Public Order Bill

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 24th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

I, too, rise to speak in support of the Lords amendments. These are amendments about suspicionless stop and search, and we need to draw a breath and remind ourselves that suspicionless stop and search really is a significant power. It is a hugely invasive, intrusive and arbitrary police tactic that causes incredible inconvenience for those who are impacted, and that is something that has not seemed to register at all with the Government throughout the entire process of discussing clause 11.

From the Casey report, we also know of the hugely significant impact that these powers can have on black and minority ethnic communities in particular, so it is plain wrong to be pressing on when trust has been undermined by a series of horrendous stories, particularly regarding the Metropolitan police, but far from exclusively. Nobody in this Chamber is saying that suspicionless stop and search powers are never, ever appropriate, but there must be serious justifications for them. Of course, there are serious justifications when it comes to terrorism or serious violence, but the powers in the Bill apply in circumstances that do not come remotely close to justifying their use. In some circumstances, we are talking about an inspector having a suspicion that somebody somewhere might commit a public nuisance. That is absolutely no basis for setting up a suspicionless stop and search regime, so this is an appallingly inappropriate expansion of such powers at a time when Casey has called for a reset of practice with regard to them.

As such, we support these Lords amendments. The arguments in favour of them have been set out comprehensively in the last two speeches that we have heard. If anything, the amendments are very limited and do not go anywhere near far enough, but they are just about better than nothing, and they may provide some reassurance for those who are going to be at the sharp end of such searches. We therefore support them and disagree with the Government motion.

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

I return to trust, which is the basis of policing by consent. We need trust in the police, not just so that when people pick up the phone they get assistance, but from an intelligence perspective as well. One concern that I have had consistently throughout the debate on the Bill is that, in eroding that trust, we will fail to get the intelligence that we need in order to prevent some of the offences that the Government are attempting to stop via the Bill.

The Minister has pointed out the additions to the PACE code, but I wonder whether, if those in the other place had not persisted in their course in relation to suspicionless stop and search, we would have got that climbdown from the Government. I agree with the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) that we need this provision on the face of the Bill. The reality is that when we look separately at section 60 searches—again, this is from the Casey report—it does not appear that a sudden surge in use had any effect on the underlying trend.

I have deep concerns that if the Government are successful in disagreeing with the Lords amendments today, which I suspect they might be, we will miss the opportunity of the Casey report and, several years from now, we will be standing in this place debating the fact that—we told the House so—stop and search does not work.

[Chris Philp]

I do not want to rehearse at great length points I have made previously, but I reiterate in response to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), that the Government believe that these powers, which are to be used in limited circumstances, are necessary pre-emptively to prevent people who are going equipped to disrupt the day-to-day lives of fellow citizens, whether it is with equipment to allow them to lock on to pieces of critical national infrastructure, to glue themselves to roads or to climb up gantries and attach themselves to equipment over the M25. They go equipped—it is an intentional, planned activity—and there are occasions when it will be necessary for the police to conduct stop and searches where they reasonably believe that a crime may be committed, even when no suspicion attaches to a particular individual.

I reiterate my point that the substance or key points of the amendments either are covered or will be covered by PACE code A. In relation to Lords amendment 6H, as I said, the officer giving their name and their badge number, the details of the stop they consider relevant and the grounds for the search are already covered by paragraph 3.8 of PACE code A. It is in there already, and officers do it already. In relation to issuing a statement giving the reasons for these particular powers, we will make sure that PACE code A sets that out even more clearly. The amendments have either been implemented already, or we are committed to implementing their substance and spirit using PACE code A.

Why are we using PACE code A, rather than putting the amendments in the Bill? First, it is for consistency. These sorts of conditions are set already in PACE code A, and we want to be consistent with how things operate already. Furthermore, when setting out guidelines, it is generally better to use instruments such as PACE code A or regulations, because where changes or updates are needed, it is much easier to do that by amending secondary legislation, guidelines or codes of practice, rather than by going back and amending primary legislation, which can happen only infrequently.

Those are the reasons we have taken the approach we are taking. There is a good rationale for that, and I therefore urge the House to join the Home Secretary in respectfully disagreeing with their lordships on Lords amendments 6H and 6J.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendments 6H and 6J.

Public Order Bill

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I will be brief because I agree entirely with the two previous speakers. There should be no suspicionless stop and search powers anywhere near a Public Order Bill. It is pretty grim that removing clause 11 entirely from the Bill is now off the table. All we are debating, in essence, are a few inadequate safeguards, yet still the Government are not listening to or understanding the concerns of those who will be stopped and searched.

