Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Nineteeth sitting)

Robert Goodwill Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th June 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Philp]

I am coming close to saying that. I am saying that this is something that the Government are currently looking at. The Government accept the need to act on this, as the Lord Chancellor said, and on those other offences as well. I do not want to say too much before we are in a position to do so properly, but there are intentions to put in place a process to properly review these offences, on an expedited basis, with the intention of legislation then following. That is where the Government are coming from on this. I hope that it will be possible to say more on Report.

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that he is probably coming as close as he can—within his pay grade—to making that commitment?

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

I will come to the figures in a moment because they will, I hope, help the Committee understand the approach that the Government are taking.

In the protests, or demonstrations—or however one wants to describe them—there can be a range of activities, and the hon. Lady has, understandably, focused on some of the most upsetting forms of activity. There are more peaceful ways of protesting, however, and I do not think it would be right for me to pretend that every single protest has the ability to harass and alarm in the way in which she has said some protests do. The advantage of PSPOs is that they are very local. They are brought by local authorities in the circumstances of their area, and the conditions imposed will reflect the conditions of the protests faced outside service providers.

[Mr Goodwill]

I was going to make a similar point to that made by the hon. Member for Rotherham. Is it not the case that many local authorities find the process complex and expensive? Will the Minister consider providing a toolbox or other assistance to local authorities to enable them to do this in a way that does not put them outside their comfort zones in the areas in which they have been working?

[Victoria Atkins]

Very much so. Indeed, that has been part of our work with the review. We conducted the first review in 2018 and, to put this in context—I will read the figures out because I want to make sure they are correct—of the 406 clinics and hospitals identified as providing those services, providers told us that only 36 had stated that they experience any protest activity.

[Victoria Atkins]

I accept that, and of course, women can be in a distressed state when they are approaching clinics. They may be in turmoil and may have questions about what they are about to do—they may well have doubts. I am sympathetic to the idea that not every protest has to display the sorts of posters that the hon. Member for Rotherham has described to unsettle or upset women accessing those services.

I have a second set of figures. The figures are important because we as a Government have to look at proportionate responses. The first set of figures came out of the 2018 review. Since then, to come to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby, we have again asked service providers for their views and whether there has been an increase or decrease in activity. The figure I have been provided with is that 35 out of the 142 registered clinics are currently or have recently been affected by protest activities. Five hospitals have been affected. That compares with 32 clinics and four hospitals being affected in 2018.

I am told, incidentally, that one of the clinics that had been reviewed in 2018 has since closed down, so that may explain that difference. I give the figures because that is why we are concerned that a blanket ban across all of the service providers may not be proportionate, given that the majority of clinics and the overwhelming majority of hospitals that provide these services do not appear to have been affected by protest activity thus far. That is why we believe that a localised approach of PSPOs, with councils using the orders, is the way forward.

We have also looked very carefully at whether there is work we can do to help councils understand the powers that they have under the orders. Again, we believe that the law is in a good place at the moment, but we very much keep this under review.

[Mr Goodwill]

I thank the Minister for those assurances. Would it also be the case that where an abortion clinic is in a general hospital, the measure could unintentionally prevent people from protesting against the closure of a ward or a service, or trade unionists protesting about a particular aspect of their employment rights?

[Victoria Atkins]

My right hon. Friend raises an important point. That is why we have looked so carefully at the universality of the measures put forward by the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton and why we believe that PSPOs, which are targeted and have been upheld by the Court of Appeal, seem to be the most effective way of managing these very difficult circumstances outside particular service providers.

I appreciate that this may be corrected before Report, but we are also concerned that proposed subsection (3) of the new clause potentially includes medical practitioners and others providing advice on abortion services within the confines of the buffer zone—in other words, within the clinic. Nobody—but nobody—would want that to be an unintended consequence of the new clause. My right hon. Friend has alighted on another unintended consequence—that other forms of protest may be caught by the new clause.

We very much understand the motivations behind the new clause and the work that parliamentarians have been conducting over recent years in order to shed light on this issue, but the Government do not feel able to support new clause 43.