Crime and Policing Bill

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 10th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

This Bill presents an opportunity to confront the challenges facing our communities, protect the most vulnerable and ensure that justice serves everyone. I welcome the Government’s commitment to tackling violence against women and girls, to tackling antisocial behaviour and to halving knife crime. This is a positive step forward, strengthening protections for the public and addressing some of the damaging policies of the previous Government. I must therefore turn my attention to the impact of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.

In its rush to extend police powers, this legislation has had a devastating effect on Gypsy and Traveller communities. The Act introduced a new criminal offence related to trespass, and granted sweeping powers to ban those communities from areas for up to 12 months, as well as powers to fine, arrest, imprison and seize the homes of Gypsies and Travellers. Under these provisions, sanctions can be enforced based on damage, disruption or distress, often rooted in subjective perceptions of harm. This means that entire communities could face eviction or banishment from areas, with little regard for the cultural context or the lack of alternative places to settle.

These measures are a grave injustice and an affront to the rights and dignity of those who follow centuries-old ways of life. It is concerning that, in the supposed pursuit of law and order, the previous Government overlooked fundamental human rights protections. I must stress that the impact of these measures is not theoretical; it is real and it is being lived. It is affecting families, children and entire communities. Human rights bodies have raised their concerns. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in its formal recommendation, has called for the repeal of the provisions in question and, importantly, the High Court, in its ruling in 2024, found that certain provisions in the Act were incompatible with the European convention on human rights. This Parliament has a duty to address these human rights violations and to correct the injustices done.

The Crime and Policing Bill offers us the opportunity to right the wrongs of the past, to restore fairness and to ensure that we have laws that respect the rights of all people, regardless of their heritage or way of life. This Bill could be the means by which we address the discrimination faced by Gypsies and Travellers. We need bold action to ensure that their traditions are protected. All people and all communities have the right to fair treatment. If we really want to stand for justice and human dignity, that must apply to all, so as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Gypsies, Travellers and Roma, I urge the Government to undo the harm of the previous legislation. Let us stand for equality under the law and protection for all who live in the United Kingdom.

Crime and Policing Bill

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 18th June 2025 Commons Chamber

We know that road accidents happen, but if someone wilfully gets behind the wheel of a car when unlicensed and uninsured, and swerves in and out of traffic, that is not an accident; it is a dangerous choice to put others’ lives at risk. New clause 51 would rightly treat such behaviour as seriously as driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. It would close a loophole in the current law and bring greater justice for victims. If the new clause does not progress today, I ask the Minister to meet me and Emma to ensure that her campaign continues.

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I rise to speak in support of new clause 25, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter). It seeks to repeal the unnecessary and arbitrary police powers introduced via the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which introduced new powers to seize the homes of Gypsy and Traveller families, and to fine, arrest and imprison them. The powers contained in part 4 of the Act have had a devastating impact on Romani Gypsy and Irish Traveller communities, and on a culture that is not only centuries old but protected by law. The Government have a legal and moral duty to facilitate this way of life, not to legislate it out of existence.

As we heard earlier from my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick, in May 2024 the High Court found certain provisions in part 4 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act to be incompatible with the Human Rights Act. The Government have so far failed meaningfully to respond to that, let alone correct it. In issuing the declaration of incompatibility, the High Court recognised the lack of transit provision for Gypsy and Traveller communities across England, and the impact that the Act’s powers have on Gypsy and Traveller families. If there is any doubt in people’s minds about the state of transit provision in England, I refer them to the research published this year by Friends, Families and Travellers, which found that 92% of the 362 local authorities have no transit provision at all.

Notably, the introduction of the powers has an effect on the community’s fears of being targeted and sanctioned. I will share the words of someone from the Romany community who has been directly impacted by these powers, which highlight the human consequences of these laws:

“This law adds to the knock-on effects we face daily with access to healthcare and education; being moved on constantly has been detrimental to my health, as sometimes I have to drive over 100 miles to see a GP. I could be made a criminal and lose my home, all because I have never known any different.”

It is painfully obvious that what we need are not criminal sanctions for families who have nowhere to stop; the answer is, of course, to create laws which ensure there are enough places for people to stop—I might add that the Planning and Infrastructure Bill provides the perfect opportunity for that.