As we have heard, yesterday the Casey report spoke about the UK’s largest police force needing a fundamental reset on stop and search, because it was being deployed at the cost of legitimacy, trust and therefore consent. Among the report’s stark conclusions was that enough evidence and analysis exist to confidently label stop and search a racialised tool.

Suspicionless stop and search is a counterproductive, disruptive and dangerous police tactic for a whole host of reasons. Yet here we are, the day after Casey, and the Government still insist on handing out a ludicrously broad and totally disproportionate power to do just that. It is not good enough for the Government to say that the use of the powers will be restricted, as the Minister in the other place sought to do. The same Minister said that the whole reason for keeping public nuisance in the scope of clause 11 was that it was an offence committed so frequently. Suspicionless stop and search to prevent the possibility of someone being seriously annoying or inconveniencing someone would almost be funny if it was not so deadly serious. The Government should at least get public nuisance out of the scope of the clause.

The Minister said that he was trying to seek consistency on the rank of the authorising officer, but it is comparing apples and oranges if the Government think that a power to tackle nuisance has to be consistent with the power to tackle serious violence. It is also selective because, as was pointed out in the other place, no-suspicion stop and search powers in relation to terrorism require a far higher rank before they can be authorised.

I will finish my brief contribution with the Casey report, which states:

“We heard that being stopped and searched can be humiliating and traumatic. Yet we could find no evidence of the Met considering how this would impact on how those who had been stopped would use the police service”.

The Government’s insistence on this power means that exactly the same criticism can be levelled at them. They do not recognise the serious disruption caused by suspicionless stop and search. The fact that they have been so tin-eared to concerns raised is pretty worrying. The Lords amendments are the barest minimum that we can do to restrict a severe and draconian power, and we should support them.

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

It is three in a row, as I agree and associate myself with the remarks of the previous speakers. It is important to look at the Lords’ amendments in the light of yesterday’s Casey report. Throughout my involvement with the Bill, I have always tried to look at it as a former police officer, although not a former Metropolitan Police Commissioner. I have always tried to think about the Bill from the perspective of the police officers who will be required to carry out the powers in it, and from the capacity perspective—the capacity of officers to go and do these duties and to be trained to carry them out.

On the first point, I refer to page 86 of the Casey report, which states:

“The lack of comprehensive workforce planning and prioritisation…throughout this report also makes for a weak approach to learning and development. Officers regularly said that they had to keep their own records and that they were not held centrally.”

Can the Met say how many officers it has currently trained in public order, whether in basic command units doing aid training or in tactical support groups? When the Bill is enacted and police come to court, the defence will ask officers what training they had in these powers, so that is a valid point.

The second bit is about capability. If officers have not attended the training but are then abstracted to attend a protest, do they actually have the skills at all? I want to pick up on page 131 of the report, which mentions tactical support groups and their use across London. It states:

“While they can be tasked to carry out policing functions in a BCU area, they are not accountable to the BCU chain of command. This can undermine a BCU’s attempts to own its very extensive patch, and to be fully accountable for policing there, both to the Met and to the public.”

It goes on to say:

“We were told that specialist teams tended to have rigid attitudes to their style of policing. ‘TSG come here not knowing the area…they come late, allegedly go to the gym on job time…they annoy the community, and arrest people who probably didn’t need to be arrested anyway… My colleagues think it suppresses crime. I don’t think it’s worth the community upset, it poisons the relationship with the community.’”

Those comments have been made by some of the core teams that will be enacting these powers.

My third point goes back to the comments I made last time we discussed these Lords amendments. Whether a police officer is attending an incident or a spontaneous protest, and whether they are a police constable attending by themselves or taking directions from a silver public order commander in relation to a planned protest, they are still exercising those powers and making those decisions. We must look at the stress placed on police officers who are juggling all those multiple demands. Again, I refer to page 90 of the Casey report:

“The reality of policing means that most of the time, police officers are in threat perception and threat management mode.”I suggest that when people are policing in those kinds of modes, the strain they are under means that making good decisions, potentially about complex legislation, becomes more challenging.

I agree with the comments have been made about clause 11 being removed in its entirety; indeed, my colleagues in the other place continued to support that. We also support the new amendments that we are considering. In terms of arguing whether they are reasonable or not, I say this: they reflect the safeguards and the BUSS—best use of stop and search—scheme, which was introduced in 2014 and scrapped by the former Home Secretary in May 2022. What is proposed in the amendments has previously been utilised by the police, so I do not see why they cannot continue to do so.

