Draft Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Codes of Practice) (Revision of Code A) Order 2022

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2022 General Committees

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham.

The Opposition do not oppose the order, but I want to raise a few questions and concerns. First, we must look at the history of SVROs and knife crime prevention orders, which were the starting point. We have now had three different types of this kind of civil order placed on people to try to reduce knife crime and serious violence. Knife crime prevention orders were introduced in 2019. The pilot did not start until July 2021 and I think it has only just finished, so we are three years into something that has not yet started. I question the Minister’s ability to get some of these things done in the timescale that he suggests. I am not saying for one minute that the Government should rush the pilots, though, because they should not.

The big question is about the serious violence reduction orders being limited to four areas but the measures applying nationally, which the Minister mentioned. That was an issue of concern in the Lords. It would be helpful for the Minister to explain whether he knows yet how it will work. When a serious violence reduction order is placed on somebody, through what mechanism will other police forces know that they have the order and can then be stopped? Obviously, the police will not be able to stop anyone unless they are under such an order, so how do we make sure they stop the right people? If a Met officer wants to stop someone they think is the subject of an order, how would they know? How would that work?

The second concern is about the pilot itself. We do not have time this morning—we have done it many times before—to go over the disproportionality issues, but they are vast. Every single survey ever done of any kind of police stop and search shows a level of disproportionality. The concern is that that will apply in this case as well. Will the Minister say more about how the pilot will be independently evaluated and what that means? Is a university or some kind of organisation involved? How will the pilot be repeated? There are lots of different ways of measuring a pilot, but the disproportionality that may be there will be missed if it is not evaluated properly.

[Margaret Greenwood]

My hon. Friend is making really important points. Does she agree that the point about disproportionality is that we want strong measures to tackle violent crime? It is a huge issue in some parts of my constituency. It is about the credibility of the programme, is it not?

[Sarah Jones]

I agree 100%. Knife crime peaked a couple of years ago at levels never seen before. We all want to see the numbers come down. My point about knife crime prevention orders is that they were hailed in 2019 as the answer to serious violence and they have not even started yet. We have to make sure that these things are done properly.

When SVROs were introduced and debated as part of proceedings on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, the Opposition raised lots of concerns about their disproportionality and about police officers completing the College of Policing training on stop and search. There is very good training and guidance from the College of Policing on stop and search and we ask that police officers who are to use the new powers be trained.

We also need to make sure that the pilot is evaluated before any decision is made to permanently roll out SVROs. It would be good if the Minister could say, “If these do not work, we are prepared to look at something else and try something else if we find that the disproportionality or the effectiveness is not what we expected.” As I said, we will not oppose the order, but it would be helpful if the Minister could answer some of those questions.

Independent Cultural Review of London Fire Brigade

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

My right hon. Friend is right about timeliness; that is one of the reasons why the London Fire Brigade Commissioner has said that he will be outsourcing the handling of complaints: to make sure that they are dealt with faster. Things work a bit differently at the police force, but there is an issue with timeliness. A number of police officers, including both the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police have raised the issue with me as well. We are looking at a number of ways of speeding up the process, including potentially through legislation. I completely recognise what my right hon. Friend has said and we are actively working on that at the moment.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

Here we have an urgent question on shocking standards in the fire service, and we have a statement later on appalling conditions in Manston. The Home Secretary is not here for either of those—why not? Where is she?

The report is grim: firefighters huddled around a screen watching porn; putting bacon in the sandwich of a Muslim colleague; and hanging a noose around the locker of a black co-worker—a pack mentality and systematic failure to stamp it out. Some 2,000 firefighters in London have told their story, thanks in large part to Linda Francois, the mother of Jaden, who tragically lost his own life. She campaigned for this report, and we welcome the immediate action that Andy Roe, the commissioner, is taking.

However, these shocking findings are not news to anyone. The Government have been put on notice time and again about cultural failings in our fire service. In 2015, an independent review in Essex found dangerous and pervasive bullying; in 2018, the inspectorate found failings in culture, values and the grievance process; in 2019 the inspectorate warned of an unchecked, toxic culture in many services; and in 2021, it found that change was urgently needed.

What was the Government’s response? It was a haemorrhaging of the budget on training, ignoring the warnings from the inspectorate and playing politics with our fire service. We have repeatedly said that when it comes to police failures we have had enough of the Home Office sitting back and leaving things to individual forces. Will the Minister immediately commission a fundamental review of national standards and culture in our fire service? Will he agree, now, to publishing national statistics on misconduct and will he today commit to national professional standards?

