Public Order Bill

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Relevant documents: First Report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Legislative Scrutiny: Public Order Bill, HC 351, and the Government response, HC 649.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I inform the House that I have selected amendments (a) and (b) to Lords amendment 5.

Clause 9

Offence of interference with access to or provision of abortion services

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)]

I beg to move amendment (a) to Lords amendment 5.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Lords amendment 5, and amendment (b) thereto.

Lords amendment 6, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 7, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 8, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 9, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 36, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 1, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendment (a) in lieu.

Lords amendment 17, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendment (a) in lieu.

Lords amendments 20, 21, 23, 27, 28 and 31 to 33, Government motions to disagree, and Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.

Lords amendments 2 to 4, 10 to 16, 18, 19, 22, 24 to 26, 29, 30, 34, 35 and 37.

[Andrew Lewer]

I have tabled my amendment because the Bill, in its current form, has a problem. The part of the Bill it deals with is leading us into the territory of thought crimes and creates unprecedented interference with the rights to freedom of speech and thought in the UK.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

May I first seek your advice, Mr Deputy Speaker? May I speak to the other amendments on the order paper?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Please speak only to the amendments that are before us today.

[Jon Trickett]

Thank you for your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker: I just wanted to be clear.

I have some sympathy with the points made by the hon. Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer), although clearly the ability of people to go about their lawful business at work, including clinicians, administrative assistants and women going to have procedures, must be protected. I am not convinced that his amendment (a) would achieve an absence of harassment, so I will not support it and the House should not do so either.

I have some sympathy with the points the hon. Gentleman made, however, because the whole Bill is an assault on British liberty. That is the central point, and I will illustrate it in several ways later in my speech. This is an extraordinary Bill. It will hand unprecedented, draconian powers to the repressive arms of the British state, but we have been given only three hours to discuss it. The debate on protecting people going for abortions could take three hours in itself, but we are faced with a series of amendments that were debated in the Lords over days. We have been given three hours, and that is outrageous. Why have the Government provided so little time to discuss these matters, some of which go back a thousand years in English history?

Lords amendment 6 deals with stop and search without suspicion. The police will be granted the power to intercept people who are not even suspected of committing a crime. That is an extraordinary power after more than 1,000 years of the struggle by the British people for a state that protects our liberty. Several of those who spoke in the debate in the other place said that the only comparison they could think of was in the laws that were passed against terrorism. Protesting about injustice is not terrorism, and to conflate the two is a mistake. I have not heard the Government make the case for that, and I will be interested to hear what they have to say. The police have said that they do not want these powers, and previous members of the judiciary in the Lords said that they were concerned about how the Bill could be interpreted.

The Bill as it stands will lead to a further breakdown in confidence between the police and other parts of the state on the one hand, and communities on the other. One example is the Sarah Everard case, where police moved in to prevent what was effectively peaceful and justified protest. That led to a major breakdown in confidence in the Met, although that was already in process because it was a serving police officer who had committed the crime. The police used the covid rules that were then in place, the appropriateness of which had been debated in the House.