Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Garnier and Baroness Chakrabarti

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Earl for that. Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people are a tiny percentage of our population in the United Kingdom. Undoubtedly, they are one of the most demonised minorities, not just in our nations, but historically and in Europe. We would not have a post-World War II human rights framework but for atrocities perpetrated against minorities, including Gypsy and Roma people.

It is very upsetting to look at Part 4 of the Bill. It is a disgrace. I am sorry to have to say this, but Part 4 is an inherently discriminatory piece of legislation. It is as discriminatory as previous ignominious legislation targeting east African Asians or gay people. If it passes in its present form it will be notorious. I have no doubt at all that it violates Articles 8 and 14 of the convention, at the very least, as other noble Lords have said. I praise the eloquence and perseverance of my noble friend Lady Whitaker in particular, and of many noble Lords and right reverent Prelates.

They know whereof they speak: to persecute people for their nomadic lifestyle—to criminalise the Traveller way of life—is the equivalent, I have no hesitation in saying, of criminalising people for their dress, their food or their prayers. It is a significant attack on their way of life to criminalise them for stopping in places when they have nowhere else to stop. Part 4 is that despicable. I signed one of the amendments; I could have signed any of them. This part, however, should not stand in any primary legislation in a civilised country.

This bit of the Bill is being put forward as part of a very populist and nasty culture war, to use the phrase of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. It is very dangerous. As the honourable Member for Maidstone, who has not been in this Chamber—perhaps one day she will come—but whose name has been mentioned at many points today, said, be careful about the difference, the fine line, between being popular and being populist. We might well remember that when we consider this part on Report.

My final thought is that in a former role I once had the privilege of chairing a meeting—it was, as I recall, at the Conservative Party conference. The audience was very sceptical about the value of human rights, and the Human Rights Act in particular. It was, potentially, a tricky meeting. I chaired a speaker who was addressing concerns in the audience about prisoners having human rights. Again, that is not a popular group in our society—prisoners and human rights is a bad cocktail. He was saying that prisoners have human rights and that some of them even thought that they had a right to a flushing toilet. What a disgrace that was—the audience was very upset and wanted to scrap the Human Rights Act, as some people still do. This eloquent and learned speaker said that it was very simple to deal with the problem: just fix the loo.

Fix the loo—do not demonise the prisoner, do not scrap the Human Rights Act, just fix the problem that is giving rise to the concern. In this case the fix would be to give people stopping places and the support that they need. The criminal law will deal with burglary and with people using their dogs to terrorise people, and will protect the innocent farmer. I wonder whether the eloquent speaker and passionate defender of the Human Rights Act who spoke at that meeting will remember the occasion, as I always have. He was, of course, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

I remember that remark very well, and I adhere to everything that I said then. I hope that the noble Baroness is not setting up an Aunt Sally. The speech that I gave a moment ago did not criticise the proponents of these amendments. It criticised much of the content of Part 4 of the Bill. All I asked was that in seeking to provide a solution for one group of people we did not create a problem for another group.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, for that. There is ample criminal law and ample tort law for nuisance. There are ample laws to protect people from burglary, nuisance and so on. This measure, however, is targeted. The euphemism is so thin: “without permission, with vehicles”. I wonder who we are talking about there. The euphemism makes this racial discrimination even more obscene.