There were 11,000 fires across London alone last year. Our brave firefighters run into danger every day. We must expect the best from all of them and stamp out this culture of misogyny and racism. The Government must end their complacency and act.

[Chris Philp]

I assure the hon. Lady that there is not any complacency. She should be aware—I am sure she is—of the White Paper published just a few months ago setting out a range of measures to tackle shocking cultural issues such as those we have heard discussed this afternoon.

The hon. Lady asked about national standards. As I said in my opening comments, the Fire Standards Board is in the process of publishing a number of standards that will be publicly available and that we will expect fire services to abide by. Those, of course, will be inspected against. She asked about issues outside the London Fire Brigade. I agree that those need attention, and we will be discussing with His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services what work it can do to look at behavioural and cultural issues such as these across the whole country.

Obviously, we will respond to the White Paper consultation shortly. In the meantime, we will of course be working with Commissioner Andy Roe, who I spoke to on Friday, about the issue. As the report relates to London, I will also be in touch with the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who of course has responsibility for oversight of the London Fire Brigade.

Fire Services: North-east England

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing this important debate. She made a powerful speech, and she is an incredible champion for her area. We were all struck by her story of the children in Barmston Village Primary School, who all had stories to tell about arson. I was in nearby Horden last year, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris), where I met the veteran Sean Ivey, whose house was burned down by kids in the area. I heard about the antisocial behaviour and the epidemic of arson in the area; we must not underestimate the impact that those fires have on local communities.

It is interesting that Members from across the House have said the same things today: we need fairer funding and more funding; we understand the inequalities in how the system is set up—the precept council tax in particular; we need more capital expenditure; and there has been a fall in real terms in the salaries of our firefighters. Throughout the debate we have heard about the cuts over the past 12 years. Although the number of fires has been decreasing over the past few decades, we face significant new dangers. The number of fire service call-outs has increased every year since 2007; the number of fires increased by 3% last year; and global warming is leading to increased wildfires, which hon. Members have referred to—we saw a 200% increase this summer.

[Alex Cunningham]

I take no satisfaction in agreeing with my other neighbour, the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers), who said that Cleveland is the arsonist capital of the country. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need not only a fair funding formula for the fire service, but all the police officers we have lost since 2010 to be rehired?

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, as always. Labour will put lots more neighbourhood policing back on to our streets to prevent the kind of antisocial behaviour that leads to arson in his area.

As we face a cold winter, when people will be forced to choose between heating and eating thanks to the Government’s mini-Budget and the huge rises in costs and inflation, we have already heard about people using increasingly desperate means to keep warm. Staffordshire’s fire chief warned of people relying on electrical heaters to dry clothes, burning unsafe materials to keep warm or staying too close to open fires.

To add to all those problems, the lessons of Grenfell have not been learned. Shamefully, the Government have implemented only a handful of recommendations from phase 1 of the inquiry: fire regulations are still unclear, sprinklers are still not mandatory, single stairwells are still allowed in blocks of flats, and there is no duty on anyone to develop personal evacuation plans for disabled people—an absolutely shameful reversal of a Government promise. On top of the Grenfell failings, as we move towards the more sustainable building of homes, we are increasingly using timber frames, which risk even more fires, because they are more combustible. Funding our fire service is literally a matter of life and death, not least because of the Government’s woeful record on the economy and post Grenfell.

What an indictment it is that the policies of the past 12 years mean that our firefighters now have lower pay in real terms and that more than 11,000 firefighters have been lost. We have seen a pensions fiasco for firefighters and the police. Fire inspectors have seen some of the largest cuts in numbers—their numbers have fallen by almost one third since 2010, making the job of firefighters even harder. I have heard reports of firefighters using food banks. That is completely unacceptable.

At the height of the pandemic, the Conservative-controlled East Sussex Fire Authority tried to push through sweeping cuts. I was pleased to play a small part in those cuts being dropped. Cornwall’s fire service told me that the Government’s mismanagement of the new contract for our 999 and radio services—called the emergency services network—has put one of its vital centres at risk of closure, while leaving it with an outdated radio system that often breaks down. Will the Minister tell us what on earth she is doing to tackle that extraordinary waste of public money, which is costing each of our fire services literally millions of pounds? It is a shocking example of incompetence in the Home Office.

The Budget showed that, yet again, the Conservatives have loaded the costs on to working people. Our growth will still be the lowest in the G7 and the OECD over the next two years. As pay stagnates and inflation rises, more and more trade unions are balloting about their pay deals. The backdrop to many of the disputes is clear: working people are being hit by the fastest fall in real wages on record, and hammered by the Government’s abject failure to tackle the cost of living emergency.

