Public Order Bill (Sixth sitting)

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 16th June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Sarah Jones]

My comments are similar to those I have made about previous clauses.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 19 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 20

Offences relating to a serious disruption prevention order

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I beg to move amendment 40, in clause 20, page 21, line 19, after “fine” insert

“not exceeding level 2 on the standard scale”.

A person convicted of an offence related to a serious disruption prevention order may be subjected to a fine. Under this clause there is currently no limit on the fine that may be imposed. This amendment would place a maximum limit on the fine.

This amendment is similar to the amendments I tabled to previous clauses that we discussed on Tuesday. It is a probing amendment to test the Government’s justification and explanation for why they are proffering unlimited fines in the Bill. I do not intend to move the motion today and look to withdraw it.

[Kit Malthouse]

I will just say briefly, as I have about the hon. Lady’s previous amendments, that I am afraid we just do not think that 500 quid is enough of a deterrent, not least because we want to recognise the fact that we are talking about the breach of a judicially imposed order. The level of fine suggested in the amendment is just not proportionate to that kind of offence, so we urge the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

What would be acceptable to the Minister then? I suppose that is the purpose of my probing amendment.

[Kit Malthouse]

What is acceptable is what is in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is making broadly the same point. We think the provisions in clause 20 are commensurate and in line with those for other breaches of judicially imposed orders; effectively, there can be an unlimited fine. Certainly, if an injunction is breached, the judge has unlimited powers of fine—something that I know the hon. Member for Croydon Central is keen on. Given that this is a judicially supervised order, it should be for the judge to decide what the fine should be. It is worth remembering that when judges are given flexibility in making fining decisions, they have to take into account the circumstances of the individual—they have to means-test them, effectively—decide on the level of impact and the likely deterrent effect of the fine. We think that should be left to judicial discretion.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I have nothing further to add. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Kit Malthouse]

As we have discussed, clause 20 creates various offences relating to a serious disruption prevention order. It will be an offence for an individual to, without reasonable excuse, fail to comply with any requirement of their order, or do anything that the terms of their order prohibit them from doing. For example, an individual subject to an SDPO could commit an offence if they attend a protest at a designated time and place that is prohibited under the terms of their order. In line with the notification requirements established in clause 17, an individual subject to an order will also commit an offence if they knowingly provide false information to the police as part of their notification requirements.

If found guilty of one of these offences, upon summary conviction, the court will be able to impose a maximum sentence of 6 months’ imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine. Subsection (3) provides that the maximum term of imprisonment will increase to 51 weeks if section 281(5) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 comes into force. This sentence reflects how seriously the Government take anyone breaching the terms of an SDPO, and also acts as a deterrent to anyone considering breaching this judicially imposed and supervised order. As I outlined while discussing clause 19, courts will be required to make clear the possible penalties for a breach of an order to each individual subject to an SDPO, so there will be clarity about what happens if they do not do as the order requires.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

First, I should respond to the comment that Labour Members are in some way sympathetic to extreme protesters who are breaking the law. We absolutely are not. I want to be very clear about that, as I have been all the way through our conversations.

There are already offences that can be used by the police in such cases. Whether it is wilful obstruction of the highway, criminal damage, aggravated trespass, breaching an injunction, public nuisance, failure to comply with a condition, organising a prohibited trespassory assembly or participating in a trespassory assembly, there are many avenues that the police can and do use for repeat offenders, who put people’s lives at risk; that is not in question.

Clause 20 sets out certain conditions with which failure to comply is an offence. It highlights the fact that we have not sufficiently teased and played out how these orders will work in practice. When this Government introduced knife crime prevention orders, they introduced pilots before their implementation. When serious violence reduction orders were introduced in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, the Government introduced pilots for them. Colleagues may remember, as I do, the debate during the passage of that Bill on what those pilots should be, how they should work and where they should be applied. These things are difficult to interpret.

Clause 20(1)(a) says that someone commits an offence if they fail

“without reasonable excuse to do anything”

that they are

“required to do by the order”.