[Chris Philp]

I do not wish to repeat everything I said at the beginning, but I want to pick up on one or two points made in the course of this short debate. The first point relates to policing’s position on this power. The shadow Minister, my constituency neighbour the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), said that the police had not been calling for this. I politely draw her attention to what was said by His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services, which is run by a former chief constable:

“On balance, our view is that, with appropriate guidance and robust and effective safeguards, the proposed stop and search powers would have the potential to improve police efficiency and effectiveness in preventing disruption and making the public safe.”

I do not want to reiterate yesterday’s extensive debate about the Casey report, which has been referred to, but I will say one or two things about the use of stop and search in that context. First, when I discussed stop and search with Sir Mark Rowley, the commissioner, a few days ago, he pointed out that between 350 and 400 knives are removed every month from London’s streets using stop and search. I think that is an extremely important contribution to public safety.

In her report, Baroness Casey referred to academic research from the United States that found that the use of stop and search led, on average, to a 13% reduction in crime. For the sake of balance, it is important to keep those points in mind.

It is fair to say that a very small proportion of stop and searches result in complaints. That has been the case particularly since body-worn cameras have been used, because the officer knows that when conducting a stop and search the whole thing is being recorded. Some of the bad practice that may have been prevalent 10 or 15 years ago is much less likely to occur when both parties are aware that the stop and search is being recorded.

Metropolitan Police: Casey Review

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I expect every report of rape to be treated seriously from the point of disclosure. Every victim needs to be treated with dignity and every investigation needs to be conducted thoroughly and professionally. The rape review took a hard and honest look at how the entire criminal justice system deals with rape, and in too many instances, it has not been good enough. That is why there is a whole programme of work afoot—including Operation Soteria, of which I am a big supporter—to improve the investigation of rape, reduce the time that it takes to get a prosecution going, and, ultimately, to improve outcomes for victims of rape.

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

As a former police officer, I would like to say that I was shocked to read Baroness Casey’s excellent report, but to be honest, I am pretty inured by now to some of what we have heard. I will make two points. First, in my view, the most important rank in the police service, particularly if we want to change the culture, is police sergeant, but the report told us that the training for police sergeants amounted to a 23-slide PowerPoint. Will the Home Secretary task the College of Policing to ensure, and make an assessment, that that is not the case in other forces, and to directly support the Met in that regard? Secondly, as a Scottish MP—not a police officer any more—let me say that the Met’s performance impacts my constituents, too, through its national priorities. The Casey report said that it did not recommend dismantling the Met at this point but that that may be recommended in future. How will that assessment be made and who will make that decision?

[Suella Braverman]

The hon. Lady is right to talk about leadership training; that is why I work closely with the College of Policing to ensure we have a better programme of preparation for the next generation of police leaders. That must start early on in a policing career. The existing training is frankly not good enough, and that is why there will be a programme of reform announced soon.

Public Order Bill

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Danny Kruger]

Okay, well, I will wind up now, because I think the point has been well rehearsed. My concern is with the principle we are setting here. Of course, everyone must have sympathy with these women, and we need to protect them from harassment, but where does this lead and what we are doing by saying that people should not be allowed to pray quietly on their own?

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

Policing by consent is central to how our criminal justice system works in the UK and the authority by which officers wield the power given to them. That is why this issue is challenging and why we are having this debate. It is seen as being about balancing the rights of protest in this situation with other rights to go about everyday legitimate business. It is important to take a balanced and sensitive approach.

Several legal minds here are much greater than mine. I am not a qualified lawyer, but I am standing here as the only former police officer participating in this debate. I know who the other two former police officers are and they are not here. I have approached this debate, these clauses and the Lords amendments by thinking about what would happen if I, as a police officer, went to attend a “spontaneous protest”, meaning that as a constable, the first person there, it would be on me to make the decisions about what was legitimate or not and about how I carried out my duties. I also thought about what would happen if I was part of a team of police officers policing a bigger protest, and about the instructions that I would be given by the silver and bronze commanders in relation to that protest and how they would tell me how to interpret the law.

I found it interesting when the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, who is no longer in his place, intervened on the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) to say that he would explain that this is confusing. Police officers are dealing with an ambiguity in the moment all the time. If we create legislation in this place that is confusing and if we have not provided clarity, it is not surprising that police officers will be found not to be applying the law correctly.

