Intimidation in Public Life

Debate between Simon Hart and Andrew Percy

Tuesday 21st May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Simon Hart]

I am sure that the Minister will have some thoughts on that, but from my point of view, the answer must be yes. It is worth reminding anyone who might think that such a course of action has some purpose, it is generally self-defeating. If we learn anything at all from such events it is how it stiffens our resolve to make sure that democracy is not damaged as a consequence of the thuggery that we have come to see as a fairly regular feature of our lives.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend. He is right to refer to the 2017 election. I spoke in the last debate about what happened in that election; my staff were spat at, and there were threats and damage to property. Perhaps the most sinister thing was damage to the properties of my constituents who simply put up a poster in their gardens and windows in support of me as a candidate. It is their democratic right to do that, but their properties were damaged, attacked and vandalised for daring to express their democratic will. That is not acceptable in a democracy. It happens to all parties—let us not pretend that it happens only to one party—so we must all work together to ensure that people are free to express who it is they wish to support in an election, without thinking that their garden, windows or property will be damaged.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hart]

I agree, as does the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which would go a bit further and mention the negative impact on diversity as a whole, in this Parliament and others. That point is well made, and it has been acknowledged by relevant Committees here. We will hear from the Minister in due course whether that will translate into immediate action.

In the last few days alone, one person has been jailed for life for making a death threat against one of our colleagues, and the hon. Member for Rhondda and numerous others have had their own experiences. A number of other cases are currently live and therefore sub judice, so we probably should not mention them. There are quite a lot of ongoing incidents at various stages of the legal process. Only yesterday, somebody of the name of Ruth Townsley, who is unknown to me, casually tweeted about the recent incident involving Nigel Farage that she would

“prefer acid but milkshakes will do for now”.

I am not here as an apologist for Nigel Farage, but he is as entitled as anybody to be out on the campaign trail. Although he may easily be able to deal with milkshake attacks, it must be the height of irresponsibility, if not criminal, for people casually to take to social media and bandy around such suggestions as if they were some kind of joke.

[Andrew Percy]

The person who attacked Nigel Farage yesterday tweeted last week that the Prime Minister was a “stupid little witch”. Again, that demonstrates the abuse that women in politics in particular are subjected to.

[Simon Hart]

This matter has been looked at by a number of parliamentary Committees. I mentioned the Committee on Standards in Public Life. It has also been looked at by the Select Committee on Home Affairs. The Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has looked at it, but mainly in the context of online abuse, and the Joint Committee on Human Rights has touched on it in various capacities.

With the next wave of electoral events possibly heading our way, what can be done? In answer to the question from the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham, there are the party codes, which started slowly and have proceeded at a reasonably gentle pace. Perhaps this is the time to put our foot on the accelerator a bit. Whether those codes are joint or individual, whether they are visibly enforceable and whether they involve parties not currently represented in Westminster are matters that may be resolved in the coming days or weeks. However, the idea that the political parties are free from responsibility is unsustainable. Parties have a responsibility to deal with their members and supporters robustly and visibly, sending a positive message to others who may be tempted to go down that route.

I am therefore pleased it was announced today that the Jo Cox Foundation will work with the Committee on Standards in Public Life and political parties to draw up a common statement of principle on intimidatory behaviour to encourage cross-party consensus to recognise and address this issue. That is the first point. Secondly, the Committee’s recommendations should be adopted as quickly as possible, including the three actions outlined in the recent “Protecting the Debate: Intimidation, Influence and Information” report. The first is to develop a new electoral offence of intimidation of candidates and campaigners, which is already a crime.

UK Elections: Abuse and Intimidation

Debate between Simon Hart and Andrew Percy

Wednesday 12th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Simon Hart]

I am sure that a number of colleagues would agree with that contribution; I certainly do. I will be coming to some proposals and thoughts on social media in just a moment.

