Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Bill

Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 16th June 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, for those watching, whether live or a recorded transmission at some future date, perhaps I should make two points at the outset. I am conscious that a man—that is, me—is proposing that the Bill be read a second time, and that the Minister, and indeed the noble Lord who will speak for the Opposition Front Bench, are also both men. There are in fact two good reasons for this. First, a technical reason is that nothing in the Bill limits it to women being the object of the harassment. Men can also be an object of harassment, although, on the vast and overwhelming majority of occasions, it is women who suffer from this crime. Secondly, and far more importantly, the reason why it is actually good that men are debating the Bill is that violence against women is not a matter just for women but for all of us. Therefore, I am pleased, if I can put it that way, that men in the Chamber are engaged in this debate.

I should also say for those watching that the limited number of speakers in this debate does not indicate that there is no enthusiasm in this House for this subject; on the contrary, it is exactly because there has been such broad cross-party support both here and in the other place that we have so few speakers today.

I must first thank a host of organisations and charities who have contributed to work on the Bill. In particular I mention in the parliamentary context Greg Clark MP, who introduced the Bill in the other place after his success in the ballot and who was kind enough to discuss the form of the legislation with me at the outset. It is therefore also kind of him to entrust me, if I can put it that way, with introducing Second Reading of the Bill in your Lordships’ House today. However, the Bill, like other matters the House has debated today, is a cross-party effort in the sense that it has been supported, very strongly, across all parties. In that context, it is only fair for me also to mention Stella Creasy MP, who contributed significantly to the debate on the Bill in the other place and has worked in this area on a number of matters. I am also grateful to my noble friend the Minister, the Government Front Bench and other Front Benches for their support on the Bill.

Violence against women is experienced all too often in public places and indeed in private locations as well. It has always been wrong and has always been incapable of any justification. However, it is fair to say that in the last number of years there has been an increasing groundswell of public feeling on this issue, and I both regret and welcome that increased focus. I regret it because it shows that our society still suffers from this type of behaviour all too often. However, I also welcome it because the increased focus on this issue and indeed related issues will help us all to reduce, if not rid our society of, this sort of behaviour.

This is a very short and very focused Bill. It will not solve the problem, but it will be part of the solution. It builds on existing legislation; it does not criminalise anything which is not already illegal. However, it provides a higher sentence if the crime is motivated by the sex or the perceived sex of the victim—and that is as perceived by the offender, not the victim. It entails that if someone commits an offence under the existing Section 4A of the Public Order Act 1986 and does so because of the victim’s sex, they can get a longer sentence: up to two years, rather than up to six months as now. It relates to behaviour in any location except where both the victim and the perpetrator are in a private dwelling.

The Bill does not specify the types of behaviour that will be covered, since that will be case dependent, but the Explanatory Notes give some likely examples. These include following a person—for example, deliberately walking closely behind someone as they walk home late at night; I should say that I have heard about that from my own daughters on occasion—making an obscene or aggressive comment towards a person; making an obscene or offensive gesture towards a person; obstructing a person making a journey; and driving or riding a vehicle slowly near a person making a journey. Importantly, there is a reasonable conduct defence, which was the subject of some discussion in the other place, and an amendment was brought in which now requires Ministers to produce statutory guidance for the police about the new offence, in particular about the reasonable conduct defence. That reasonable conduct defence is already in the legislation, in Section 4A, but there will be statutory guidance about it.

The Bill does not fill a gap in the law: there is no gap. Public sexual harassment behaviour is already covered by existing criminal offences, especially offences in the Public Order Act. So, we do not need or, I suggest, want a new offence. When I spoke from the Front Bench, I frequently said that the statute book is not there as a form of semaphore to send signals. This does not create a new offence; as I said, it creates a higher sentence for a particular form of the offence.

Section 2 is therefore important. It refers to the guidance I mentioned, which will be issued to all relevant parties by the Secretary of State and provides that the chief constable and others in the police must have regard to that guidance. I should say, in parenthesis, that I found that a little odd when I first looked at it: I thought it could be taken for granted that chief constables would have regard to guidance. I presume, therefore, that this is standard drafting, but I would not want it thought that, in any other case, if we did not say they must have regard to it, that means that they can ignore it. I shall leave that there for the moment.

I draw the House’s attention to the consequential amendments in Section 3, not because they are in any way problematic but because I feel I should, because the first of them amends the Football Spectators Act 1989, and I should probably declare my registered interest as the chair of the Football Regulatory Authority in that regard. Section 4 extends the Bill to England and Wales. Wales was bought in by an amendment in the other place. That was received with enthusiasm by the Welsh Government. I do not think I need to declare an interest there—I will just read out my name from Hansard in due course.

The critical point with the Bill is that legislation will not solve the problem. We need social and cultural change, but a legislative change can be part of the solution. I am very proud to have played a small part in getting the Bill to this stage and I very much hope that all parts of the House will be able to support it and therefore add another brick, so to speak, in the wall we are building, slowly but surely, against this type of behaviour. For those reasons, I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all who have taken part in this debate.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, said from personal experience in a very moving speech, it is the effect of this sort of behaviour that we are trying to target. It is a pernicious effect, because it is not just the immediate effect on the victim, as the noble Baroness identified; it is the effect that the victim starts to change their behaviour. Even when there is no actual harassment going on, because of the fear that there may be harassment and because of knowledge of previous occasions, people change their behaviour. Of course, they should not change their behaviour; the behaviour we should seek to change is the behaviour of the perpetrators. Ultimately, that is why this is a matter of social and cultural change, and not just a change in law. But change in law, as all speakers identified, is part of the solution, even if it is not all of the solution. I am very grateful for her support and for what she said.

I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, who made the important point that we have to target actions in both the private sphere and the public sphere. Over the past few years, this House and the other place have done quite a lot of work in the private sphere, and it is therefore right, as he said, that we should turn our attention now to the public sphere.

I am also very grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his comprehensive support for the Bill and for identifying the change of culture that is needed. I was going to say a couple of words on the point about intent, but my noble friend the Minister dealt with that. I add only that courts are used to dealing with questions of intent—it is an ingredient in many offences—and I would not expect it to be a problem for the courts with this offence. Indeed, it is already part of the underlying offence in Section 4A.

On public sexual harassment and what it means, it is better not to have examples in the Bill. As I said, we have some examples in the Explanatory Notes. The danger is that examples in the future Act itself can limit the application, because you could be limited to the nature of the examples. The way we normally do legislation here is to allow the courts to interpret it. We can be confident that in this area the courts will interpret these words in a sensible and natural way.

As I have said on a number of occasions, this will not solve the problem, but it is part of the solution.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.