Preventing Crime and Delivering Justice

Marco Longhi Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

I was going to confine my speech to the Public Order Bill, but I will follow up on a few comments that the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) made. The more I listen to him, the more I think he speaks a good deal of common sense. I would like him to know that I for one, and a number of my colleagues, agree with much if not everything of what he says, and we have a steely resolve to make sure that we are one United Kingdom. That is what we voted for when we voted for Brexit.

My daughters, for some unfathomable reason, sometimes describe me as a grumpy old man. I really do not know why. However, there are a few things that can make me a little bit miserable, and one thing that has really grated on me in recent years is the minority of protesters who have pretty much used guerrilla warfare to disrupt the everyday lives of the vast majority of our constituents—not just mine, but everybody’s.

The good people of Dudley North are ordinary folk, working hard to make a living, a living that is increasingly harder to make in the current climate. I cannot fathom how the privileged and entitled few think it is acceptable to stop our carers and nurses from being able to get to work to care for our sick and elderly, or to blockade a fire appliance from getting to a serious fire burning a local business to the ground—or, more tragically, perhaps preventing people inside the burning building from being saved. Of course, that applies to any blue light service, not just the fire service. That minority of criminals truly disgust me. They have no concept of the real world out there. They have no concept of the misery they bring to those less fortunate than themselves.

I hope that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and those on the Front Benches will join me in making working here more bearable for our staff, myself and my colleagues. I will not dignify his existence by tarnishing Hansard with his name, but there is a noisy man outside who dresses up as a clown and harasses and chases Members of Parliament and our staff from his little camp on the crossing island on Parliament Street. He is someone else who serves no public benefit whatsoever.

[Lee Anderson]

I know the character my hon. Friend alludes to, and I have witnessed some ferocious verbal attacks on my hon. Friend from that character, who patrols Whitehall like a public nuisance. May I suggest telling him that, if he is interested in changing things in this country, he should come to Dudley North and stand against my hon. Friend at the next general election?

[Marco Longhi]

In fact, that invitation has already been made. I am going to print off a set of nomination papers, but I wonder about the 10 people this person might need for the form to be valid.

My staff cannot hear distressed constituents on the phone through the awful racket he causes. All our staff who have offices in 1 Parliament Street suffer considerable stress and anxiety from the disruption he causes to their, and our, work. I doubt that staff in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the buildings opposite, would say anything different—[Interruption.] Is someone wanting to intervene? I do not know. I heard some noises. It is like a Hoover—an irritating thing in the background. I do not know what it is.

This person needs to have his loudspeaker system confiscated and to be moved on. Personally, I would like to see him locked up in the Tower with a loudspeaker playing “Land of Hope and Glory” on repeat at maximum volume. The Met Police really should deal with him. He is causing misery to hundreds of staff, he is intimidating many—

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

No, he’s not!

[Marco Longhi]

I think someone wants to intervene, Mr Deputy Speaker. This person intimidates many who are passing by, going about our business and representing our constituents—

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

No, he doesn’t!

[Marco Longhi]

Would the hon. Gentleman like to intervene?

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

The hon. Member clearly does not know how Parliament works, but we often make sounds across the Chamber when we disagree with someone, and I disagree with him. I am happy to swap offices: I will take his office and he can have my office. Then there will be no problem and we will not need to shut down free speech either. Win-win!

[Marco Longhi]

I am actually very comfortable for the hon. Member to come to Dudley North and make those very arguments, because he would be out of office completely. Please do come and make those very arguments. I am not going to allow this kind of behaviour from someone outside, who is a public nuisance, to force us to have to make changes for him.

Our police, whether in Dudley, the Met or elsewhere, need the tools to better manage and tackle the dangerous and highly disruptive tactics used by a small minority of selfish protesters to wreak havoc on people going about their daily lives. Our police already have enough to be doing without the unnecessary burden of a privileged few who seek to rinse taxpayers’ money.