Interestingly, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who is also no longer in his place, talked about the interviews that His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue undertook with police officers. I cannot totally repeat what the former silver public order commander to whom I am married called this Bill, but I can say that it was a pile of something. I will leave Members to speculate on what else he said. These are complex decisions to be made in real time, regardless of rank. Policing by consent is how we ensure that we carry out our duties safely.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

The Government accept that protection for journalists might helpfully be set out, and that is why Government amendment (a) to Lords amendment 17 will substantively do what the Lords request, albeit in slightly different language.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I am pleased to hear that.

If Lords amendment 1 is disagreed to and Government amendment (a) to it is passed, I would disagree with the broadening of the definition of “serious disruption”. Whatever the Government may think of protesters, they are not terrorists, and applying similar legislation where no offence is committed is simply wrong.

[Chris Philp]

As I said in my earlier intervention, the Government have accepted that serious disruption prevention orders can only be handed out by a court, following a conviction. The title of clause 20 is somewhat confusing, but we have accepted the point that there must be a conviction first.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I am grateful to the Minister for that clarification, but the point I made while he was not in his place still stands: this is confusing. We are presenting confusing legislation to police officers to apply and potentially to take away people’s liberty accordingly.

Policing needs to be done with consent. This is knee-jerk legislation, as I have said throughout, to replace powers that already exist and that the police say they can utilise now. It also prevents the important discussions that take place between protest groups and police officers; we are going to create a chilling effect not only on the right to protest, but on the relationships that help us to enable legitimate protest. I think that is why the Lords rejected these clauses outright in their previous guise in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. The Lords have attempted to ameliorate the worst excesses of this Bill, and I will certainly vote in support of keeping the Lords amendments in place.

[Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)]

I rise to speak to Lords amendment 5 and the amendments to it put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer).

Buffer zones are basically public spaces protection orders, extending a distance of 150 m. PSPOs, as they are called, are generally used for antisocial behaviour. We have three in Doncaster, apparently, and I have personally applied for one in Conisbrough in my constituency. We have a set of seating in the middle of town where we have people under the influence of drugs and alcohol, and beggars, and they make a nuisance of themselves with antisocial behaviour. They are killing the town centre. I have been refused a PSPO there, but I will continue, because I think it is the right thing to do.

Lords amendment 5 will put a mandatory buffer zone, a PSPO, around every single clinic in the country. Regardless of what we think about that, I want to tell people in this House and in my constituency what that will look like. The drunks and the people under the influence of drugs in Conisbrough are going to continue to be able to make a nuisance of themselves, damage the local economy and scare old and young people who want to go to the shops; yet a lady or a gentleman who has a real strong faith and believes they can help the people coming in to a clinic is not going to be able to do that.

The hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) talked about people praying and standing in front of people, and my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory) asked why they have to do it there. Well, if that is the worst day of a woman’s life, and I accept that it probably is one of the worst days of a woman’s life, if she saw somebody there who was praying respectfully, who was there to help, and she knew they were there, she could ignore that lady or gentleman who was praying and just walk in—but, if it was the worst day of her life, she might want somebody just to turn to for that second. Also, if somebody is being coerced into going into one of those places to have a forced abortion, that lady or gentleman could be somebody who is there to help.

I agree with everybody else in this House that shouting, screaming and holding up placards is an awful thing to do and should not happen, but silent prayer and consensual conversations should not be banned. The papers will get hold of this in a year’s time: we are the party of law and order, but we will be arresting people for prayer and for conversations, while letting the people who are harassing the public in our towns and our shops continue to do so.

I ask all Conservative Members in this House to think about amendment (a) to Lords amendment 5, which my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South has put forward. It simply asks for people to be allowed to pray and to have those consensual conversations. Amendment (b) provides that, before we put this law in place, we carry out a review on it. That is what I am asking for.

Illegal Migration Bill

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

My right hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration is working intensively to secure bespoke, appropriate and—importantly—sustainable asylum accommodation around a range of locations within the United Kingdom. We are working with local authorities and Members of Parliament. We want to make the right decision for communities, and that is why all dialogue is welcome.

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

Torpiki Amrakhil, an Afghan journalist and former announcer on Radio Afghanistan and on the radio station of the United Nations assistance mission in Afghanistan, drowned in Italian waters on the way to Europe. Given the brutality of the Taliban regime and precarious security situation in neighbouring third countries, it is shocking that there is no specific safe route for at-risk Afghan women and girls. We have failed the people of Afghanistan at every stage, and the UK is an outlier in that regard. What steps is the Home Secretary taking to create a specific safe route or to at least ensure that existing promises are kept?

