Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

In the time given, I wish to speak on Government amendments (a) and (b) to the Bill in lieu of Lords amendments 189 and 146. Of course, I am speaking about the amendment to repeal the Vagrancy Act 1824, which brings us a massive step closer to ending rough sleeping and would drastically change how we view and help those on the streets.

For almost 200 years, the criminalisation of the homeless has shamed our country, but at long last the Vagrancy Act’s days are numbered. I thank the Minister for his constructive discussions with me, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) for being beside me, both when he was on the Front Bench and now on the Back Benches, fighting for the repeal of the Vagrancy Act.

I know there has been some concern in our discussions about the Vagrancy Act’s disappearing and our inability to deal with aggressive begging. I want to make the point that there are powers in place today in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 which are now used by the police in the majority of cases against aggressive begging. It should be no surprise, therefore, that arrests and prosecutions under the Vagrancy Act have plummeted since 2014. From the conversations I have had with the Met and the City of London Police, I believe alternative powers to deal with aggressive begging are already available.

I am a pragmatist, so I accept the Government’s position of seeking a thorough and comprehensive review, but I ask the Minister to ensure that that is done quickly and concisely; up to 18 months is a very long time, so I ask him to please bring it forward. I hope that during the review he and the Home Secretary might consider revising the specific guidance on aggressive begging under the 2014 Act. I would welcome his response on that.

Finally, in my constituency of the Cities of London and Westminster we have the largest number of rough sleepers in the United Kingdom. I hope that the repeal of the Vagrancy Act will send a clear message to those sleeping on the street, tonight and every night that we will help and support them to turn their lives around and we will no longer criminalise them.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

I am really proud to represent Sheffield Hallam for so many reasons, but one that is particularly relevant to today’s debate is the city’s long and proud tradition of protest. In the 1800s, Sheffield’s Chartists took part in mass demonstrations, holding nightly meetings in Sheffield’s Paradise Square to protest against the then royal ban on open-air meetings. Sheffield played a pivotal role in the struggle for women’s suffrage, and our city’s suffragettes took to the streets time and again to fight for the right to vote. My point is that protests have formed the world around us. They are the reason that I stand here today. They have made our world a better place. Protest is often the start of change. Yes, it is often loud and often messy, because people have been ignored for too long and we need to listen.

Without protests, our country would be unrecognisable. Women would not have won the vote. There would be no NHS. Parliament would be less democratic. The right to protest is a person’s right to shape the world around them—to stand up for what they believe is right and to oppose what they believe is wrong. It is a fundamental cornerstone of our democracy. As such, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is a flagrant attack on the core principles of that democracy. When this Bill was first proposed, we rightly saw people come together and spread out into the streets because what was being proposed was utterly draconian. I am proud to have worked with the Bishop of Sheffield and many others to talk about how this will impact on Sheffield’s history but also our future.

Having heard what has happened in the other place, I am glad that several amendments have been proposed that would mitigate the worst impacts of the Bill—particularly amendment 73 removing the ability of the police to impose noise-based restrictions on public processions, amendment 80 on giving police the power to impose greater conditions on static demonstrations, and amendment 87 removing their ability to impose conditions on one-person protests. The idea that one person cannot protest or should not be allowed to express themselves is completely at odds with what our democracy should stand for.

We live in a climate and ecological emergency where the future is not only for our country but for the whole planet, and it will be determined by the actions that are taken over the next few years. It is absolutely right that people should be able to hold us to account by raising their voices on our inaction. We have seen a brilliant wave of young people standing up for our environment—for a liveable planet for future generations. We should hold on to those thoughts as we protect protest.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I rise to consider Lords amendments 89 and 146 and the Government’s amendments in lieu. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) on their speeches on this subject. I declare my interest as the co-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on ending homelessness.

