Public Order Act 2023

Debate between Sarah Jones and James Daly

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. and learned Lady, for whom I have a great deal of respect. I am constantly astonished by Members in this House who make claims based on no evidence whatsoever. This idea of political pressure is a very good left-wing slogan, but there is no evidence whatsoever behind it. If the best witness for that is Sir Peter Fahy, I need to spend some time with the hon. and learned Lady telling her what a disastrous chief constable he was for Greater Manchester and for my area. That would be a lengthy conversation. If he is the advocate for political pressure and that is it, then, clearly, there is no evidence.

The other thing that Members in this House seem constantly able to do, even though they were not witness to anything that happened on coronation day, is to speak with absolute authority, as alleged witnesses to what was going on. Not one person in this House saw the circumstances that led to the arrest of those six people. Yet hon. Members, especially on the Opposition Benches, seem to be imagining that they were there.

The reason the police exist and they enforce legislation is that it is for the police to investigate and the courts to judge. It is not for politicians to involve themselves and to make statements on the basis of information and evidence that they do not have. Not one Opposition Member was witness to what happened on coronation day.

[Sarah Jones]

rose—

[James Daly]

Well, if the hon. Lady was a witness to those six arrests, I look forward to hearing from her.

[Sarah Jones]

Obviously I was not a witness to those six arrests; I was in the abbey—with the Commissioner, as it happens. I just wanted to point out that we make laws in this place that affect what our police do. That is our fundamental job, and our argument all along has been that the laws passed here have put the police in a very difficult situation, as we saw, which led to the Met’s having to apologise for what happened in that very small number of cases—the vast majority of cases were absolutely fine, but in that small number of cases there was a problem, and the police have admitted that.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Daly]

My right hon. Friend makes the point. Sometimes I think I am listening to a fantasy world in here. Effectively, what the Opposition are saying is that they would allow anybody to play music at any level for any length of time as long as they had the morality of the argument on their side. The fact that it would cause disruption and drive our fellow citizens demented does not matter. Anything that is done, as long as it is morally acceptable to the left, is justifiable. If protesters were arrested in respect of a Brexit demonstration, or a demonstration by someone on the right, none of them would stand up for that. It is the left-wing playlist.

We heard from the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss). She went through the alphabet of the greatest hits of left-wing protests—all of them. That is what it is about. It is about undermining the police’s ability to control protest on the left because the left discovered, through middle-class, self-indulgent narcissists in organisations such as Just Stop Oil, what they could do. They saw a way around things: “We will find the part of the law where we can get away with things. And what will we do? We will start gluing ourselves to motorways. We will start indulging in behaviour that is incredibly difficult for the police to police with the powers that they have.”

They saw that gap in the market for left-wing protests: “We can do this. We can cause as much disruption to people as possible. We don’t care, because we’re on the left; we’re on the side of the angels. We don’t care about whether people can get to school; we don’t care about whether people can get to their exams; we don’t care about whether people can get to hospital, because it doesn’t matter. Because our self-appointed morality means everything. That is it. It means everything.”

[Sarah Jones]

I think perhaps the hon. Gentleman has gone in the wrong direction. He means to be at the National Conservatism conference rather than in this debate.

[James Daly]

I know that you want to hear more of this speech, Mr Deputy Speaker, so let us get back to the proposal before this Parliament from a party that the legislation essentially does not affect. It seems odd that a party that has ruined the education system in Scotland and done various other such things does not want to talk about some of those fundamental issues for their constituents, but wants to talk about things that affect English constituents. I am glad in one sense, because it is at least an acceptance from SNP Members that we are one country—one United Kingdom—and that these matters should be important to us all. The Unionist is coming out in them all.

We are talking here about repeal. We are using up time in this place to debate the repeal of an Act that has been in place for, what, two or three weeks? By any measure of ludicrous debates, that is stretching it to the limit. What are we talking about within the Act that is so appalling, Mr Gale?