Unauthorised Entry to Football Matches Bill

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Kevin Brennan

2nd reading
Friday 23rd February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

Funnily enough, I agree that it is something I have witnessed; I have always struggled to join the conversation. I recently found myself in New York at the funeral of Henry Kissinger, and a few people there were discussing his passion for Arsenal football club and asked me about the latest season in London football. I have to confess that I found myself slightly wanting for words, but it was an environment in which many others were able to supply them, so I was delighted to stay silent as the prowess of the various football teams was discussed. As we are discussing Arsenal, among the research I have been doing into the Bill, it turns out that Cardiff City won the FA cup in 1927 by beating Arsenal, which is a remarkable achievement.

[Kevin Brennan]

One-nil.

[Tom Tugendhat]

One-nil. I believe Hughie Ferguson was the goal scorer—there you go; it’s amazing what you can get help with if you ask the right questions, isn’t it? That game was on St George’s day as well. How is that for a triple? It is absolutely true that football binds people together around the world. The number of conversations that one can have travelling and meeting Heads of State, Heads of Government, Ministers, officials—and, indeed, taxi drivers and folk around the world—is extraordinary, because football really does unite. That is why the Bill is so important.

I will start with one of the points raised by the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) raised, when he asked, “Why does this apply only to football and not other sports?” The reality is that football is hugely dominant in terms of sporting appearances and interest in the United Kingdom. It is clear that, over the past few decades, football has dominated that sporting appeal for spectators. It has been so dominant and, sadly, that has caused problems. I do not want to blame fans—that would not be right—but when large crowds gather, there are challenges with managing those crowds. Sadly, other sports are yet to attract quite the same interest.

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[Tom Tugendhat]

I would be delighted to take up my hon. Friend’s invitation. I have never seen football played in Bradford—

[Kevin Brennan]

Neither has he!

[Tom Tugendhat]

I will ignore the contribution from the hon. Member for Cardiff West, who is very disparaging about Bradford City. I am sure Bradford City would offer a fantastic afternoon and I would very much enjoy it. I simply cannot believe that my hon. Friend would not be backing a winner, given his reputation, so I will stay silent on that accusation.

The Bill deliberately does not go into car parking. As my hon. Friend will be well aware, in many areas car parking is very different. Some stadiums have car parking available and some have car parking on the street or in neighbouring car parks which would be covered by local government ordinances and so on. It would add complication and not clarity to the Bill. To his eternal point, Occam’s razor is to get to the heart of the matter; he would rightly be the first critic of any Bill that started to be expansive and to look like it might include supermarket car parks, or indeed any other kind of car park. That is why the Bill is written and drafted as tightly as it is, and why so many of us support it—the Bill has given us the space to focus on that part of the offence that is actually important.

The Bill has been very carefully drafted to set out this new offence of unauthorised entry or attempted unauthorised entry to designated football matches in England and Wales. In practice, “designated football matches” really means elite football matches. For these purposes, that does include Manchester United—[Laughter.] The Bill will also enable a court to impose a football banning order against a person convicted of this offence. Banning orders provide an effective tool to combat football-related disorder by preventing disruptive individuals from attending regulated matches for between three and 10 years.

I would like to pay my own tribute to Baroness Casey and her extraordinary work, not just on this issue, but in reforming and reviewing various other aspects of our national life that have required attention. Her independent review of the appalling disorder that occurred during the Euro 2020 final resulted in a clear recommendation that action needed to be taken to deter the practice of tailgating, which is the phenomenon that we have been covering of a ticketless person following a legitimate entrant into the stadium. Of course, the Bill is drafted in this way because tailgating is not the only problematic behaviour.

There are many other routes to attempted entry into football matches, such as jumping over walls, which we have seen at some stadiums, or hanging down from buildings and jumping through windows—we have occasionally seen videos of that happening abroad. That is extremely concerning, not least because it can lead to enormous personal harm and can encourage people to take extremely unwise risks. It can also lead to a crush within the building that could cause harm not just to fans but to those working in the stadium. As we know, stadiums these days are major businesses, and many employ a large number of people on match days.

