has to be shouting across the street or handing out a leaflet at the point where somebody is trying to get treatment and already has a dilemma. I cannot see that that is a sensible way to address the particular problem that we are talking about.

It seems that this gets worse at certain times of the year. More protesters turn up at abortion clinics during Lent. Why should women who have to go during the Lent period have to face more pressure than the women who go at a different period? That is someone else’s view.

I want to address the point about prayer. I think we all understand why prayer is particularly sensitive. Of course nobody wants to ban it, but not everybody finds prayer a supportive thing. I say this with respect to the bishop and as a Christian, but not everybody reacts in the same way. You cannot assume that a prayer expressed on the street is something that everybody wants to receive, and in my view they have every right to resist, or not to be faced with that dilemma. We have to keep that in mind too.

The only final thing I would like to say is that we have talked about behaviour in very general terms, but some of it has been abhorrent: handing out dolls in various stages of development, handing out protest leaflets that are very explicit on what people are complaining about, and judging people at a point when they have a very difficult decision to make. I say finally that this chanting carries on can be heard in the clinics—it is very obvious when you think about it, but I had not until the weekend. At the point at which women are receiving treatment, they can hear this chanting and hymn singing outside. Would you like it, in any medical treatment? It is just not acceptable and something needs to be done.

I like the tone and broad direction of the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Morrissey, but I worry, that with people’s human creativity and that 150 metres around the clinics, they would be very creative and the only people who would suffer from that would be the women. So I cannot support that amendment, but I understand why it was made. Finally, I will say that I support Amendment 45 for the women’s sake, for the sake of people who are employed there, and for anybody else who might be visiting at the very time that these protests are being made.