It will come as no surprise that I wholeheartedly support the Public Order Bill. If that disruptive minority want to glue themselves to anything, maybe the Bill should make it easier for them to have their backsides glued to a tiny cell at Her Majesty’s pleasure. They would be most welcome.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Mark Hendrick]

I certainly agree with that point. In fact, as the Minister knows, there has been a big shift away from things such as car and telephone theft. Many people are now finding that their identities are being stolen and fraud is taking place as a result of computer crime, which is a big problem. We certainly see problems in cyber-space in terms of defence. I am pleased that the cyber-security centre is coming to Lancashire and hopes to do a great deal in that area. I am still quite bemused by the size of the resources being committed to police forces up and down the country to tackle this sort of thing, and the lack of wherewithal for Companies House to try to tackle fraud with businesses. I have had a number of cases of online fraud in my own constituency, about which I have written to the Government.

With the Online Safety Bill having been carried over into this Session, we have seen how delay has allowed disinformation to spread like wildfire online, particularly during Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, which obviously speaks to the point I have just made about cyber-crime and cyber-security. We want to see more effort on scams included in the scope of that legislation, to which I know the Labour party is committed.

The data reform Bill will reform the way data is handled in the UK after Brexit. The Government have said that the changes will help to increase the competitiveness of UK businesses and boost the economy, but reinventing the wheel by finding an alternative to the general data protection regulation just so the Government can claim freedom from so-called EU red tape is a waste of time. It is posturing really, and just creating new standards for data security is not going to solve any problems.

On the question of security itself, with the current state of affairs internationally, I think the Government need to be reminded of how critical national security is. We welcome the National Security Bill, and we want to limit state threats activity in the UK. As has been witnessed in the Russian invasion of Ukraine and in state-backed interference in the UK before that, there are changing threats to the UK, and legislation on foreign interference must keep pace with the reality on the ground. We want better security and we support the National Security Bill, but we want this situation to be transformed quickly, with the cyber centre I have mentioned being constructed and the experts in there as soon as possible.

On the Public Order Bill, this should really be about tackling injustice. However, it is not about tackling injustice; it is about restricting further rights to protest in a legitimate way. There are extreme cases, as we saw here when people glued themselves to the glass in the Gallery overlooking the Chamber, but laws exist at the moment to deal with that sort of thing. The normal activity of demonstrations is something that, as a free country, we have come to expect, and if the Government are too heavy-handed on this, Bill will do a great deal more to cause problems by not allowing people to protest freely.

There is talk about an energy security Bill and how it will build on the success of last year’s COP26 environment summit in Glasgow, with a pledge to build up to eight nuclear power stations and to increase wind and solar energy production in the UK. Again, I, as a Labour Member, and my party will support an energy security Bill. In particular, an increase in the provision of nuclear power is a no-brainer to me. Over the last 20 years—I do stress the last 20 years, and I would include the Labour Government as well—what we have seen in this country is a lot of talk about nuclear without much being done. I certainly welcome the consideration given to small modular reactors, which will provide very efficient nuclear power from engines that were originally designed to power nuclear submarines rather than provide power to the public. There is potential for great developments to see us move towards a carbon-free future, and not only in this country, but for exports abroad. In the area of my constituency, we have Springfields—formerly British Nuclear Fuels, but now part of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation—which is a world leader in producing nuclear fuels. I think the 1,000-plus people who work at Springfields can look forward to extra work if this Government and any future Labour Government are committed to delivering on the ground, instead of just the talk we have had over the last 20 years.

[Marco Longhi]

On the very point of small modular reactors, does the hon. Member recognise that the Government have invested some £220 million at Rolls-Royce? It is not just talk, as he asserts.

[Sir Mark Hendrick]

Yes, and Mike Tynan, formerly of Westinghouse, who is a good friend of mine—he still lives near Preston—has been involved through the Advanced Manufacturing Centre in Sheffield and done a great deal of work in the area. After 12 years, I am glad that the Government finally see the benefit of that for the future, but it has taken the instability of the wholesale energy markets to bring that about. I would have liked to have seen it much earlier in this Government’s tenure or within Labour’s tenure. It should not take a war for us to move in that direction.