I want to take a moment to describe the example of our former colleague Byron Davies, who until recently was the MP for Gower. During the election campaign he was subjected to a sustained attack on Twitter that contained absolutely unfounded allegations about a criminal investigation for electoral fraud. That was not an embellishment or exaggeration of a story; it was simply made up. Whether Members supported him or not, he was a colleague defending a majority of 27, and he had to do that against a constant drip-feed on social media of people simply making things up as they went along. Could it have contributed to the loss of his seat? I do not know. It was certainly blatant defamation—that much we do know. The Electoral Commission could not help, social media platforms would not help, and the police investigation, like all police investigations, will take time. It is grinding slowly on, but our former colleague Mr Davies is having to do all that himself, and he is bearing the cost. When that inquiry eventually reaches its conclusion, what remedy will he really have?

I could mention my hon. Friends the Members for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans), for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach), and for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) and the many others who have suffered similar or vaguely intimidatory experiences during the election campaign. Almost more worrying than that is the number of colleagues I have spoken to in the past few days who do not even want to come to this Chamber to make a contribution, lest it compound the intimidation and abuse they have been receiving in recent weeks. I hope that we are all in a sense making our contributions not to ease our bruised egos, but on behalf of colleagues who have put up with a lot of this nonsense over quite a long time, and are looking, as the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) said, for a lead from the Government.

Having said all that, I want to make the point that this debate is not about thin-skinned politicians having had a bit of a bruising time and feeling rather sorry for ourselves. Nor is it, as the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) mentioned, about left versus right or right versus left, or whatever it might be—the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) made an interesting contribution on that particular score in her speech to the Fabian Society at the weekend. It is actually about families, staff, helpers and volunteers. For those of us who have teenage children who might follow us on Twitter and Facebook, it is about being able to say to them, “Don’t worry about the death threat; don’t worry about the abuse and the false accusations.” It is also for them that we speak.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I have had death threats for a number of years—I now have panic buttons and a restraining order against somebody. What is different about what happened at this election—in which I was subjected to anti-Semitic abuse, my staff were spat at and my boards and property were attacked—is that the abuse has been politically motivated. The elephant in the room is that it has been motivated by the language of some of our political leaders, when they accuse people of one political side of murder, and when they dehumanise them in the way that is happening at the moment. There is something more sinister to this. Yes, it affects left and right, but we have to deal with the issue of what is happening on our side of politics.

[Simon Hart]

One of my most important recommendations is about the role of political leadership and what political leaders need to do, rather than what they need to say.

I wanted to mention the example of our former colleague Charlotte Leslie in Bristol, whose parents became victims of abuse. Their entire oil heating supply was drained into their garden by somebody who had an objection to Charlotte’s position on fracking—a slightly ironic way of dealing with an environmental consideration, but none the less one that caused enormous distress, as did the scratching of “Tory scum” into her elderly parents’ car. That is not something that anybody in this House should condone. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) has just pointed out, when it comes to leadership, it is exactly such an example that should trigger a robust response from everybody who has the benefit of a high profile in politics.

It is about religion, sexuality, social background—it is about people who might have been to public school and sound a bit posh. It is about anybody who might have a political leaning one way or the other, and who might be thinking of becoming a local councillor, or of a career at some future stage in some branch of politics, not even necessarily as an MP, an Assembly Member or a Member of the Scottish Parliament—whatever it might be. We have to ask ourselves: why would they want to take that step when they see what Members of this House have to put up with and, worse still, what Members’ families, friends, relations, campaigners and donors also have to subject themselves to?

To the social media platforms, to the left, to the right, and to groups such as Momentum, which has been mentioned, rather than taking the lazy way out and saying that they are responsible for this, I say, “Help us. If you are on the left, help us. If you are on the right, help us. If you are a social media platform, help us. Help us identify what has triggered the increase in abuse, the smear campaigns, the intimidation, the harassment, the thuggish behaviour on and offline, and the general criticism of people simply because of an inability to match or contest their arguments.”

Electronic Communications Code

Debate between Simon Hart and Andrew Percy

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Percy]

I think that was an intervention to ask permission for another intervention, which I am sure the Minister will be happy to accept. In our area we have the opposite: most of my constituency is a fair few feet below sea level. We are as flat as a pancake—a bit lumpy in some places, but generally quite flat—yet the signal is ridiculous. The Isle of Axholme is a prime example. It is largely as flat as a pancake, but the signal in places such as Fockerby and Epworth is absolutely terrible.