Strike action is always a last resort, because working people do not want to lose pay, especially in the middle of a cost of living crisis, but they simply feel that they have no choice. I find it extraordinary that the Home Office has written to fire and rescue services to say that they need to pay £4,000 per soldier per week for soldiers to be on stand-by if there is a strike and that local fire services across the country will have to suffer all the costs. Fire services do not want this. One told me that it would go down like “a bucket of sick” with firefighters. I have heard anecdotally that the Army is not keen on it either, because last time this happened, a lot of soldiers were lost to the fire sector, with people joining the fire service. What is the Minister doing and how is she engaging?

[Peter Gibson]

It is interesting that the hon. Lady refers to the intervention of the Army in previous strikes. I have just been doing some research into when the last fire brigade strikes were. They were in 2002, when Labour was in power, and 1997, when Labour was in power, but all the speeches from the Opposition side of the Chamber this evening seem to suggest that year dot was 2010. It clearly was not.

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Let us remind ourselves that we are talking about the north-east.

[Sarah Jones]

I do not think anyone thinks 2010 was year dot, but the Government have been in power for 12 years, and we are judging that record today.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

It was year dot in 2010, because the Government took the deliberate decision to cut central Government funding to fire services and to push responsibility for that funding on to local taxpayers. That affected local council tax and fire services.

[Sarah Jones]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. They tried to push that funding to make themselves look better, so they could pretend the cuts were smaller than they actually were. We all know what is going on.

What is the Minister doing? How are the Government engaging with the FBU and the fire authorities to help us come to an agreement and avoid a strike? I urge her to clarify the Government’s position, because it looks like Ministers are upping the ante when they should be solving the dispute. Ministers must work to address how we avoid strikes, instead of letting us drift towards them through inaction.

We have heard about the impact of the cuts in Tyne and Wear. In the north-east, one in four firefighters has been cut since 2010. I met fire chief Stuart Errington in Durham, and I want to add my praise for him as he approaches retirement. I also want to put on record my appreciation for Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service and for the amazing job Chris Lowther—the chief fire officer—and his team are doing to keep people safe. In 2018, the Government said they were reviewing the funding formula for fire services. In 2020, they said that that review had been suspended due to the pandemic. Can the Minister tell the House whether the fire funding formula will indeed be reviewed?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Miss Sarah Dines)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. The topics covered in this debate are of great importance to every one of us and to the public. I thank those who have taken part. It has been an extraordinary year for fire and rescue services, responding to wildfires and major events such as the Commonwealth games, providing vital kit to Ukraine and working with the Government to drive forward fire reform.

I held the brief of Fire Minister briefly over the summer, and it was a pleasure to meet the Interior Minister of Ukraine and some of the firefighters who, with firefighters from across Europe, were helping to deliver much-needed equipment to Ukraine. It was very humbling. That work has been a joint effort on the part, not least, of local fire and rescue services and national Government.

[Sarah Jones]

I add my praise for the work that has gone on to send fire services and support to Ukraine. However, does the Minister know that some areas wanted to send equipment to Ukraine, but it turned out to be too old? Some equipment is so old that it was not deemed adequate to send to Ukraine.

[Miss Dines]

I had several meetings about that. The fact of the matter was that we were sending much-needed surplus. I know from my experience—one would need to write to the present Fire Minister about this, as I am assisting him today—that there were many circumstances where even old equipment was streets ahead of what the Ukrainians had. They were extremely grateful, and the firefighters I met were tearful to have our old equipment, so I do not think we need to be so critical. We assisted them greatly and saved many lives. I spoke to people who spent weeks taking that equipment over. It was gratefully received. It was never rejected as being outdated, as far as I am aware.

I want to pay tribute to the firefighters at home who dealt with wildfires. As Fire Minister, I was able to visit scenes that required fire services—even one just outside my constituency, in the constituency of High Peak. In addition, fire and rescue services helped to ensure our public safety while the nation paid its respects to Her Majesty the late Queen Elizabeth II. Those efforts should be celebrated, but we still have further to go.

Along with Grenfell and the Manchester arena inquiries, the inspectorate’s state of fire and rescue reports fired the starting gun for reform. There is a clear and growing case for change. Fires and the reaction to them and other threats are growing and changing. Fire and rescue services, like all other sections of the public sector, need to respond to that. They are usually up for a challenge, and I have every confidence that they will perform well.

In May, the Government published a fire reform White Paper that consulted on our vision for reform, and we aim to publish the response to the consultation in due course. The public are rightly proud of our fire and rescue services, and right hon. and hon. Members have spoken eloquently of their experiences of hearing from professionals and constituents in this regard.