There are two aspects to the Vagrancy Act. The first, of course, is being homeless. I have always taken the view that someone should be assisted and not arrested if they have nowhere to live. That is one of the reasons it is desperately important that we end the Vagrancy Act as fast as we possibly can. One of the considerations is that when we go and speak to people who are homeless, rough sleeping on the street, they will say that they fear authority—they fear the police. They should not fear the police; the police should be able to assist in trying to direct them to charities or other bodies that can help them to find a secure place to live instead of their being threatened with either being moved on or literally being arrested. That is one of the most important reasons why we want this off the statute book as fast as possible.

The other aspect is begging. Antisocial behaviour, begging under false pretence of need, forcing others to beg and trespassing are all outlawed under our much more modern legal actions. The police have the powers to deal with this without using the Vagrancy Act, but they will use it because it is a catch-all. In 2014, 2,219 people were prosecuted under the Vagrancy Act, but in 2019 this dropped to 742, demonstrating that we do not need it any more and we must get rid of it.

During the pandemic, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark led the way on ensuring that everyone was taken off the streets, for which I commend him and the whole Department. However, the rough sleeper count is now back to 4,500—half what it was in 2019 but still far too high.

I am glad that the Government have given way, finally, on abolishing the Vagrancy Act, but I am worried, because we cannot afford to wait 18 months. We will then reach the 200th anniversary of that Act being brought in, which was way before any of us were thought of, let alone born. The reality is, Minister, that you are considering the introduction of a new Bill that will delay things yet further. Can you give us—

LGBTQ+ Afghan Refugees

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Tuesday 21st September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Streeter. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) for proposing this incredibly important debate. Many in this Chamber will struggle to describe some of the things that have been said. I have a huge amount of respect for the work of the diplomats and the armed forces in this challenging time.

Like all crises, what is unravelling in Afghanistan today will fall hardest on the most vulnerable in Afghan society, and certainly on LGBTQ+ people. Afghans have been living in a state of protracted crisis. Before withdrawal, 18.4 million people, nearly half of the population, required humanitarian aid, 30.5 million people, more than three quarters of the population, required some form of assistance from the state or non-governmental organisations, and 19.1 million people, nearly half the population, lived below the poverty line. A humanitarian crisis is a human rights crisis, and we cannot partition it off from LGBTQ+ rights. Many LGBTQ+ people are living in fear and joining the stream of people who have left Afghanistan over the past 20 years.

I am sad to say that, despite the human rights situation on the ground, those refugees have not necessarily received a warm welcome in the UK. In 2010, before US and British troop withdrawal, Germany welcomed just under 148,000 Afghan refugees. The UK took only 9,351. For LGBTQ+ people, the story is worse. Human Rights Watch provides insight into how LGBTQ+ refugees have been treated. It quotes an annexe from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s guidance on Afghanistan from 2017, which says:

“the only option for a homosexual individual…would be to conceal their sexual orientation to avoid punishment.”

At the same time, we have heard about the immigration office guidance, which says:

“it may be a safe and viable option for a gay man to relocate to Kabul.”

Those conflicting departmental statements show that the Government did not have LGBTQ+ people at heart. Notably, the UN advises that asylum seekers

“cannot be denied refugee status based on a requirement that they change or conceal their identity, opinions or characteristics in order to avoid persecution.”

I tried looking for the documents quoted in the Human Rights Watch article, but thankfully they appear to have been deleted. At least, the links are broken. I hope that the Minister can clarify what the Department’s official position was at the time, either in her response or in a note after the debate. Suffice it to say that the Government do not appear to have a very good record on delivering support to LGBTQ+ asylum seekers. I am glad that they have said that the resettlement scheme will include LGBTQ+ people, but I will be watching its implementation carefully. We also know that transphobia, homophobia and biphobia exist in the UK. What training will relevant staff receive on this issue, particularly about the situation on the ground in neighbouring countries?