In the year or so since I last secured a debate on this subject, there has been some progress, which I want to acknowledge. The £5 billion investment deal that the Government signed with the mobile operators has made some improvements. It will guarantee voice and text coverage from each operator across 90% of the geographic area of the UK by 2017, although we still need more action on notspots, of which there are two in my constituency. Full coverage from all four mobile operators should increase from about 69% to 85% by 2017.

There have, therefore, been some improvements, but although 99% of premises can receive a 2G signal, Ofcom has found that the proportion of the entire UK landmass that is able to receive a signal from all four operators has remained at 55% since last year. Nevertheless, I welcome the Government’s announcement in the comprehensive spending review of £550 million to make the 700 MHz spectrum available over the next five years.

The most recent update on coverage was in Ofcom’s “Connected Nations 2015” report, which found that almost 46% of the country now has 4G coverage from all major operators. It would be unfair of me to say that some of the improvements have not affected my constituency, because they have, but we still have significant issues with progress on this matter. I welcome some of the other moves. Voice over wi-fi is a really important way of helping people at home, although in many parts of the country the roll-out of superfast broadband has been disappointing. I exempt from that the north Lincolnshire part of my constituency, where the roll-out has been incredible, but the roll-out in the East Riding of Yorkshire part can best be described as hopeless—I think my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) will agree. It is all right having voice over wi-fi, but people often do not have access to that at home.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

In many respects, would it not almost be better in some areas to have no coverage or complete coverage, rather than good coverage in one area and bad coverage in another? It is creating a social and economic divide that seems to be getting wider rather than narrower. The Prime Minister’s welcome comments about universal broadband really ought to have been about universal minimum standards throughout the whole of the UK and for mobile phones as well.

[Andrew Percy]

My hon. Friend makes a valid and important point. I completely agree: the arguments that apply to access to superfast broadband also apply to mobile phone coverage. The two are now indistinguishable. People do the same things on their mobile networks as they do over broadband. They use both for the same thing, whether that is work or keeping in contact with friends and family. Of course, many people now do not have a landline; they simply rely on their mobile.

With your permission, Mr Davies, I want to leave a couple of minutes for my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness to comment. I have some questions about the electronic communications code, on which the Government consulted earlier in the year. The networks have expressed concerns that the code has not been meaningfully updated since it was introduced in 1984, and the Law Commission called it “complex and confusing”. According to the mobile providers, reforming the code is the single most important step that the Government can take to reduce the costs of network extension and improve mobile coverage. Before this debate, the operators told me that they can build a new site and put in new kit in about three months, but, because of the complexities of the code, it takes a year to 18 months to complete that work.

I hope that there will be a response to the consultation, but I have a couple of questions for the Minister now. On fair site payments, we need to end the practice of landowners being able to demand ransom rents because the lack of alternative sites locally means a lack of competition. That is a particular problem for rural roll-out.

Fuel Prices and the Cost of Living

Debate between Simon Hart and Andrew Percy

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. What we are both saying is that if any solution is applied to one part of the United Kingdom, it must be applied to other parts of it as well. If we are all about fairness, as I am sure we are, it must be a solution that is fair to everybody in the United Kingdom.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern for 1,000 dairy farmers in west Wales, who cannot pass on the additional fuel duty to their customers because their milk price is fixed by supermarkets?

[Andrew Percy]

Absolutely. I share that concern for dairy farmers throughout the United Kingdom. I am sure the Minister heard that and I hope he will respond.

My constituency is a logistics hub. We have many transportation firms. A business owner, Paul Emms, came to see me at my surgery in Epworth this weekend. He said that because of fuel prices, he now faces the possibility of laying people off. Rather than contributing tax to the economy, not only has he been stung by tax rises on fuel, but he is putting people out of work whose payroll taxes will be lost and who will have to be funded by the taxpayer through their benefits.