We have already talked about those conditions, which relate to where someone lives, their addresses and their use of the internet. We are talking about very broad, difficult to understand, complicated things that it is easy to fail to do. Someone could break the conditions without knowing it.

We remain deeply concerned about the serious disruption prevention orders. I encourage the Government to do a bit more thinking, provide a bit more guidance and, perhaps, pilot the orders before bringing them in.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 20 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 21

Variation, renewal or discharge of serious disruption prevention order

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I beg to move amendment 41, in clause 21, page 21, line 29, leave out “, renewing”.

This amendment would prevent an existing serious disruption prevention order from being renewed.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 42, in clause 21, page 22, line 15, leave out “, renewing”.

This amendment would prevent an existing serious disruption prevention order from being renewed.

Amendment 43, in clause 21, page 22, line 23, leave out paragraph (b).

This amendment would prevent an existing serious disruption prevention order from being renewed.

Amendment 44, in clause 21, page 23, line 12, leave out paragraph (b).

This amendment would prevent an existing serious disruption prevention order from being renewed.

Amendment 45, in clause 21, page 23, line 14, leave out “or renewing”.

This amendment would prevent an existing serious disruption prevention order from being renewed.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

These amendments take out all the provisions that allow an SDPO to be renewed once its original period has expired. We need sanctions in the justice system to be applied consistently and fairly, and to provide a degree of certainty. The Bill allows the police to apply for an SDPO and, effectively, renew it indefinitely, if they think not only that there is a risk that someone will commit a further offence, but—particularly in relation to clause 13—that renewing the order will prevent offences from being committed generally.

We do not stop people going to the shops because they once got caught stealing. We do not punish people into perpetuity just to control the actions of others, which would be a consequence of an SDPO in relation to clause 13. It would be like the Standards Committee deciding that suspensions from the House could be renewed indefinitely because there was a risk that someone might fail to comply with the standards expected of Members of this House. It is unacceptable for the Government to limit the right to protest, free speech and freedom of assembly when we apply different standards to ourselves.

[Sarah Jones]

As we do not support this entire section of the Bill, I will not talk at length about the hon. Lady’s comments. We support the amendments, and I thank her for her tabling them.

[Kit Malthouse]

As the hon. Member for North East Fife said, amendments 41 to 45 would prevent the courts from being able to renew serious disruption prevention orders. That would mean that where there was evidence that a person subject to an SDPO would go on to commit a protest-related offence or cause serious disruption soon after its expiration, nothing could be done to ensure that they were still bound by the conditions of their order. As a result, these amendments would undermine the purpose of the orders. I therefore encourage the hon. Lady to withdraw amendment 41.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I intend to withdraw the amendment, but I do not agree with the Minister that we should apply orders that can apply indefinitely, and that could therefore breach people’s right to freedom of assembly and speech. If a police officer agrees that another SDPO is needed, they should apply for a new one, rather than renewing one in perpetuity, but I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Kit Malthouse]

I am happy to address the hon. Lady’s earlier point in the sidebar if she wishes, but in effect it would be for a judge to make a judgment about renewal; it would not necessarily just be for the police to impose a renewal.

Clause 21 enables a person—an individual subject to an SDPO or a relevant police officer—to apply to the appropriate court for the variation, renewal or discharge of an SDPO. Either of those individuals may apply at any point during the duration of the SDPO, and subsection (12) provides that the normal six-month time limit on magistrates hearing complaint cases does not apply. That is to ensure that applications for SDPOs with a duration of six months or longer can still be made to these courts.

When deciding whether to vary, renew or discharge an order, the court must hear from both sides—for example, the relevant police officer applying for a renewal of the order and the person subject to that order—before making its decision. That is to ensure that the court has the opportunity to consider arguments both in favour and against any changes to the terms of the order. When making its decision, the court can decide to vary, renew or discharge either the whole of an SDPO or certain prohibitions or requirements in an order, depending on the evidence presented to it. In deciding whether to vary or renew an order, the court must satisfy itself on the same grounds as are required when imposing an order—namely, that the order will prevent the person subject to an SDPO from committing, or contributing to others committing, a protest-related offence, a protest-related breach of an injunction or activities that result or are likely to result in serious disruption at a protest. It must also consider whether varying or renewing the terms of an order will protect organisations or two or more individuals from the risk of serious disruption arising from any of these activities.