It is important that the services are encouraged to put the public first in everything they do. The Government have their part to play in ensuring that we support our fire and rescue services and that they are making the most of the tools and knowledge available to them. The White Paper has set out proposals that achieve that. Firefighters and fire staff do great work and deserve the gratitude and support of us all—I know that everyone present will agree on that.

Let me turn to some of the specific points made in the debate, starting with protection and prevention, to which the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) referred. The Government recognised that additional capacity was required and have provided an additional £50 million. Since 2019-20, that money has been funded to assist increases in capacity and capability in protection teams, which has delivered an increase in the number of staff.

Draft Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 (Offensive Weapons Homicide Reviews) Regulations 2022

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 General Committees

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. Knife crime obviously rose significantly in recent years, peaking in 2017-18. We are now seeing a reduction in knife crime overall, but there is still a real problem with very serious knife crime and serious violence. Today’s proposals, which we supported during the passage of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, are one part of the picture of how we understand what is happening and what lessons we can learn. We welcomed the provisions in the Bill, and we welcome the pilots being rolled out.

It is incredibly important that the pathways that lead people to a homicide, whether as a victim or perpetrator, are understood. In my patch in Croydon a review of 60 cases of serious violence was incredibly insightful about the situations people found themselves in. Huge themes emerged around exclusion from school, domestic violence in the home, the addictions of parents and the absence of parents, from which we can learn lessons about prevention. I am grateful that the Government have set out the pilot scheme. In the Bill Committee, I asked for more information, and that is contained in the draft regulations, but we have some questions.

The Minister said that he wants things to be done in a way that is light-touch, concise and brief. I understand the constraints on funding, but I stress the importance of doing things properly; we cannot cut corners. I push back on the language that he used; we have to do this properly, which will cost money, and we have some questions about the funding.

The explanatory memorandum says that an estimated 72 homicide reviews will take place across the pilot areas throughout the 18-month pilot. I am interested to know how that figure has been arrived at. The Home Office estimates that the cost per review will be

“£1,222 to each of the three relevant review partners (totalling £3,666) and £8,688 for an independent chair.”

Again, I am interested in how those figures have been calculated, and how this will be funded. Is the assumption that the review partners will cover the costs, including the staffing costs, or will extra funding be forthcoming? Do the Government plan on looking to local government or policing to increase the funding?

I am also interested to know how we will collectively learn lessons once the review has happened and the various recommendations that might come from it have been made. Will there be a unit in the Home Office that looks at the reviews and learns the lessons from a national perspective? I am interested to know what the membership of the oversight board is likely to be. The Minister said that there are already homicide reviews for a range of other situations—under-18-year-olds, domestic violence and the like. Do we know how we will decide which homicide review will be picked if there is a crossover? What is the order of priority in terms of whether it would be an offensive weapons review or a domestic homicide review? How will we decide?

Finally, I stress the budget issue. The local safeguarding partners that will have to fund this—whether it is local government or local police—will have to find the funding somewhere, and we know that there is great pressure on budgets. Anything the Minister can say about that, bearing in mind the need to protect the integrity of the reviews, would be helpful. We are, however, happy to support the draft regulations.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister, Sarah Jones.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

New statistics published today reveal that the mini-Budget cost even more than we first thought—a staggering £30 billion. That comes on top of 12 years of austerity, which has seen a real-terms pay cut for police and staff, thousands of jobs lost and prosecutions plummet. The Home Secretary was in the Cabinet and the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire was No. 2 in the Treasury at the time of the mini-Budget. Will they both now apologise to our police for the damage they have done?

[Suella Braverman]

The Government are clear that policing must have a modern pay structure that recognises and rewards skills and competence, rather than time served. In line with that approach, chief constables have the discretion to pay an officer a starting salary of between £23,556 and £26,682 depending on qualifications and experience. The settlement is fair. We want our police officers to be empowered and strong in the fight against crime.

Police Service: HMI Report

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on His Majesty’s inspectorate’s report on vetting, misconduct and misogyny in the police service.

[The Minister of State, Home Department (Chris Philp)]

I thank my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), the shadow Minister, for her question on this extremely important topic. The report published yesterday by His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services makes for deeply troubling reading. The inspection was commissioned by the previous Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), following the horrific murder of Sarah Everard by a then serving officer, as well as the emergence of wider concerns about policing culture.

The report concludes that it has been far

“too easy for the wrong people both to join and to stay in the police.”