On energy security, I am concerned about restarting the debate about fracking. In Lancashire, we had an experimental phase of fracking, and I was quite agnostic about it when the coalition were in government and the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), was the Energy Minister, but I am not now, because in moving from experimentation towards production we saw tremors measuring seven or eight on the Richter scale. At the time, we were told that any tremors above two or three on the scale would be dangerous and assured that the Government would look at whether work should continue, but now the Secretary of State is starting to look again at fracking. He argues that the wholesale energy market has brought that on, but the decision to put a moratorium on fracking had nothing to do with that; it was about safety in production. It was never a consideration to lift the moratorium because of energy prices. It is a desperate attempt to bring that dangerous business to certain communities—in the north of England in particular—when it is not warranted on safety grounds or, for that matter, on energy grounds. Nuclear can provide the extra energy that we need, so I support the Government in what they are trying to do on nuclear, but they are making a mistake if they think that they can revisit fracking. Labour welcomes steps for a low-carbon economy and the commitment to nuclear, and the impact that that will have on our energy independence.

Today’s debate is also about justice and, when we discuss the delivery of justice, it would be remiss of us not to mention food injustice, which we see in this country at the moment. Justice is not just about what is happening in the courts; it is also about fairness and what is happening in society. I am a Labour and Co-operative MP, and one of the co-operative movement’s founding principles is tackling hunger and food insecurity, which is critical in the face of a cost of living crisis. In one of the richest countries on earth, no one should go hungry.

Millions of people are affected by the cost of living, and in the UK 2 million people—mainly adults—have had a day when they went entirely without eating food. In this day and age, we should not accept that. We want a fair food Act that enshrines a commitment to zero hunger by 2030—a sustainable development goal that should be put into UK law—and a comprehensive national food strategy, but those were not included in the Queen’s Speech. If we were really concerned about justice, people’s ability to eat should be a priority, but the Government have not really considered that. It should have been in the Queen’s Speech. We are also aware that as many as 16 million people may be in poverty by 2023, which is less than a year away, and, according to the Resolution Foundation, 1.3 million are currently suffering in extreme poverty.

While not specifically mentioned in the Queen’s Speech, it is no secret that the Government are preparing new draft legislation to unilaterally scrap key parts of the Northern Ireland protocol, including chucking away checks on goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, stripping away powers of the European Court of Justice and eliminating all requirements for Northern Irish businesses to follow EU regulations. That all comes from a Government and Prime Minister who negotiated and agreed to the protocol. In September 2020, the Government were prepared to break international law in

“a very specific and limited way”—[Official Report, 8 September 2020; Vol. 679, c. 509.]

when it came to the protocol, before backing down. Yet here we are again as global Britain, issuing thinly veiled threats to Brussels under the guise of protecting peace and stability in Northern Ireland, all the while jeopardising relationships with Dublin, Brussels and Washington, and any credibility we would otherwise have with international trade partners.

The Government are currently trumpeting the Australia and New Zealand trade deal, mentioned in the Queen’s Speech, which they are looking to put through the House. The degree of trade we have lost as a result of the shenanigans over Brexit and what is happening in Northern Ireland at the moment is phenomenal. No amount of trade deals we are likely to do over the next five years will replace that loss. That is not what Brexit should have been about, according to the Government’s own declarations in the run-up to the referendum.

The Prime Minister said that the Brexit freedoms Bill, mentioned yesterday, would allow the UK to

“get on with growing our economy by making the most of our Brexit freedoms”.

by liberating the economy in the wake of the UK’s departure from the EU. Yet by overturning the protocol, the UK risks the possibility of trade retaliation during a cost of living crisis, which is a perfect storm in terms of the livelihoods of people in this country and the businesses that support those livelihoods. We are just now beginning to see the fallout from Brexit. We would have seen the fallout earlier but for covid, and now the effects of covid are being masked by increases in energy prices as a result of the Ukraine war. The cost of living crisis has several factors, which I have just mentioned. The Government are returning to the 2019 playbook of using the EU as a bogeyman following last week’s dismal election results, but people know the ruse and are tired of being taken for fools when it comes to Brexit and its so-called benefits.

The country cannot continue like this, with a cost of living crisis and the Government sleepwalking with a threadbare Queen’s Speech that will do little or nothing to improve the livelihoods and living standards of the people of this country.