[Suella Braverman]

Unspeakable tragedy is occurring in the channel and through all maritime routes around the world because of the global migration crisis. That is why it is absolutely essential that the UK takes a robust but compassionate approach. That is at core a humanitarian package of measures that sends the message to people: “Do not come here illegally.”

Crime and Neighbourhood Policing

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

With respect for the rules and the rule of law, Mr Deputy Speaker, I turn to the need for a new approach, because this situation is not fair for our communities. The collapse in neighbourhood policing and in justice for victims is not just making people feel less safe, but undermining our town centres and local economies, as well as undermining respect for the rule of law and the crucial trust that lies at the heart of the British policing model of policing by consent.

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

The right hon. Member is talking about respect and we are also talking about trust, and I think we have to acknowledge that trust in the police has been significantly eroded of late. Does she agree with me that neighbourhood policing is actually critical to rebuilding that trust? It is much better to see a police officer on the street who knows their local community and is known by the community, as opposed to one at a distance.

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member is exactly right. It is having police officers and PCSOs rooted in communities, who know their communities and can also respond to communities and community concerns, that helps to gather intelligence about offenders and perpetrators, helps to prevent crime in the first place and helps to build trust so that people feel more confident about reporting to the police. I agree with her that it is crucial, alongside the other reforms I was about to mention.

We would also introduce a new law on police standards, making vetting compulsory and being clear on mandatory standards on training and misconduct, with the very basic idea that, if a police officer faces allegations of rape or domestic abuse, they should be suspended, not just put behind a desk. Raising standards and increasing the community connections of the police is a really important way to support policing as well as to support communities.

Police Conduct and David Carrick

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I remind Members that aspects of this issue are sub judice. Please stay well away from anything relating to things that are still before the courts.

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

I too commend the bravery of the women involved in this case, but some of them would not have needed to be brave if action had been taken. As a former police officer I am disgusted and ashamed by what I have heard. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner has said that 800 of his officers are under investigation. Has the Home Secretary requested similar figures from other police forces? What is the impact on the operational capability of police officers? Finally, as the Mother of the House rightly pointed out, police officers are not employed. They are not subject to employment law; they are appointed. Staff associations within the police service, such as the Police Federation, play a very important role in disciplinary and conduct issues. What engagement is the Home Secretary having with them?

[Suella Braverman]

The inspectorate reported late last year on that issue, looking at the performance of forces all over the country on vetting and the monitoring of disciplinary matters in policing. The inspectorate made 43 recommendations, largely focused on chief constables around England and Wales, the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs Council. They have all been accepted. There are deadlines for spring this year, and later this year, and we are closely monitoring the implementation and delivery of those recommendations.

Police Service: HMI Report

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. The vast majority of police officers are decent, hard-working and brave people who put themselves at risk to keep us safe, and they will share our horror at these findings.

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

As many know, I was a police officer, joining Lothian and Borders police in 1999. I will not pretend that I do not recognise some of the elements of the culture described in the report, but I am concerned that policing by consent, which is the central tenet of policing in the UK, is threatened by reports such as this one. Scotland is not immune—the Minister mentioned Dame Elish Angiolini, who has carried out a similar report in Scotland. We need to sort out the vetting, but I have a real concern that there are people serving in the police force today who should not be there. What actions is the Minister taking to ensure that all forces do that? Given that the picture is quite fractured, with 43 forces, does the IOPC have a role in ensuring that that work is expedited?

[Chris Philp]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and for her service as a police officer in Scotland. She is right to point out that this is not just about vetting on entry; it is also about conduct while in office. The recommendations touch on this matter, including in relation to the Home Office and the rule 13 processes around people who are still on probation. I have only been in post for a week, but I do think that making sure that misconduct allegations and wider performance issues are acted on quickly merits further attention, and it is something I will look into.

Public Order Bill

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 18th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry]

I suspect the Minister will still hear our views after we become independent, so I would not get too upset about that.

During the passage of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, the Joint Committee looked very carefully at a large volume of responses and heard from two panels of witnesses about the issue of the public order provisions. The Minister has said the stated intention of the Bill is to strengthen police powers to tackle dangerous and highly disruptive protest, but we think the measures go beyond that, to the extent that we believe they pose an unacceptable threat to the fundamental right to engage in peaceful protest. That was the conclusion of the Committee’s report dated 17 June, in which we proposed the amendments that I am speaking to today.