Any changes to an SDPO will be subject to the requirements set out in clauses 14 to 19, apart from subsections (2) and (3) of clause 17, which deal with notification requirements when an order is first made. In practical terms, this means that any changes to an SDPO will be subject to the same duration limits as apply when an SDPO is first imposed—namely, they may last a minimum of one week and a maximum of two years. If a court decides to vary or renew an electronic monitoring requirement, that will again be limited to a 12-month duration. Nothing in this clause prohibits further variances or renewals of an SDPO if a court and a judge consider them necessary. I urge that clause 21 stand part of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

When we debated the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, the Government brought in a police covenant, for which many people had campaigned for years. We had a debate at that time because British Transport police and Ministry of Defence police were not included in that covenant. The Government said it was too difficult to include them in any Bill that introduced new powers. After a lot of pressure from other organisations, they were able to do it. It is good to see them doing it again.

The various parts of our policing system have different funding pots, ways of existing and remits, but they are just as important as our main police force. British Transport police does crucial work on all kinds of issues, particularly county lines over recent years. The provisions on protests we are debating here cover everything BTP does as well as potentially what the Ministry of Defence police does. We do not agree with the premise of the Bill, but I have spoken to people in some parts of the policing system who say they feel slightly neglected by the wider policing family. It is absolutely right that they should be on the face of the Bill and play a part of wider policing.

Amendment 22 agreed to.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I beg to move amendment 27, in clause 28, page 26, line 32, at end insert—

“(3A) Except as provided by subsection (3), sections 1 to 5 and 11 to 22 of this Act may not come into force before the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament and published a report containing—

(a) an assessment of the current capability of police services in England and Wales in relation to the provisions of this Act,

(b) an assessment of the numbers of police officers who will need to be trained in relation to the provisions of this Act, the number of officers who will be needed to deliver the training and the amount of time that that training will take for each officer,

(c) details of how police units will be deployed in relation to the provisions of this Act, including the number of police officers who may be redeployed from other duties, and

(d) an assessment by the Home Office of the likely impact of the provisions of this Act on the number of police officers who will be moved from their usual duties to public order operations in other places.”

This amendment would mean that sections 1 to 5 and 11 to 22 of this Act could not come into force until the Government has laid before Parliament a report assessing the current capability of police services to operate the provisions in those sections and the impact on police deployment.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 28, in clause 28, page 26, line 35, at end insert—

“, which for sections 1 to 5 and 11 to 22 may not be before the date of publication of the report set out in subsection (3A)”

See Explanatory Statement for Amendment 27.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Chamberlain]

Amendment 28 is consequential on amendment 27. We may not have found much to agree on so far in Committee, but what we have all agreed on is how hard our police officers work, how challenging the job is, and how difficult it can be to fulfil their variety of functions. The amendments would place a duty on the Government to report to Parliament on the police’s ability to meet their obligations under the Bill before it comes into force.

I am asking for an assessment that includes an analysis of current capability, how many officers would need to be trained to fulfil the requirements, and how many officers would be diverted from day-to-day policing. We all care about local policing and local services, and ensuring that when somebody does contact the police, they have a timeous response that deals with their complaint. We need police officers in our communities, we need them on the streets, and we need them to respond to the public and investigate crimes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy]

I entirely agree with the hon. Lady. As I said, the police in Bristol will be used to dealing with these sorts of situations on the streets, but we will have to bring in police from other forces who will not be accustomed to dealing with them. Does she agree that that is of particular concern? They will not have the knowledge that comes from just being on the job, dealing with cases and talking to colleagues.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I agree with the hon. Member. The COP26 policing effort of last year involved mutual aid. That involved, for example, training in Scots law for officers coming from England and Wales, so that created an additional training requirement as well. We have to think about those things. As for my own police experience, my specialism was in sexual offences; I was a sexual offences-trained officer, but from a general perspective, I policed football matches, marches and local demonstrations, and interpreted the law accordingly.