The inspectorate found that on too many occasions vetting was not thorough enough and that in some cases it was inadequate. The Government take the view, as I am sure Members from across the House do, that that is unacceptable. It is particularly unacceptable and disappointing to hear about these vetting failures given that the Government have provided very substantial additional funding to fund the extra 20,000 police officers and additional resources for the police more widely.

The inspectorate concluded that, although the culture has improved in recent years, misogyny, sexism and predatory behaviour towards female officers and staff members “still exists” and is too high in many forces. That is shameful and must act as a wake-up call. That sort of disgraceful conduct undermines the work of the thousands—the vast majority—of decent, hard-working police officers who perform their duties with the utmost professionalism. More damagingly, it undermines public trust. This matters a great deal to all of us, which is why my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has made it clear that things must change.

Since the report was published yesterday, we have been studying it carefully; this has been my first week in this position, but I have been studying it carefully. It contains 43 recommendations: three for the National Police Chiefs’ Council; nine for the College of Policing; 28 for chief constables and three for the Home Office. The Home Office will most certainly be implementing those three recommendations. The NPCC said in a statement yesterday that it expects police to act on their recommendations urgently. That is most certainly my expectation as well: all of these recommendations will be acted on as a matter of urgency.

We should keep it in mind that the vast majority of police officers are hard-working and dedicated. They put themselves at risk to keep us safe, and we should pay tribute to the work that the vast majority of officers do on our behalf. The report has uncovered obviously unacceptable behaviour and we expect the recommendations to be implemented urgently.

[Sarah Jones]

I welcome the Minister to his place. However, I have to say that I am disappointed that the Government are not taking more responsibility and leading from the front following such a grim report.

Yesterday’s report is 160 pages of failure—failure to bar the wrong people from joining the police; failure to get rid of them; failure to protect female staff and officers, and failure to protect the public. A lack of proper action to root out racism, misogyny and serious misconduct means that some communities do not trust the police.

This is by no means the first time that serious failings and horrific examples of unacceptable behaviour have been exposed. After the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer, the Opposition came to this place and called for change. After the horrific murders of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, we came to this place and called for leadership. After the shameful case of Child Q, we came to this place and called for reform. After the shocking Charing Cross station report, we came to this place and demanded action. After the Stephen Port inquiry, we came to this place and called for reform. If the Government had acted and led from the front, we could have stopped people being harmed. Leadership must come from the top.

Yesterday, we learned that Metropolitan police officers had been sentenced to prison after sharing racist, homo- phobic and misogynistic WhatsApp messages. For years, there had been warnings—for example, from the independent inspectorate—about serious problems in the police misconduct system, including long delays, lack of disciplinary action, disturbing and systematic racial disparities and lack of monitoring.

We have heard anecdotal evidence of forces expediting the vetting process to meet the Government’s recruitment targets. What does the Minister know about that? What is he doing to ensure that it does not happen? Will the Minister confirm that the roles of police staff, who do a lot of the vetting work and have been subject to cuts, will be protected so that forces can introduce the right systems? Will the Minister follow Labour’s lead and introduce mandatory safeguards and professional standards, led from the top, into every police force in the country to keep everybody safe?

[Chris Philp]

I thank the hon. Lady for her initial remarks and for her questions.

The Government have taken action. Indeed, the report we are debating was commissioned by the former Home Secretary directly in response to the issues that were raised. The fact that those issues have seen the light of day is thanks to that Government response. The Angiolini inquiry is also under way for exactly the same reason. We work closely with operational policing colleagues to ensure that the issues are properly addressed. I discussed the issues with Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, a few days ago, before the report was published.

As for ensuring that there are adequate resources for vetting and related purposes, the spending review settlement that the police currently receive has meant an additional £3.5 billion since 2019 over the three years of the police uplift programme, not just to pay the salaries of extra police officers but to provide the support and resources required to ensure that they are properly trained and integrated.

The hon. Lady was right to ask about professional standards, which are extremely important. In 2017, national vetting standards were set out in statutory guidance, which the College of Policing published. The report recommends updating some elements of that. Misconduct procedures are set out in statute. We expect the recommendations about improving those areas to be implemented, and we expect police forces around the country to ensure that the report’s recommendations are fully implemented.

Alcohol Licensing (Coronavirus) (Regulatory Easements) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 General Committees

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I welcome the Minister to his place. The Opposition will not oppose the extension under the regulations, just as we did not oppose the original regulations introduced last year.

As everyone will understand, and as the explanatory note explains, the regulations

“provide automatic extensions of premises licences”

following off-sales, and

“apply temporary conditions to licences where there is a pre-existing permission for off-sales, to enable those premises to operate in the same ways as those granted the new permission”.

