Public Order

Debate between Sammy Wilson and Alison Thewliss

Monday 12th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I want to start where the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) left off: with the suffragettes. The suffragettes protested their cause for decades because this place did not listen to them, and many people feel that way about this Parliament and this Government—that they are not listened to. That is why people make the protests that they do. I recommend that the hon. Gentleman goes along to the Admission Order Office off Central Lobby and reads some of the experiences of those suffragettes, and what they had to do to get their cause heard. They got the vote after many decades because this place ignored them.

That is the crucial point, because what the Home Secretary is saying today is that people can protest, but only in the way that she wants them to. It is the latest response to the evolving nature of protest across these islands. It is as if the Home Secretary is playing some game of whack-a-mole, but whack-a-mole is not a mole eradication strategy: it just means that you keep going, squeezing down on the bubbles in the wallpaper forever. It will not actually change the attitudes of people who are so despondent at the way in which this Government are behaving that they feel that they have to go out and cause this disruption. They do it not for social media clicks, but because they think their cause is important and worthy of attention.

[Sammy Wilson]

For many of these people who are out protesting—Just Stop Oil, for example—it is not that they are appalled at the fact that we use fossil fuels, since they sometimes fly halfway around the world to join those protests. It is simply because of their sanctimonious attitude that their views are more important than others’, and that they are entitled to disrupt the lives of ordinary people.

[Alison Thewliss]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. I would take a lot more from him if he actually believed climate change was real in the first place, before he starts lecturing other people.

The UK Constitutional Law Association has described this statutory instrument as

“an audacious and unprecedented defiance of the will of Parliament.”

This Government are bringing in things through this SI that they could not get through in legislation. The UKCLA says that

“The Government set about drafting regulations that would reverse the defeat in the House, relying on Henry VIII powers to amend the Public Order Act 1986 conferred by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. These draft regulations were laid before the Public Order Bill had even completed its Parliamentary stages. In this way, the Government sought to obtain through the back door that which it could not obtain through the front.”

That goes to the heart of this shoddy process this afternoon.

While this regulation is an England and Wales regulation, it does have implications for my constituents and other people from Scotland who wish to come and protest. If the WASPI women campaigners in my constituency wanted to come down here to complain about the injustice of having their state pension robbed from them by consecutive Westminster Governments; if they wanted to protest outside Parliament, as they have done on many occasions; and if they wanted to invoke the spirit of Mary Barbour, to bang pots and pans and stand in the road outside of this building, they would not be protected just because they are Scottish. They would be at risk of causing serious disruption under these regulations and would be lifted by the police forthwith. They would be at risk of causing serious disruption under these regulations and would be lifted by the police forthwith. That goes to the heart of these proposals. Those actions are just and important, and they want to draw attention to that injustice.

Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords]

Debate between Sammy Wilson and Alison Thewliss

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for agreeing with me. It is very rare and very nice, and I thank him for it. Yes, there has to be a good deal more clarity. I welcome the Law Society’s view, because that is not clear in the Bill. If people are working in that environment, they need certainty. For aid to flow and for banking transactions to flow, there has to be clarity.

UK Finance seeks further detail in clause 18 on extra-territorial application. It wants to know exactly what a UK element constitutes and what its reporting obligations might be under that regime, because it is not entirely clear.

Scrutiny and transparency are somewhat lacking. There is a lot of scope in the Bill for Ministers to create significant new criminal offences through secondary legislation, some of which would carry a sentence of 10 years in prison under clause 17(6). It is constitutionally unacceptable for that type of thing to be created by Ministers, and it is not just me saying that. The House of Lords Constitution Committee wants beefed-up parliamentary scrutiny, and the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee states that the provisions

“confer exceptionally wide powers which are capable of being applied to a very wide range of persons, with a very wide discretion being given to Ministers to determine the persons against whom sanctions measures may be applied.”

We should be concerned about that and seek corrections later in the process.

The Secretary of State, who has left his place, may not make decisions in haste, but we have to be concerned about the future. This is not a Bill for just now, but for many years to come, so the powers that we put in it are very important. The European Scrutiny Committee currently looks at EU sanctions that go through. We need to know what scrutiny process in this place will replace that, because it is important to ensure that things are being done properly and are above board.

At clause 21(4)(a) and (b) and clause 25(3)(a) and (b), a review process of three years from the laying of a sanction is mentioned. I would like clarity from the Government about why that is three years, because I understand that in the EU process it is only one. The Secretary of State said that a person who has been subject to a sanction has the ability to request from him that it is reviewed. Given that circumstances change and given the way of the world today, perhaps three years is a little too restrictive. We might want to push that down a bit further, or at least give scope for it to be varied, given the circumstances.

Clause 41—a Henry VIII clause, which has the power to authorise additional sanctions—is very like the other clause that I just mentioned, and again, the Lords Constitution Committee had concerns when it looked at it. The clause allows the amending of the definition of sanctions and puts a lot of powers into the hands of Ministers. What is the mechanism, the clause or the parliamentary check on that? Where is the means for Parliament and Committees of the House to have their say on the scrutiny of that? It is fundamentally important to have checks and balances in the system.

I am a member of the all-party parliamentary group on responsible tax, as is the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), and I am pleased to see her amendment on beneficial ownership. I look forward to hearing her later on in the debate hopefully talking about that a wee bit more. There are a lot of issues about working with overseas territories and Crown dependencies. Much as I do not wish the House to legislate on Scottish matters, I do not want us to legislate for overseas territories or Crown dependencies without consent. That is very important. If we want to get buy-in and compliance, imposing things upon people may not necessarily be the best way to do it.

[Sammy Wilson]

The hon. Lady has hit on a very important point. If changes are to be made in the Crown dependencies and overseas territories, it must be by persuasion, rather than imposition. Does she agree that so far, by using persuasion, significant changes have been made in transparency in those countries? That should perhaps be the thrust of future Government policy to ensure that these areas do not become places where money can be hidden and laundered.

[Alison Thewliss]

We have to be very careful. To an extent, we push people and give them a carrot, and in a sense, we have a stick. We have to weigh up in all of this where exactly they are on that continuum and with compliance. Will Ministers tell us what conversations they have had with the likes of Guernsey and Jersey? Do they have confirmation of a permissive extent clause? I am very keen to see open registers. The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield laid out some points on that excellently. If the registers are there, they should be publicly available. We want to see transparency everywhere, but we also need to bear in mind that we have a long way to go on ensuring that everything that we do is absolutely correct and proper.

There are clearly issues and disputes among people about their interpretation of the proposals. Having read a submission from Jersey and Guernsey, I know that their account of affairs is quite different from other people’s. Perhaps we will have time in Committee to discuss this a wee bit more, take evidence and see in more detail exactly what needs to be done, how far people can be pushed, cajoled or brought along, or whether or not we need take this action and the extent to which it has a different force.