Returning to the evidence given by Chief Constable Noble, the chief constable for Staffordshire, if his numbers are reflective of England and Wales as a whole and assuming that no more officers need to be trained—although I have illustrated why I do not think that is the case—over 3,000 officers across England and Wales will have to be removed from duties and trained in these new laws. That is equivalent to about 125 lost days of frontline policing in local communities, and once those people are fully trained, they will need to be diverted from their duties to police the offences set out in the Bill.

It is logical to think that if it takes 25 officers, currently, to police a protest—I am not putting a number on how many people might be there—through the additional offence of being equipped to lock on, and opening the door to extensive stop and search, many more officers may be required. As I said on Tuesday, if we start arresting protesters, we will run out of police officers before we run out of protesters. I also remember Chief Superintendent Dolby talking about the fact that part of their safety techniques in dealing with protesters involves five police officers to arrest a single protester, so the Minister can quickly see how the odds shift.

Nearly 47,000 incidents of knife crime were reported to the police in England and Wales in 2021. That is 128 every day. There were nearly 185,000 sexual offences —more than 500 each day. Given the choice between having police officers responding to those calls, filling in paperwork for SDPOs or stopping and searching protesters, I think I know what I and the public would choose. In a recent YouGov poll, more than half of respondents stated that they do not have any confidence in the police to deal with crime. Traffic offences were the only crime that more people than not thought the police were handling with enough rigour.

I also know what the police would choose. That is because our witnesses told us, and because it is set out in the HMICFRS report. Accepting that protests do need policing, all the evidence tells us that best practice requires strong, pre-existing community relations, which simply cannot be established by constantly lifting police officers in and out of the day job and abstracting them to other duties.

I would hope that these amendments would just require the Government to properly look at how the police are resourced. Government Members want this legislation to be successful, but it will not be if the police are under-resourced. Again, Sir Peter Fahy referenced the fact that, in relation to the response to protest, the police could be viewed as incompetent. I am sure that those on the Government Benches would not like that to be the outcome of this legislation.

The Minister heard the same evidence that I did, and he will have heard the same significant concerns about resourcing. Will we get to a position where, in all areas, police officers have been called to deal with protests, and where a demonstration is more strongly policed than crime? The police cannot be given more work and left to struggle. I would argue that all our communities deserve more. I am potentially looking to withdraw my amendment, but I would be happy to discuss, constructively, with the Minister, how we ensure that capability is there.

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the hon. Lady for her speech. She covered a wide range of challenges the police have before them. It is not unreasonable to expect the Government to ensure that there is capacity within policing to implement legislation if we are making them do so. I also think that she is probably the only person in this room who has policed protests, so, unless anyone else has, we should probably listen to what she says.

On funding, there is a raft of information out there on the lack of and need for training. I would add a couple of other points, made by the inspectorate and others, on what we must do to ensure that we do these things better. The first is on intelligence gathering—finding out, upstream, what is being planned—to ensure that we have enough resources in that area, because that is one of the most effective ways to prevent those repeat offenders.

There is also an interesting chapter in Matt Parr’s report on collaboration between agencies, because to effectively police a protest, we need all of the other agencies, such as the local authority and emergency services, alongside the police as well. There were many examples where that collaboration was not working properly, perhaps because people do not have the time to put that in place. In his report, Matt Parr recommended a joint review of that process. I understand that there will be one, but, of course, that has not happened yet, and so those challenges are still there.

I know that the hon. Member for North East Fife is intending this as a probing amendment. However, I think it is a reasonable challenge to the Minister that we should have enough resources to implement this when crime has risen, prosecutions have fallen, and we have seen huge cuts to policing across the board—the numbers have not yet gone back to previous levels. We would support the hon. Lady’s amendments.