The problems that LGBTQ+ asylum seekers face in claiming asylum are well documented. I have heard numerous shocking stories of how asylum seekers have had to prove their sexuality, and the offensive way their testimony has been dismissed. Without safe routes, LGBTQ+ asylum seekers fear for their lives and do not know how to get to safety. The Government’s new Nationality and Borders Bill will only make that situation worse. Can the Minister give her assurance that refugees coming here on the Afghan citizens’ resettlement scheme will not be subject to the same intrusive and, frankly, abusive lines of questioning? The Government have so far failed in their obligations to LGBTQ+ asylum seekers. Rather than baking those failures into Afghan resettlement schemes, Ministers must ensure that the system treats applicants with the human decency that they deserve.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Olivia Blake Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading - Day 2
Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab) [V]]

First, I would like to offer my condolences to Sarah Everard’s family and friends. My thoughts are with them and all those who have lost a mother, daughter, sister or friend to violence at the hands of men.

Like many of my constituents, I was shocked by the images that came out of Clapham common over the weekend. There is something very ugly about a group of women being manhandled, pushed to the ground and pinned for mourning yet another victim of male violence against women. The Home Secretary says that the legislation will make us safer, but after this weekend, I do not feel safer. The events on Saturday night show us the opposite of what the Home Secretary has concluded—far from the police not having enough powers, the sad truth is that the powers they do have are already open to abuse. That truth is not only demonstrated by the women who came to mourn and lay flowers over the weekend; it is written in the headlines about the women who survived the horrors of the spy cops scandal, the headlines about black, Asian and minority ethnic people being killed in police custody and the headlines about the Alfie Meadows and the Ian Tomlinsons who are struck down by police just for being in the presence of a demonstration.

This Bill is the latest in a series that, rather than safeguarding our right to protest, grant even more powers to crack down on dissent. Rather than addressing the real problems in our courts—just look at the gigantic backlog of cases waiting to go to trial, many of which will be domestic abuse, violent crime and rape cases—this Government want to hand out harsher punishments for damaging a statue than harassing a woman in the street.

So I do not feel safer, and there is one group of people who will feel significantly less safe and secure because of the Bill: the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community. If the Government were serious about addressing the issue of unauthorised encampments, they would tackle the real problem: the shortage of places where it is permitted to stop and reside. All this legislation will do is strip people of their homes, push them into the criminal justice system and criminalise the way of life of an already persecuted community.

What we needed today was a Bill that dealt with the very real problems in our criminal justice system, respecting our rights to protest and to live our lives how we choose. That is what makes people safer, and we got the opposite of that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I like the hon. Gentleman, but I am afraid he is completely wrong. This is the Government who have put money into the profession. Let me tell him one thing: under his Government, does he know how much money was paid for unused material for advocates? Not a penny piece. This is the Government who are putting money into the profession. That is the way it is going to stay.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Robert Buckland)]

The first duty of any Government is to protect their people. Too often, our system of sentencing in England and Wales does not command the public’s confidence, so last week I laid a White Paper entitled, “A Smarter Approach to Sentencing”. The measures in the White Paper will keep serious violent and sexual offenders in prison for longer and prevent the automatic release of prisoners before the end of their sentence if they present a danger to the public.

Protecting the public from the effects of lower level offending also means finding new ways to break cycles of crime. Our proposals for robust community sentences, backed by an empowered probation service and utilising the most up-to-date technology, will make the smart interventions to address the things that can drive low-level offending, such as poor mental health, and drug and alcohol addiction. This smarter approach will grow confidence in our system of justice.

A cross-Government approach will characterise the reforms, but as we bring them before the House I also look forward to support from across the political divide, so that we can work together to keep the public safe from harm and to bring down stubbornly high rates of reoffending for good.

[Olivia Blake]

The prison operator G4S is withholding full sick pay from workers who operate in close contact with prisoners. Does the Secretary of State agree with me and the GMB union that that is scandalous? Will he support calls for G4S to provide the sick pay its workers deserve?

[Robert Buckland]

While it would be wrong of me to make direct comment on what is, sadly, a dispute, I will certainly look into the matter and report back to the hon. Lady on the latest progress or otherwise. I hugely value prison staff and the incredible work they have done, not just throughout the covid pandemic but beforehand.