Estimates suggest that somewhere in the region of 3,000 to 5,000 England fans without tickets gained entry to the Euro 2020 final, largely through mass forced entry. Witnesses spoke of being terrified by their reckless and aggressive behaviour. Despite my own lack of passion in this regard, I have taken my children to football matches and have enjoyed the days with them. I must admit that my children were much more impressed with the games than I ever was, but I enjoyed the experience very much. The opportunity to see it through their eyes was a great blessing; I found it enormously warming.

Draft Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Codes of Practice) (Revision of Code H) Order 2023

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Kevin Brennan

Tuesday 31st January 2023 General Committees

[The Minister for Security (Tom Tugendhat)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Codes of Practice) (Revision of Code H) Order 2023.

It is a pleasure to work under your chairmanship, Mr Bone.

Following the horrific terrorist attack at Fishmongers’ Hall in November 2019, the then Home Secretary commissioned the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, to review the multi-agency public protection arrangements—commonly referred to as MAPPA—used to supervise terrorist and terrorist-risk offenders on licence in the community. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which I will subsequently refer to as the 2022 Act, established three new powers for counter-terrorism policing: a personal search power, a premises search power, and a power of urgent arrest. Those powers were established in response to recommendations made by Mr Hall KC following his review of MAPPA.

The order relates to the new power of urgent arrest, which has been inserted into the Terrorism Act 2000 - new section 43B of that Act - by the 2022 Act. The new arrest power came into force on 28 June last year. The Government have also taken this opportunity to make a small number of updates to the code to reflect changes previously made by primary legislation, including ensuring relevant terminology within the code is up to date.

As was set out by the Government during the passage of the 2022 Act, the new power of urgent arrest applies across the UK. The power enables the police to arrest without warrant a terrorist or terrorism-connected offender who has been released on licence and is suspected to have breached their licence conditions when it is considered necessary, for purposes connected with protecting members of the public from a terrorism risk, to detain the offender until a recall decision is made.

Section 66 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act1984—normally referred to as PACE—requires the Secretary of State to issue codes of practice in connection with the exercise by police officers of statutory powers to arrest a person and the detention, treatment, questioning and identification of persons by police officers. We have prepared a revised PACE code H, which relates to the detention and treatment of people arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 and applies across England and Wales. The order seeks Parliament’s approval to bring the revised code of practice into force. The primary update to PACE code H is the incorporation of the new urgent arrest power provided for by section 43B of the Terrorism Act 2000.

A terrorist offender who is detained under new section 43B must, unless recalled to prison or otherwise detained under any other power, be released if a decision is made not to revoke their licence and accordingly the offender is not recalled to prison. A terrorist offender must also be released from police detention if a recall decision has not been made by the end of the relevant period, which in relation to terrorist offenders who have been released on licence under the law of England and Wales is six hours beginning with the time of the arrest.

The Government have updated PACE code H to reflect that new arrest power, including ensuring that there is clarity for the police on the length of time for which the terrorist offender on licence can be detained and their rights upon first being detained, including to have one named person informed of their whereabouts and their right to consult and communicate privately with a solicitor. The revised PACE code H also reflects that there is no requirement to caution a terrorist offender on licence who is arrested under section 43B as they will not have been arrested on suspicion of committing a criminal offence and so will not be questioned or interviewed by the police under caution while being detained under this power.

The Government plan to collect data from police forces on the use of that targeted power, as we routinely do for other police arrest powers, and to make this data publicly available through future statistical publications. The Government have also updated PACE code H to reflect other changes already made to primary legislation by the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019—I will subsequently refer to it as the 2019 Act. That Act amended provisions in schedule 8 to the Terrorism Act 2000 to specify on the face of the legislation that on first being detained a detainee must be informed of their rights to inform a named person of their detention and consult a solicitor. The 2019 Act replaced provisions in schedule 8 that would enable a senior officer, in certain exceptional circumstances, to direct that the detainee has to consult their solicitor in the sight and hearing of another officer with one whereby a senior officer can, in those exceptional circumstances, require the detainee to consult a different solicitor of the detainee’s choosing.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I am extremely grateful to the Minister for giving way. We are considering a very interesting provision of the Act. Can he explain to the Committee what are those certain exceptional circumstances that would mean that a senior officer could, rather than say that a detainee had to consult in sight and hearing of another officer, direct that the detainee had to consult a different solicitor. [Interruption.]

Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Kevin Brennan

3rd reading: House of Commons
Monday 20th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

The question is slightly harder to answer than it might initially appear. On operations, foreign armed forces are embedded with and serve alongside British troops in various guises and in many different capacities. Unless the hon. Gentleman can be more specific, I can understand the MOD’s difficulty.

[Kevin Brennan]

It is certainly within the power of the Ministry of Defence to answer the question in terms of its own definitions. However, it cannot have been that hard, because the Minister for the Armed Forces subsequently changed his mind and wrote to me, telling me that he could give me some information. It is always dangerous to intervene too early during the development of an argument. On 28 November, the Minister decided that he could provide some information, albeit not as precise as one might have desired.

[Tom Tugendhat]

There you go.

[Kevin Brennan]

I will give the hon. Gentleman five out of 10 on that basis. The Minister for the Armed Forces wrote:

“As my formal PQ response made clear—a definitive response to your question could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

However, it is roughly estimated that at least 200 members of foreign armed forces are either liaison officers or on exchange officer roles annually across the three services.”

He went on to confirm that the Department “does not routinely collect” the requested information about embedded foreign armed forces.

That does at least tell us what kind of numbers we are talking about, albeit not in precise terms. However, the point of my question was to get a general idea of how many people might be impacted by this legislation and to understand whether the Government had a grip on the rough ballpark figures.

Our concern was how the Bill would impact on foreign nationals embedded in the UK armed forces who were involved in the destruction or illegal exportation of cultural property. In her response to my amendment in Committee, the Minister said that

“if a foreign soldier were to commit an act set out in article 15(1)(d) or (e) while embedded in a UK unit, we would dismiss them and send them back to their home state to be dealt with for disobeying orders. The individual would face the consequences of their actions on their return home, and there is no loophole for embedded forces; that would apply whether or not a foreign state had ratified the convention or protocols, as the individual would be disobeying an order.”––[Official Report, Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Public Bill Committee, 15 November 2016; c. 14.]

Now that we have a figure from the Government on the number of foreign nationals to whom the Bill will apply, albeit a rough one, I just wonder—

Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Kevin Brennan

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 31st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Brennan]

I thank the Secretary of State for doing so. It is characteristically generous of her, and I am sure that my hon. Friend and the House are grateful.

The Hague convention is based on the consensus that cultural property, moveable and immoveable, is central to identity. Such items embody a society’s past and encapsulate its ideas and often its ideals. Because of the consensus on the importance of cultural property, attacks on it in recent armed conflicts have drawn the attention of the international media. Daesh’s destruction of Palmyra and al-Qaeda’s demolition of mosques and mausoleums in Timbuktu have, quite rightly, sparked international outrage. For those who live in areas of armed conflict, the destruction of cultural property adds another layer of pain to the process of recovery in terms of both money and morale. Cultural property is a precious resource. When conflicts are over, monuments and their equivalents are key to kick-starting tourist-related industries, so cultural property can be crucial to economic regeneration.

[Tom Tugendhat]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that although Daesh brutality is obvious in places such as Palmyra, a more common example might be the golden mosque in Samarra, or the ethnic cleansing and the destruction of churches in places such as Mosul? Does he agree that cultural destruction often goes in hand with forms of ethnic cleansing, whether religious or sectarian?

