Public Order Bill

Robin Millar Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

Finally, turning to serious disruption prevention orders, the Bill allows the court to ban a person who has simply taken part in two or more protests that caused “more than a minor” hindrance in a five-year period, as I outlined earlier. It will be a crime to breach an order, with a punishment of imprisonment, a fine or both. As I have set out, “more than a minor” hindrance could mean anything. It could be extremely minor, and the provisions will inhibit and restrict the ability of potentially hundreds of thousands of people from protesting and standing up for their civil liberties. It is draconian. Lords amendment 20 removes that clause allowing serious disruption prevention orders to be issued not on conviction. I hope that colleagues across the House will support these very reasonable amendments.

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

Thank you for selecting the amendments to Lords amendment 5, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would first like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) for bringing his amendments forward. He has put his finger on a couple of important principles about how we do law in this country and how we legislate in this House.

I should start by saying that this debate is absolutely not about abortion. My hon. Friend’s amendments also do not change the legislation regarding buffer zones. As has been said, that debate has happened in this House; they are in place. In fact, the powers providing for buffer zones around abortion clinics already exist. That point was made very well, I may say, by the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq). She is not in her place, but she highlighted how, where buffer zones have been challenged, their presence has been upheld and people protesting within them have been moved on. They are both legal and, it would appear from her description, effective for their purpose.

We therefore have not only laws that provide for buffer zones around abortion clinics but some evidence of what those mean in practice. We have the evidence that there are laws that allow for people to be moved on. However, we also have something rather more disturbing: evidence of the way that law is being interpreted.

I would like to make two points about the law and how we approach it. As a Member coming to this House tasked with understanding the issues that we debate—a wide range of issues on all sorts of things—one of the first questions I ask myself, and often one of the first questions asked of me, is, “What evidence is there of the need for this?” I think that that question of necessity and proportionality is an important one, particularly in relation to amendment (b) to Lords amendment 5 tabled by my hon. Friend, which seeks a pause in the legislation until we have established such a need.

Certainly, before any kind of national provision is introduced, it is reasonable to ask, “What is the necessity, and is this proportional?” In 2018, it was established that that necessity was not there, so I have to ask myself how that has changed and why the measure is felt to be necessary now. Is there a material difference? I must confess that I am struggling to understand the objection to providing or securing that evidence to have the confidence that we are acting proportionally and out of necessity.

My second point on my hon. Friend’s amendments is about, effectively, the carve-out or provision for silent prayer. There is no support in this place, nor has there been throughout the passage of the Bill, for any intimidation or harassment of women seeking the services of an abortion clinic. That is an important point, because that is not what the amendments seek to achieve and we already have laws to deal with that.

We have evidence of an arrest that took place for the act of silent prayer. Amendment (a) seeks to make it clear that that is an inappropriate interpretation of our laws.

[Stella Creasy]

That seems to be the nub of the challenge. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, although he does not feel that silent prayer would intimidate him, plenty of users of the service feel that it is intimidating, so it is right that it is in scope?

[Robin Millar]

The hon. Member has clearly read my notes, because I am coming to that exact point. In response to her earlier comments, I also say that I do not seek to put myself in the place of a woman who is seeking the services of an abortion clinic. I respect the fact that that is an incredibly difficult moment—a sensitive and vital moment—and I cannot seek to understand that from my lived experience, as she said.

Equally, however, as the hon. Member said, it is the presence of the person in that place that is objectionable, because we cannot know what silent prayer is. Hon. Members may well be silently praying that I wrap up my remarks so that we can move to the votes; I have no way of knowing. Prayer is not necessarily marked by a folding of hands, a closing of eyes, a bowing of the head or a thumbing of a rosary, and it is not necessarily marked by kneeling.

Indeed, the evidence from the abortion clinic with a buffer zone around it where the arrest took place is that the person was standing. When challenged, she was arrested on the basis that she was praying silently. There were no placards or graphic images, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton, and there was no shouting—there was nothing. That is the point of concern, because what is the basis for the arrest if it is just the presence of someone who is perhaps in the habit of praying silently?

The importance of the issue comes down to three things: thoughts, words and deeds. If our freedom to think, our freedom to speak and our freedom to act exist on a continuum, where we put the marker of where a freedom ends is a statement about our society. Do we place that marker just beyond the freedom to speak, effectively saying that we must watch our speech and what we say? I think we have already established through the laws of the land that we do that, because we do not allow people to speak freely without consideration.

What we have seen, however, through the implementation of existing local laws that the Bill seeks to make national, is an interpretation that says that we do not have freedom of thought. That is the point of my contribution and of the amendments of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South. Specifically, I support them because first, they are a helpful and sadly necessary clarification that we in this country enjoy freedom of thought and the freedom to practise silent prayer; and secondly, when we make laws, it is incumbent on us to pause to test the need for further legislation before introducing unnecessary legislation.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the shadow Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

The hon. Gentleman has made many good points already this afternoon, and I entirely agree;

“more than a minor degree”

is way too low a bar to allow these interventions. Many Members and many watching the debate would have fallen foul of this law.