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

I wanted to reflect on the point that it is not just about our constituents in Scotland being concerned about the provisions in the Bill. One of the fundamental parts of policing in the UK is mutual aid, so there will be considerations for Police Scotland in relation to the Bill, if it is passed, when we have police officers from Scotland attending protests in other parts of the UK.

[Joanna Cherry]

That is a very good point and I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making it.

It is a matter of regret that when the Government responded to our cross-party report they said:

“Any chilling effect on the right to protest, damage to the UK’s reputation, or encouragement of other nations seeking to crack down on peaceful protest is more likely to arise from the misleading commentary on the PCSC Act and this Bill”

than anything else. No, Minister. That is not the case. The Committee’s conclusions are not misleading commentary. They are the conclusions of a cross-party Committee of this House, informed by evidence from many different sources and advice from our own legal experts on the European convention on human rights, to which, thank God, the UK is still a signatory and which is still enforceable under the Human Rights Act 1998, which seems, thankfully, safe for the time being.

Before I turn to the amendments, I want to quickly make the point that the criminal law and the powers of the police already allow for action to be taken against violent protest and disruptive non-violent protest. That is addressed in detail in paragraph 18 of our report, where we list all the existing provisions under the criminal law of England and Wales that cover the situations about which the Minister says he is concerned. So not only do we think that the Bill is an attack on the fundamental rights of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, but we believe that it is unnecessary and simply replicating existing law.

Our first tranche of amendments deal with the new offences set out in clauses 1 and 2—the proposed offences of “locking on” and

“being equipped to lock on”.

The purpose of those amendments is to try to water down what we consider to be far too stringent positions. We are particularly concerned about the reversal of the burden proof, putting it on the accused. The purpose of our amendments is to reverse that and put that burden on the prosecution, as is consistent with the presumption of innocence and therefore with article 6 of the ECHR. So amendments 28 to 33 would narrow the scope of clauses 1 and 2 and improve safeguards against violation of convention rights.

We believe that the offence of obstructing major transport works in clause 6 is so widely drafted that it could easily criminalise the peaceful exercise of rights under articles 10 and 11, so our amendments 34 to 36 would narrow its scope, including by introducing a requirement of intent and removing the unnecessary reversal of the burden of proof.

We think the proposed offence of interfering with “key national infrastructure” is too widely drawn and thus risks criminalising, without justification, behaviour that would fall within the provisions of articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR. Amendments 37 to 49 would narrow its scope and remove the unnecessary reversal of the burden of proof.

The proposal to extend stop-and-search powers to cover searches for articles connected with protest-related offences risks exposing peaceful protesters and other members of the public to intrusive encounters with the police without sufficient justification. We would like the utilisation of these new powers to be carefully monitored. In that respect, I note with approval the terms of new clauses 9 and 10 in the name of the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova).

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I rise to speak in support of several amendments, including new clauses 1 to 5, tabled by the official Opposition, and new clauses 9 to 14. I agree that there should be a free vote on new clause 11, to which I am sympathetic and which I will support. The speeches on it so far have been very powerful. I also wish to speak to new clauses 15 to 17—the hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), who is no longer in her place, spoke powerfully about them—and to the amendments tabled by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) on behalf of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, by the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) on behalf of the SNP, and by the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker).

I speak on behalf of my constituents who are concerned about what the Bill means for the right to protest. It might be argued that the Bill will not affect them directly, but like the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West, I have constituents who will travel to England and Wales to protest. As I highlighted in my intervention about mutual aid policing arrangements, the Bill is likely to mean additional training requirements for Scottish officers deployed elsewhere, as at last year’s G7 meeting.

We have heard from many Members of this House with a legal background and training, but I believe I am the only former police officer in this debate; I do not see the other two hon. Members who I know were police officers. I am also the wife and daughter of former police officers—indeed, my husband was a senior public order commander—and I am the stepmother of serving police officers. I have policed demonstrations. It might have been some time ago, but I speak with some knowledge and direct experience.

Laws should be necessary, but as we heard in our Bill Committee evidence, the police already have the power to respond to protests; I am grateful to the hon. Member for Broxbourne for raising that point. Ideally, laws should not break our already stretched systems—that was an area of focus for me in Committee—but this law risks our police’s very ability to tackle day-to-day crime, which the Home Secretary says is a priority for the Government.