When the original regulations were introduced, we debated whether they would have an impact on antisocial behaviour, noise and other aspects. I am pleased to hear that the Minister has spoken to the National Police Chiefs’ Council and that it has not seen any increase in those crimes. I note that there has been no full impact assessment of the extension in the regulations. Has any information been gathered from other quarters about antisocial behaviour, noise or other issues that may have occurred because of the extension in the alcohol allowance?

The other question that we will probably come to next year is whether the extension might become permanent. It would be interesting to know whether the Minister thinks, as the National Police Chiefs’ Council has seen no problems with it, that the provision will become something that businesses will want going forward. Obviously, that is problematic on one level, because we do not want covid laws to become permanent, but there might be a business case to be made for keeping them. I do not know whether he has had any thoughts on that yet, but we are happy to support today’s regulations.

Question put and agreed to.

Overseas Chinese Police Stations in UK: Legal Status

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

I welcome the words of my fellow sanctionee. That is one of the few foreign accolades of which I think we are equally proud.

Let me make a few points. First, there is no delay in investigation in this country. I can assure my right hon. Friend that the assessment will be coming forward urgently. As he will well understand, I will be extremely keen to hear the result. May I also remind him of the Prime Minister’s pledge during the leadership race only a few months ago that Confucius Institutes pose a threat to civil liberties in many universities in the United Kingdom and he will be looking to close them?

I thank my right hon. Friend for his words about the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. I am sure that Ministers from that Department will seek to make a statement, but I am sure they will be waiting for the reports that will be provided to them. He is absolutely right that there is no place for those who abuse their diplomatic privilege or the liberties of this country in order to oppress citizens here.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) on securing the urgent question. One of the alleged stations is in my constituency. I have to confess that when I first received emails about it from constituents I thought it was some kind of hoax. The address where the police station is supposed to be is that of a business that has written to me recently asking for a meeting, so, at first, I thought it could not possibly be true. It appears now that the reality is much more alarming.

I am grateful to the Minister for stating that he will come back to the House and tell us what his investigations have found, but I wonder whether he can give some reassurance to the people of Croydon—in particular the citizens from China and Hong Kong who live in my constituency—that they will be safe. Perhaps he might agree to meet me to talk about what may or may not be happening in the middle of my town.

[Tom Tugendhat]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that a commitment to all citizens of the United Kingdom and all citizens in the United Kingdom is equally valid, wherever they come from and whichever community they are from. Of course I will make that commitment to meet her, and I will be delighted to hear more.

Public Order Bill

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 18th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Bruce]

I am just about to conclude.

One of the main reasons freedom of speech and thought are treasured and rightly protected in law is so that they can be used precisely for the purposes of influence. The free and frank exchange of viewpoints is the lifeblood of a genuinely democratic society. Rather than seeking to erode this most precious principle, we should be seeking instead to strengthen the law, to put it beyond doubt that freedom of speech—and, indeed, of belief—when peaceably expressed should never be a criminal offence. We must stand against this here today. Our cherished freedoms of thought, conscience, belief, speech and assembly have been hard fought for, and our democracy depends on their robust protection.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), although I respectfully disagree with her position on this, and I will come to that shortly. I also welcome the Minister to his post.

I do not think anybody in this House was not deeply irritated by the sight of an ambulance having to turn around and go a different route because of protesters glued to the road, and I do not think there are many people in this House, when they saw protesters throwing soup at a van Gogh painting, who did not at least question whether that action had helped or hindered the cause of climate change. We all passionately believe in the right to protest, do we not? But we all understand that our fundamental freedoms are always balanced with the need to ensure business can carry on in its usual way.

That is why I thank the police for their response to the protesters who blocked the ambulance. They arrested 26 people for wilful obstruction of a highway and removed people glued to the road. Wilful obstruction is an offence that can carry a prison sentence. I also thank the police for the way in which they dealt with the incident in the National Gallery. Two people have been charged with criminal damage, which is an offence that can carry prison sentence.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you may ask yourself why, if the police were quick to respond, quick to arrest and quick to charge, we are debating a Public Order Bill to create a raft of new powers to tackle protest, after we have only just finished debating another Bill—the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022—which has introduced another raft of new provisions against protest.

[Jeremy Quin]

Is the hon. Lady therefore fully satisfied that the powers that exist are fully complete and fully perfect in all respects? Is she satisfied that police officers will be taken from her constituency to police central London to guard the public from protests? Should we not be taking stronger action?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the Minister for his intervention, and I will shortly come on to speak about the powers that already exist and what I think we need to do to make sure that we have the best system we can have.