The amendment is drawn so widely that it is almost meaningless. As the hon. Gentleman said, when there are protests on Whitehall, near Parliament Square, there can be large crowds, and banners and speeches, so they are noisy. In 1 Parliament Street, where my office is, we have to shut the windows, which is irritating, but we are not hindered to the extent that we expect police interference. There are so many scenarios that could come under the scope of this definition that would render it ludicrous.

If I chain myself to a tree to protest at a new road and a couple of people are unable to cross a road to go to the supermarket, is that more than a minor disruption, or not? We have to remember that serious disruption, however it is defined—and I argue that here it is defined without any legal certainty—does not have to happen for offences under the Bill to be committed. This sloppiness and breadth of drafting is unacceptable, and the police do not want it. They just want clarity, and this will not bring clarity.

Turning to suspicionless stop and search, the Government have tabled a motion to disagree with Lords amendment 6. The motion would reinsert wide-ranging powers for the police to stop and search anyone in the vicinity of a protest, for example shoppers passing a protest against a library closure, tourists walking through Parliament Square, or civil servants walking to their office. If there is a large crowd in Parliament Square and a tourist gets caught up in it, they could be stopped; they could have no idea what is going on, and would be an offence to resist.

Stop and search is disproportionately used against black people in this country. Do Members on the Government Benches really want to pass legislation for powers that risk further damaging the relationship between the police and our communities? Instead of actually targeting serious gun crime, serious knife crime or terrorism, the Government are choosing to focus on stopping and searching people who may or may not be taking part in a protest. That is not proportionate.

Former police officers have warned that these powers risk further diminishing trust in public institutions. That will put the police in a difficult position, and it risks undermining the notion of policing by consent. Members of the other place were right to remove the powers to stop and search without suspicion, and the Government are wrong to put them back in.

We agree with what the Government have done with regard to the journalists clause and amendment (a) in lieu of Lords amendment 17. The right to protest is a hard-won democratic freedom that many have fought for in our history, and many are fighting for it in other parts of the world. A free press is another hallmark of our democratic society. The amendment will not prevent the police from responding to someone who is causing trouble and happens to be a journalist, but, crucially, it will allow reporters to observe and report to the wider public about the happenings of a protest. Considering the scope, breadth and low bar of most of the powers in the Bill, reporting on their potential misuse or wrong application is even more important. That is a power that must be protected, so we welcome the Government’s amendment in lieu of Lords amendment 17.

We are fundamentally against the principle of serious disruption prevention orders. We do not agree with them on conviction and we certainly do not agree with them not on conviction. The Government have tabled a motion to disagree with Lords amendment 20 and tabled their own amendment in lieu. That reinstates but limits the ability to apply an SDPO to someone without a protest-related conviction. We welcome the fact that the Government have accepted that their initial draft was overreaching and unnecessary. However, we do not support the five-year conviction compromise that they suggest. Problems remain, in that police could still apply for a SDPO to prevent a person from carrying out activities that are merely likely to result in serious disruption to two or more individuals or an organisation. The Met police commissioner said that

“policing is not asking for new powers to constrain protests”,

but SDPOs on conviction unfortunately remain in the Bill. An SDPO treats a peaceful protestor like the Government treat terrorists. Does the Minister really want to treat peaceful protestors, however annoying they may be, as serious criminals?

On buffer zones, the Opposition do not agree with amendment (a) to Lords amendment 5. It is important to remember that we have already voted on this issue in this place. We voted to introduce buffer zones and in the other place the Conservative peer Baroness Sugg did a very good job of tidying up the Bill. We have already voted in both Houses to introduce what we now call safe access zones. Lords amendment 5 is really important, creating a 150-metre safe access zone around abortion clinics to stop the intimidation and harassment of women and healthcare professionals. The proposed changes to the amendment would risk preventing people from getting the medical support they need.

[Robin Millar]

Does the hon. Lady accept that the evidence from the abortion buffer zones that exist at present is that people are being arrested for silent prayer? That is a fact. If she does, does she then accept that amendment (a) to Lords amendment 5 is necessary to provide a provision for silent prayer?

[Sarah Jones]

I do not agree with that interpretation at all. We have public space protection orders around some abortion clinics now, and we are broadening that out. That has been voted for twice, in this House and in the other place. I believe very firmly that the changes proposed in amendment (a) would risk preventing people from getting the medical support they need. Let me explain why.

I am a person of faith. I have also walked into an abortion clinic. I pray, but I also know how intimidating it is to walk past people silently standing there with signs trying to communicate, trying to pray, trying to persuade women to change their mind. It is a balance that we strike in this place between a woman’s right to privacy and healthcare and everybody’s right to go about their business and do what they choose. This place has already struck that balance.

I will explain why I also believe the proposal would not work. It goes way beyond silent prayer. Amendment (a) states:

“No offence is committed under subsection (1) by a person engaged in consensual communication”.

What is “consensual communication”? How on earth can we define it? Members have said women should not be harassed. Everybody agrees with that, but one person’s consensual communication is another person’s harassment. We have taken some legal advice on the amendment. The Government, when considering whether to support it, should look at the wider implications it might have.