Regardless of rank, length of service or extent of training, the first officer to attend any incident—protest or otherwise—is the officer in charge until they are relieved of that duty. I say that not to denigrate, but to illustrate. That officer will have to determine whether there is a risk of serious disruption and, if so, whether an offence under the Bill or any other law is being committed. I am concerned that there is a risk of inconsistent application of the criminal law and a breach of the rule of law. I therefore support the official Opposition’s new clauses 1 to 5, which would ensure that the Bill’s provisions are applied appropriately.

It is not just me. The National Police Chiefs’ Council’s evidence to the Bill Committee suggested similar concerns, which would be at least partially addressed by some of the amendments, particularly those tabled by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West to implement the recommendations of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I remain concerned that the police, particularly those in junior roles, may end up ill-equipped to make the judgment calls that the Bill requires.

Let us be clear: the police do not need this Bill to respond when protests cross the line. Where there is criminal damage or trespass, they already have the power to respond. However, if the Bill is passed with no amendments but the Government’s, all protest will effectively be frozen for fear of being caught by the legislation. Importantly, the Bill is also likely—I refer to the comments that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), made about policing in France and elsewhere—to freeze the police’s relationships with a wide range of activist groups, which involve constant dialogue to balance the facilitation of protests with the rights of others to go about their daily business. That dialogue happens all the time in all our communities and is something to be celebrated.

[Jeremy Quin]

I deeply respect the hon. Lady’s policing experience and that of her family, but she has implied that the Bill will allow the freezing of protests and an inability to protest, which is not the case. I think that, as a former police officer, she would recognise serious disruption. We are absolutely clear about this: a protest constitutes something that is really interfering with people’s way of life, preventing them from getting to work and engaging in their normal business.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

What I am trying to say is that the existing legislation already deals with those circumstances, and that, given that some of the Bill’s provisions mean that people need not even have done anything to be subject to them, there is a fear that it will prevent them from doing anything at all. I believe that the fact that our police service is grounded in policing by consent—unlike those in other countries whose police forces have evolved from more militaristic origins—is something to be celebrated.

If the police do not need the powers, if all that the Bill does is make it harder for legitimate protest to take place and if it restricts the right of citizens, I would argue that we do not need it at all. We should reflect on the fact that the Minister, in his opening remarks, claimed that the existing legislation was a reason for rejecting new clause 11.

Let me now raise another point, which I have touched on already. It is not about protecting the democratic rights of our citizens, but in many ways it is just as important, because it concerns the real impact on the capacity of the police service. In Committee I tabled a number of amendments, and although I have not tabled them again on Report, this is a key consideration.

When we pass poor legislation, we sometimes see the results in our constituency surgeries, but when it comes to legislation such as this, we will not be dealing with the outcomes directly. I believe that if the Government are confident that the Bill, in its current form, will do what it is intended to do, they should be comfortable with receiving reports from the College of Policing and from police forces about the capability and capacity of those forces to deliver the legislation—and that is before we even think about the huge backlogs in the criminal justice system. It will take some time for people to come before the courts in the context of this Bill.

The proposed new powers will require additional officer training. Sir Peter Fahy, the former chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, gave evidence to the Bill Committee. The simple fact is this:

“If there are not enough police officers trained to properly respond to protests and apply these new laws, that means that more people must be trained—training that costs thousands of pounds and means that officers are potentially in classrooms, not out on the street.”––[Official Report, Public Order Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2022; c. 191]

Chris Noble, the chief constable of Staffordshire Police, estimated that, under the current legislation, it takes an officer two or three weeks per year to keep up with necessary additional public order skills. The offences specified in the Bill will require significantly more training at the outset, at the least, and will mean even more days of actual policing lost at significant cost, with simply abstracts from core policing duties. Once the officers are trained, it is likely that deployment to protests will increase as a result of the Bill’s restrictions. Simply put, people cannot be in two places at once, and resources are limited. According to evidence given to the Committee, the arrest of a protester usually involves six officers. We will run out of police officers before we run out of protesters.

I know where I would rather the police were. I would rather see an officer making sure that the streets were safe for women and girls walking home at night, going after gangs and those working across county lines, stopping the scammers who target our elderly and vulnerable, working on counter-terrorism, and preventing organised crime. I ask colleagues to reflect on what they and their constituents really want when faced with the reality of these choices, which were made even more stark by the Chancellor when he stood at the Dispatch Box yesterday.