I think the reason we are here debating this legislation is that we are not currently governed by grown-ups who understand the serious and delicate balance between policing and protest. We are governed by people who seek to win through division, by pitting one group against another and by wilfully threatening the delicate balance of policing by consent that marks out our form of policing from French, Spanish or Italian paramilitary-style police forces.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

I will come to new clause 11 shortly, and express my support and our support for that new clause. We have supported it many times in many different forms through many different debates.

The Labour party, last April, called for greater injunction powers following the disruption by Just Stop Oil, when millions of people could not access fuel. We argued that the raft of existing powers could be used more effectively. We suggested injunctions because they are more likely to prevent further disruption to, say, an oil terminal than more offences to criminalise conduct after it has taken place, with all the added costs and logistics of removal. Injunctions are more straightforward for the police, they have more safeguards as they are granted by a court, and they are future-proof when protesters change tactics.

Police officers have told us that some of the most effective measures they use in the face of potential serious disruption are injunctions. The National Police Chiefs’ Council protests lead, Chris Noble, said that

“they can be very useful in terms of what we are trying to control and how we are trying to shape…behaviour.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 8, Q7.]

In Kingsbury with Just Stop Oil and on the M25 with insulate Britain, people were arrested, removed and charged for breaching injunctions.

We introduced a new clause in Committee to bring what is known as the Canada Goose case into law. The Canada Goose case allowed injunctions to be taken out against persons unknown. This means that when groups of protesters form outside, the applicant does not have to know all their names or the names of people who may come in the future. Sadly, in Committee, the Government voted against our injunctions new clause. They said it would not create meaningful change.

The Government have since had a change of heart, however—another U-turn from the Government—but our suggestions for injunctions are still not being supported; they have introduced their own in new clauses 7 and 8. We believe these new clauses are flawed in several ways. First, there are some drafting problems, and lawyers we have spoken to are unclear on what the legal basis of an injunction would be. Secondly, we have concerns about placing the responsibility and power in the hands of the Home Secretary. Thirdly, we have concerns about where the burden of cost will fall; at a very difficult economic time, the Government can through this Bill shift financial responsibility from the private sector to the public sector, and that needs to be looked at.

In Committee, we heard evidence from HS2, who were in the process of applying for a route-wide injunction to protect their sites from serious disruption. This has now been granted by the High Court. The documents detailing the High Court decision show that the judge granted it partly on the basis that it satisfied the requirements of the Canada Goose case, the guidelines set by the Court of Appeal. Our new clause 4 puts on to the statue books the Canada Goose case law principles. Surely the Minister does not oppose principles set by the Court of Appeal; why does he not look again at Labour’s sensible amendment to tackle serious disruption?

Our new clause 5 seeks to make a simple but important change. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 contains a definition of serious disruption—after we called on the Government to define it as they had not done so originally. That definition includes “noise generated by people”. We want that definition removed, so that when the police are deciding what constitutes serious disruption, they cannot do this on noise alone. We have all debated this many times in the House and I will not repeat the arguments we have made. Instead, I will quote the current Foreign Office Minister, the right hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), who said in a letter to the previous Prime Minister:

“No genuinely Conservative government should have supported the recent ban on noisy protest—least of all when basic human freedoms are facing the threat of extinction in Ukraine.”

We agree with him and tonight the Government have the chance to do so too and to right that wrong. Surely, the Prime Minister, fixated supposedly on freedom, would want to defend the right to chant and sing at a protest, just like she did as a child against the party she now leads.

Since we now have a new Home Secretary, perhaps these words from the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) are worth her also bearing in mind:

“It is tempting when Home Secretary to think that giving powers to the Home Secretary is very reasonable, because we all think we are reasonable, but future Home Secretaries may not be so reasonable.”—[Official Report, 15 March 2021; Vol. 691, c. 78.]

That has never been more the case than now.

This Bill gives the police wide-ranging powers 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 desks in the Cabinet Office. But these far-reaching powers to stop and search without suspicion go too far. We know the police will not feel comfortable using them—we have spoken to several who have said the same—and in an area of policing already prone to disproportionality, they represent a disproportionate way of preventing what is in the vast majority of cases a minor public order offence at most.

In the same way, a serious disruption prevention order, also introduced in this Bill, treats a peaceful protestor, who in some instances will have committed no crime, as if they were a terrorist. Is that what the Home Secretary really thinks? Does she really want her Government to be responsible for treating peaceful, if admittedly annoying, protestors like serious criminals? The SDPO is draconian, preventing people from going to places and seeing people when they have not even committed a crime. And we must remember that to be eligible for an SDPO, serious disruption does not even need to have occurred; as the Bill states, I could be given an SDPO if I helped someone else do something which was

“likely to result in, serious disruption to two or more individuals”.