As I stand here today during Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month, I urge the Government not to delay further. Let us repeal part 4 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act through this Bill, and take a meaningful step towards justice, inclusion and respect for all communities.

[Liz Jarvis (Eastleigh) (LD)]

I would like to start by paying tribute to Berney Hall, who is in the Gallery today and who has been campaigning for a change in the law to remove the 12-month limitation period for historic cases of rape of 13 to 15-year-old girls, when they occurred before 2004. It can take years for victims of abuse to come forward. Baroness Kennedy of Cradley tabled amendments to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill in the other place which sought to close this loophole, but they were not taken forward by the previous Government. That is why I have tabled new clause 160. I hope the Government will give all survivors of this terrible crime the closure and justice they deserve.

I am supporting several amendments today, including new clause 9 tabled by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). I recently met a mum from my constituency whose ex-partner was convicted of sexual communication with a child and put on the sex offenders register, but was then allowed to change his name. Understandably, my constituent was horrified to learn that he could take on a new identity, and that other women might not be aware. New clause 9 would stop offenders avoiding monitoring measures that are important for public safety, as well as reassuring victims that perpetrators cannot dodge the repercussions of their actions.

I am also supporting new clauses 85 to 88, new clauses 121 and 122, and new clause 102. In addition, I support new clause 120, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding), which would strengthen protections for emergency workers by addressing hate-motivated offences committed against them in private dwellings. No one doing their job to protect others should face abuse. Whether on the street or in someone’s home, hate-fuelled attacks on those who serve the public must be prosecuted with the seriousness they warrant.

Finally, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) for tabling new clause 43, which would ensure the Government implement the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act 2023. No one should have to put up with sexual harassment and this change in the law is long overdue.

Crime and Policing Bill

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 14th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. He made the point earlier, and I think it is completely rational and understandable.

What adds to my anxiety is that in the normal run of things, a serious matter such as this would be introduced in the House of Commons, and there would be a proper Commons debate, after which the matter would go off to the Lords, and then come back to us. I feel that we are being bounced into this today, and I did not expect that of my Government on an issue of this sort, because it is so important, and because it will have major consequences for us in the future—and particularly for our movement, which was based on protest from the very beginning. We seem to be undermining our historic tradition, and our commitment to a role that we have played historically and will almost inevitably need to play in the future.

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

There is much in the Bill that is serious and worthy of support. The measures to tackle shop theft, protect retail workers, strengthen the response to exploitation and abuse and deal with knife crime are all important. However, Lords amendment 312 raises a very different prospect. It is not really about violent disorder or intimidation. It is about making it easier to restrict repeated protest. It would require the police, when deciding whether to impose conditions on a protest, to take into account what the Bill calls “cumulative disruption”. That means not just the disruption caused by the protest, but disruption said to arise from other protests in the same area that were held, are being held, or are intended to be held. The organiser does not have to be the same; the cause does not even have to be the same.

That should concern every Member of this House, because effective protest is very often cumulative, and democratic campaigning is nearly always repetitive. The campaigners come back again and again. That is true of the trade union movement, true of the suffragettes, and true of the civil rights tradition more broadly. The cumulative nature of protest is not a flaw in our democracy. It is often the means by which democracy speaks, and that is why amendment 312 is so dangerous in principle. It takes something that has always been central to democratic struggle—persistence—and starts to treat it as a problem to be managed down. It turns the repeated exercise of democratic freedom into a reason for state restriction. Once the House accepts that logic, we move on to very difficult ground indeed.

Laws like this are never drafted only for the Government of the day. They remain on the statute book. They pass into other hands. We would be naive not to ask how a future hard-right Government might use a power like this. As the TUC has warned, broad “cumulative disruption” tests could all too easily be used against trade union demonstrations, against long-running industrial disputes, against repeated pickets, rallies and marches, and against the kind of organised working-class protest that has been central to the Labour movement and to the winning of rights in this country. That is not alarmism. It is exactly why Parliament should be careful about creating broad powers that can later be wielded by Ministers and authorities with far less respect for civil liberties.