[Kevin Brennan]

I strongly agree with the hon. Gentleman on that point. Palmyra was visited each year prior to 2011 by 150,000 tourists, and a UNESCO mission to the site in April this year found that the triumphal arch and the temple of Bel had been smashed to smithereens. In such circumstances, preserving and sometimes restoring as much as possible of these ancient structures is crucial to rebuilding. The Bill aims to provide the ways and means to allow states to do so.

In that respect, the offences and subsequent sanctions created by the Bill for damaging cultural property are particularly welcome, as is the introduction of immunity from seizure for cultural property that is being moved to or through the United Kingdom from an area of armed conflict for safekeeping. It is important to note that the UK armed forces already abide by the terms in the Bill and respect cultural property during conflict. The impact assessment that accompanies the Bill shows that their behaviour would need to change very little as a result of the introduction of the Bill. However, ratifying the 1954 convention would send a clear signal to the international community of what we already know at home: that the preservation of cultural property is a priority for the United Kingdom.

As I have mentioned, there are consequences for morale as well as for money when monuments are destroyed and when stone is turned to sand. When it comes to art and architecture, we expect continuity and longevity—a bridge between what was and what will be. Hon. Members will be familiar with the words of John Keats, who wrote about a Grecian urn:

“When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man”.

Just as preserving culture is about projecting pride and history, so the destruction of cultural property is bound up in power and subjugation. Hon. Members might have seen an interview that was given to the BBC by Mirza Hussain last year. In 2001, when he was 26, the Taliban took over his city in Afghanistan and ordered him to destroy the Buddhas of Bamiyan. The Buddhas were up to 55 metres tall and were carved into a cliff face in the sixth century, but the Taliban believed that they were idols.

Among a group of prisoners, Mirza was fed very little, left freezing cold at night and saw his fellow prisoner shot. He was then forced to detonate trucks of dynamite below the Buddhas, and when that did not work, two or three explosions were carried out every day until the Buddhas were destroyed. He said:

“We drilled holes into the statue to plant the dynamite. We didn’t have proper tools. The whole process took 25 days.”

He went on to say:

“I regretted it at that time, I regret it now and I will always regret it. But I could not resist, I didn’t have a choice because they would have killed me.”

I am sure that that will bring to hon. Members’ minds the tragic death of Khaled al-Asaad, the archaeologist who had worked at Palmyra for 40 years and was brutally murdered by Daesh in August last year at the age of 82 for refusing to reveal the whereabouts of Palmyra’s treasures.

That leads me to one of the central concerns about the Bill. We will support it on Second Reading tonight and throughout its later stages. However, although the Bill has been brought forward in the context of the aftermath of the destruction of cultural treasures in recent conflicts, it does not, as I understand it, cover the actions I have described because they were carried out by occupying forces that are not recognised states. I hope that the Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but the Bill will not necessarily prevent extremists from intimidating people into complying. In her response to the debate, will she tell us whether that comes within the Bill’s scope or powers?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

I think the hon. Gentleman is going to mention that in his speech.

In that light, the particular attention paid in part 4 of the Bill to the export of property from occupied territory is especially important. With Britain’s history in mind, the ratification of the first protocol could be said to indicate that we have at least learned something from any past transgressions and that the UK is committed to supporting other states in avoiding that sort of event.

I understand—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—that no one has ever been charged with the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. That brings me to some of the technical concerns about the Bill. Will the Minister say how, if at all, The Hague convention would apply to the conflict in Afghanistan and other such recent conflicts? Likewise, there are concerns that a convention written in the 1950s, of which the most recent component—the second protocol—was drawn up in the relatively early years of the internet, will not sufficiently protect cultural property in digital form. We have come a long way from the days of Keats’ Grecian urn. The success of the landmark legal case against Uber on Friday is part of an ongoing effort to bring legislation up to date in relation to digital advancements, and the Government must bear that in mind. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) and I have been busy working away in Committee on the Digital Economy Bill, which is meant to update legislation to reflect the digital revolution.