The phrase “likely to result in” amounts in real world terms to absolutely nothing, and just two people being required to experience, or being likely to experience but not actually experiencing, serious disruption is too low a bar.

On new clause 11, everyone has a right to access healthcare without fear of intimidation. The same principles applied when we had debates in this place about buffer zones—public space protection orders—outside vaccine centres when there were protests against people having their vaccine. Access to healthcare is a fundamental right and we must safeguard it. Many Members have been making this argument for many years in many different ways. The shadow Home Secretary has been calling for it since 2014. I have only been in Parliament since 2017 and we debated it in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and we do it again now. The Minister has the opportunity to do some good here; I think there is agreement on that on both sides of the House.

We all agree that the disruption we have seen from the small groups of hard-line protesters is unacceptable, whether blocking ambulances or stopping people getting to work for long periods of time, but our job as legislators is to come up with proposals that will actually help. It is our jobs to be grown-ups. This Government have created a piece of legislation that is disproportionate and threatens our unique model of policing by consent. In the evidence sessions, Sir Peter Fahy, a very well-respected former chief constable, spoke to us about the British style of policing. He said that we do not live in France or any other country with a paramilitary aspect to their policing and that

“in our policing system…policing is by consent… There would need to be a huge shift in the public mood and I think British policing is not really set up and does not have the mentality to use the degree of force that you see in other countries.

People do not realise that we are pretty unique...that is the British style”.––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 62, Q122.]

The Government would do well to listen to Sir Peter’s warnings. They are undermining that style of policing and upsetting that careful balance between the police and the people, and the fine line between being popular and populist. We are not the French. At a time when the economy is crashing and inflation is soaring, Ministers are choosing to spend precious parliamentary time trying to create political and cultural dividing lines, to chase headlines instead of actually finding sensible and workable solutions. The Government should rethink this flawed legislation.

[Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

Over the past few days I have been accused of being tired, emotional, erratic, and, just to put the record straight, I am all of those things and more. I want to be clear: unlike some Members in this Chamber, I have no time for those people who block roads, throw soup, and make a general nuisance of themselves. They are agents against their own interests, as they repel normal ordinary people. Having said that, serious disruption prevention orders are not the answer. They leave me absolutely cold; in fact I would go so far as to say that they are absolutely appalling because there are plenty of existing laws that can be utilised to deal with people who specialise in making other people’s lives miserable.

I know there is a convention here that we do not read lists, but I hope, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I will be allowed to read a very short list just to set out the laws that already exist and have been covered by colleagues: obstructing a police officer, Police Act 1996; obstructing a highway, Highways Act 1980; obstruction of an engine, Malicious Damage Act 1861—we all remember that one —endangering road users, Road Traffic Act 1988; aggravated trespass, Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994; criminal damage, Criminal Damage Act 1971; and public nuisance, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. There are also other laws. There is the Public Order Act 1986 that allows police officers to ban or place conditions on protest.

So the Government’s attraction to SDPOs demonstrates our own impotence as legislators and the impotence of the police as law enforcers to get to grips with the laws already in place and to enforce them. This is what we do now in politics: we have these machismo laws where something must be done, so we go out and do it, and that makes a good headline in The Daily Telegraph and The Times, but we do it and then very little happens, or if it does happen it is way over the top.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I know. That is why you cannot ask the question. In which case, I will now call the shadow Minister, Sarah Jones.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

The current Home Secretary says that her “record…speaks volumes”. On her watch, far more people are a victim of crime, far more criminals are getting away with it, nine in 10 serious violent offenders never see the inside of a court, police officers are forced to use food banks, and the police have declared no confidence. What does the Minister think the Home Secretary is most proud of: criminals laughing in our face as they get away with it, or thousands more people across this country blighted by crime?

[Tom Pursglove]

I think it is fair to say that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who I believe has done a sterling job in the role, can be proud of seeing burglary down by 24% nationally, neighbourhood crime down by 33% and vehicle offences down by 28%. We have got 72,000 weapons off our streets since 2019. Leicester, which I visited a couple of weeks ago, has a hugely successful violence reduction unit that is driving down criminality, steering young people away from that course. Some 49,000 offences have been prevented nationally, with a return that means that in the round we are seeing benefits to society: violent crime is not happening, because it has been prevented by the work that my right hon. Friend has done.