Peaceful protest is not an inconvenience to be tolerated only once. It is a democratic right, and one of the clearest tests of whether we truly believe in that right is whether we still defend it when it is persistent, visible and effective. That was true of the Chartists demanding political reform, the match girls and dockers fighting for dignity at work, the anti-apartheid movement that refused to give up, and the suffragettes who were crucial in securing the vote for women.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making an important speech on the right to protest, but does she accept that many members of the Jewish community feel intimidated by regular marches by the pro-Palestinian brigade, who demonstrate loudly and not always peacefully in the same area, week after week? How does she believe that that community can be protected from such intimidation?

[Mary Kelly Foy]

I agree that some protests can feel intimidating. On the Palestine protests, people have never protested outside synagogues, and they do not protest outside mosques. Given the proper police protections that already exist, there is no reason for the Jewish community to feel intimidated. But the fact is that this goes far beyond the Jewish community, for all the reasons that I have outlined.

It was said in the past that we should not protest again and again for women’s right to vote, or for trade unions to win their rights against unscrupulous employers. In their name, and in the name of the whole Labour movement, Lords amendment 312 ought to be rejected.

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

There are many important proposals before us today, and I congratulate the Minister on bringing them forward. I wholeheartedly support the Government’s efforts to tackle antisocial behaviour, offensive weapons, fly-tipping, the exploitation of children, and appalling sexual offences. However, Lords amendment 312, which was introduced in the other place, dangerously infringes on civil liberties.

It is incumbent on all Members to jealously guard the rights of our constituents, and any restriction of their civil liberties should only be accepted by this House on the basis of overwhelming evidence that such proposals would strengthen, rather than undermine, the health of our democracy. On this occasion, however, we have had next to no evidence whatsoever, because these significant changes were only introduced after the original passage of the Bill through this House, which is ultimately a pretty sorry way to treat representative parliamentary democracy.

Lords amendment 312 is out of step with the best traditions of this country and of the Labour party, which has always existed to redress the balance of power in favour of ordinary people. The Chartists, the suffragettes, the organisers of the Kinder Scout trespass, those who stood against fascism at Cable Street, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Jarrow crusade—these were protest movements and campaigns of direct action that were supported and led by giants of our party, and which we should celebrate, not disown. They were advancing Labour’s historic mission to wrest power from the established status quo, so that ordinary people have a real say over their lives. Lords amendment 312 contradicts that impulse, and risks shifting the balance of power in our society towards the vested interests that we ought to take on.

The corrosive influence of the rich and powerful runs through every corner of our politics. It muddies policymaking and leaves our constituents asking whether decisions are made in their interests, or in those of the last donor who paid £2,000 a head at a lobbyist curry night. If tweaks are to be made to defend our democracy and prevent disruption to the life of our communities, that would be a far more apt target than the civil liberties of our constituents. Today, Lords amendment 312 is opposed across the Labour movement and civil society by many organisations that share the progressive instincts that should be guiding this Labour Government. That is hardly surprising, given the way this legislation is drafted. It is vague, with no definition of what is meant by

“serious disruption to the life of the community”.

It is widely drawn, with no necessary link between the events considered to be cumulatively disruptive. It does not define the area in question or the timeframe, and it has the blindingly obvious potential to be abused.

The proposals could easily be used to restrict protests simply because they are considered inconvenient due to their persistence, and not because of their content or messages. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) pointed out, this may place substantial political pressure on the decision making of senior police officers. I want to address the concerns raised by several hon. Members in this debate about the intimidation of specific minority groups. I do understand those concerns and they are legitimate, but the legislation is not drafted tightly enough to address that problem. It is far too vague and far too broad to coherently address that point, and it is not what we will achieve by passing this amendment.

Finally, since we are discussing notions of cumulative impact, whatever the stated intentions today, when these plans are considered alongside the recent restrictions on the right to protest against animal testing, a legally contested proscription and other legislation that I assume means that any of my constituents disobeying these plans would not have the right to a trial by their peers, assertions by the Government that they hold the right to protest sacrosanct are wearing so thin as to be clearly transparent. The case for Lords amendment 312 has not been made, we should not be asked to vote for it en bloc alongside other important but entirely separate changes, and I urge Ministers to drop these plans for good.