[Kit Malthouse]

I have great respect for the experience of the hon. Member for North East Fife, and I salute her service as a police officer. It is a noble calling and she has my admiration for her career, but I am genuinely perplexed by the amendments. They are unnecessary, not least because much of what we have discussed so far and the amendments that we are putting through are about giving the police more prosecutorial powers and allowing them to get ahead of certain protest tactics and to prevent them, therefore reducing the resources required.

For example, we have discussed stop and search. We have had episodes where police officers have seen the lorries going past with the scaffolding poles sticking out of them, but are unable to stop the vehicles and search them for the equipment and have to wait until the individuals erect them. Then the height team has to be called and the unlocking team has to be called. The ability to intervene earlier would mean that we need fewer specialist teams; that we are able to deal with things much more quickly and on a preventative basis, and therefore there is likely to be less call upon resources.

Notwithstanding what the hon. Lady says, we have significant police resources at our disposal now. The last published police officer numbers figure was 142,000. The peak in 2010 was 144,000. We still have 6,000 or 7,000 to go in our recruitment, so we will be well above the previous peak when we get there. There are lots of resources there.

Obviously, police officers need to be trained properly and there need to be adequate resources to deal with public order issues, but we are acting in this debate as if the police are not already heavily engaged in public order, and as if there is not already an enormous absorption of resources. With the Just Stop Oil protests, for example, officers were drafted from Scotland to come down and assist Essex police and Warwickshire police with the policing of the protests.

We are acting as if it is the legislation that we are going to pass—I hope—that will put a demand on the police, rather than the protesters themselves, who are dragging the police officers away from their important work dealing with knife crime and burglary and robbery in our neighbourhoods. The hon. Member for Croydon Central makes much of overall crime being up; she never mentions that kinetic crime—crime in our neighbourhoods—is actually well down. As she says, fraud is up, and that adds to crime and is something that we need to address but, overall, the crimes that impact on us physically are significantly down and that is a tribute to the work that the police have been doing over the last couple of years.

The other thing I find perplexing is the unwillingness to address the urgency of the situation. I understand that on a hot afternoon, on a Thursday with a one-line Whip, it is easy to be relaxed about this, but we should be in no doubt that in recent months we have seen some extremely dangerous protest tactics: people lighting cigarettes on top of petrol tankers; strapping themselves to fuel gantries, through which millions of gallons of fuel are flowing; or digging tunnels that have been caused to collapse on contractors, bringing people’s lives into danger.

There is an urgency to what we need to put in place. I understand the desire of the hon. Member for North East Fife to have a training audit before we do anything, but I do not think the situation gives us the time to do that at our leisure. We have to act as swiftly as possibly. I am happy to write to the hon. Lady with what we understand the impact is likely to be, but I ask her to withdraw the amendments on the basis that we must act urgently.

We cannot wait, given the danger that is being presented to the protesters and certainly to the police, and the disruption that the public are seeing. At this time of a cost of living crisis, with people struggling and with rail strikes and whatever we may see over the summer to come, we really cannot have these protest tactics taking place. That is why I would be keen for her to withdraw her amendments.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I suppose we could say that the Minister and I have a difference of opinion here. Without an assessment, we will not know who is accurate. The Minister’s position is that the measures in the Bill will ultimately mean less abstractions. My argument is that they potentially mean more, from a training and deployment perspective. Without an assessment, we will not know.

The hon. Member for Stockton North asked Sir Peter Fahy about resources last week. Sir Peter said that

“the public think that there are lots of police officers sitting around in police stations doing nothing, whereas the reality is—somehow the police service needs to find a better way of articulating this—that no, even the Metropolitan police does not have loads of spare officers.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2022; c. 62, Q123.]

The Minister has said that he believes there are sufficient resources, but he also went on to say that the authorities needed to bring police officers from Scotland in order to stop a Just Stop Oil protest. There are issues with resources, and my amendment would ensure that there was a report looking at the capability of police services. I welcome the Minister’s offer to write to me on what assessment the Government have taken into consideration, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.