Policing by consent is one of the greatest attributes of our country, and it is something that I am passionate about. The Bill undermines that. Although we will support amendments that curb its worst excesses, I will continue to argue that the decision in the other place to remove these clauses when they were part of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 was correct. I cannot support the Bill in its current form.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

I rise to speak in favour of new clause 11.

In a perfect world, no woman or girl would be raped; no foetus would have life-shortening, agonising conditions or endanger the life of the mother; and every baby born would be yearned for and cherished. But we do not live in a perfect world, and that is why Parliament has settled laws for the regulation of the provision of abortion services. This is what new clause 11 concerns. It is not about the form of those laws, or their details; it is about the provision of those services in day-to-day life.

I had the responsibility for looking after abortion clinic buffer zones from 2017 until I was promoted from the Home Office last year. It was, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) says, an issue with which I grappled, because there is a real balancing skill involved in weighing up not only the concerns of those women seeking medical services and those who support them, but the sincerely held beliefs of those who do not agree with abortion. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who is no longer in his place, has set out some of the history of this, and I was an active part of it, so I really am trying to help the Minister when I try to explain some of the shifting of that balancing operation.

In 2017 Amber Rudd was Home Secretary, and in response to concerns voiced by parliamentarians she commissioned a review into demonstrations and protests outside abortion clinics. We announced the results of that review in, I think, 2018, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid) was Home Secretary. At that point I stood at the Dispatch Box and I signed letters to say that we had looked at the number of clinics and weighed up the power of PSPOs. At that point, from memory, one council—maybe two—had applied for a PSPO, and we felt that the balance was in favour of PSPOs being using on a targeted basis for those clinics affected.

The review continued—I genuinely kept this under constant review—thanks to the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex and my right hon. Friends the Members for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) and for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller), among many others on this side, as well as the hon. Members for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) and for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy). It is a pleasure to see the hon. Member for Walthamstow in her place today. Indeed, only last summer we looked at this again in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. At that point, although the number of clinics affected by demonstrations had increased since the initial review, we felt that in the interest of balancing both sets of interests, PSPOs were the right way to go.

Today, however, five councils have applied for these orders, and happily the imposition of those orders has been upheld by the Court of Appeal as being lawful. We have heard in the course of this debate the concern that the five PSPOs cover five clinics out of some 50 that have been the subject of protests and demonstrations. My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke made the important point that this is not just about the number of clinics; it is about the number of women who go to the clinics for these services. I think I am right in remembering that she cited the statistic that around half of women who seek these services had attended clinics where there had been protests and demonstrations.

So I find myself in the position of agreeing with new clause 11, not because I like banning things or because I am against the legitimate and sincerely held beliefs of those who cannot support the provision of abortion services, but because I come back to the point about the provision of services to women who need them and the circumstances in which they find themselves as they walk that long and lonely path to the doors of the clinic, hospital or surgery providing those services. I know from speaking to women who have been through these protests that they have made a difficult decision. There may be many factors surrounding the decision, involving their home lives, the circumstances in which the pregnancy came about and the concerns for what might happen if their friends, families or the wider society found out that they had had these operations. These are fundamental healthcare services that we provide, rightly and lawfully, in the 21st century. We must surely enable women to access these services as and when they need them so that they get the right help and advice.

Oral Answers to Questions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

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

5. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of the points-based immigration system on labour shortages.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)]

Our immigration system works in the interests of our whole United Kingdom by covering a broad range of occupations across many sectors for firms looking to attract the talent that they need, while ensuring that the domestic labour market is supported—yet recruitment issues are not unique to the UK, and immigration must not be seen as an alternative to improved pay, conditions and training for key workers.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

There is a severe shortage of care workers around the UK. In St Andrews in my constituency, a social care business had to shut down recently because of staffing issues. My inbox is increasingly full of messages from people who are waiting for care-at-home packages. One way of helping would be to allow asylum seekers to work while their claims are being processed: it would allow them to support themselves and would mitigate the worst of the shortages. Will the Secretary of State and the Minister consider that?

[Kevin Foster]

That is an interesting one. Those whose asylum claim has been outstanding for more than a year can take jobs on the shortage occupations list, which has included care workers since February. One of the slight issues, of course, is that until very recently, 31 out of the 32 local authority areas in Scotland, including the hon. Lady’s, refused to be part of the dispersal accommodation system. Now that we have made the change to full dispersal, some of those people will actually be living in those areas.