Lord Stevenson raised that issue during this Bill’s Committee stage in the Lords in relation to how cultural property is defined, and he received assurances from the Minister, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, that the wording was “flexible enough” to encompass technological advancements. If the Minister is willing to do so in her summing up, will she reinforce that reassurance that digital formats will equally be protected and included in the Bill’s definition of cultural property? As the convention dates from 1954, some of the definitions may seem slightly arcane, but some of the finest cultural objects in this country are things such as the archive of the British Film Institute—I have visited it—which can only be described as an absolute treasure trove of this country’s culture. Confirmation from the Government that such cultural artefacts are covered by the Bill, in bringing the convention into UK law, would be very helpful.

I want to ask one or two questions about how joined-up the thinking is. During the Second Reading debate in the Lords, Lord Redesdale mentioned the Ministry of Defence’s plans to create a squad of monuments men—and, presumably, women as well—whose focus would be to safeguard cultural property during armed conflicts. As I understand it, they would be soldiers with archaeology qualifications and the like. Meanwhile, the Department for Education has been campaigning against so-called soft subjects, leading to exam boards ending archaeology, art history and classical civilisation A-levels. The AQA explained its decision to cut A-level archaeology as follows:

“Our number one priority is making sure every student gets the result they deserve…the complex and specialist nature of the exams creates too many risks on that front”—

I am not sure how not offering an exam in a subject will make it any less specialist than it already is. On history of art, the AQA stated that the decision had nothing to do with the importance of the subject and

“won’t stop students going on to do a degree in it”.

That logic seems flawed to me. But it does not make a pretty picture overall, let alone a masterpiece, to have the Ministry of Defence wanting more soldiers with knowledge of art history and archaeology and the Department for Education cutting those same subjects from our classrooms, while the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is ratifying conventions and proclaiming that a national priority.

[Tom Tugendhat]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very fine speech, but had he spent any time in an officers’ mess, he would realise that art history surrounds people, archaeology is what they are equipped with and history of culture is often what they are eating. I do not feel that there is a need for much more qualification than that.

[Kevin Brennan]

I have spent a lot less time in officers’ messes than the hon. Gentleman, but I have spent a lot of time in the classroom as a teacher. The loss of those subjects undermines the Government’s stated aims. I will make this next point very carefully, but it seems to me that it should not only be those who have had access to those subjects through private education, who may well form a disproportionate number of officers in the armed forces—[Interruption.] I will allow the hon. Gentleman to correct me that score, but it should not be only those people who qualify for these jobs in the monuments squad that the MOD says is necessary and wants to recruit. Will the Minister therefore indicate which policy is the outlier? I am sure that she will produce a very creative argument to explain everything to the House.

I have outlined some of the issues that need to be clarified, but we support the principles behind the Bill because they firmly chime with our own. At the core of the convention is the belief that we must co-operate to promote human wellbeing. The 1954 convention states that

“damage to cultural property belonging to any people whatsoever means damage to the cultural heritage of all mankind, since each people makes its contribution to the culture of the world”.

The Labour party has championed those beliefs throughout our history—that everyone is entitled to their culture and heritage and their right to express it, that the success of one is tied to that of all society and that we must work in solidarity with each other because we are all the better for it when we do so.

Given the unfortunate and occasionally ugly tone of political discourse in recent times, the Bill is a welcome reminder of internationalist values and shared civilisation and culture. We have had an increase in attacks since the Brexit vote. In that context, the Bill recognises the importance of preserving our collective past and cultures and the fact that that is now more important than ever, whatever someone’s heritage and background.

The Bill is a signal to the international community not just of our national priorities but of the UK’s remaining willingness to co-operate on an international scale and a recognition that we can often enact change better together. It gives welcome hope that, although occasionally some Government rhetoric may shrink towards little England, Britain still has great aspirations to play a leading role in a rules-based world. The Bill may not be controversial, but it is a small beacon showing that the Government recognise that division is not the way forward, that we have more to gain through co-operation internationally and that we should extend to Syrian people fleeing conflict and seeking refuge the same respect that we give to their ancient architecture and monuments. We will not oppose the Bill; rather we hope the principles behind it will permeate through the Government’s principles.