Public Order Act 2023 (Interference With Use or Operation of Key National Infrastructure) Regulations 2025
Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Lemos(1 week, 3 days ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I thank the Minister and everyone who has taken part in this careful, informed and widely acknowledged to be important debate. I express my great sympathy to the noble Lord, Lord Winston, and all his colleagues who have been subjected to utterly unacceptable and illegal pressure as a result of their work. All the things that have been alluded to are illegal, remain illegal and I am sure will always be illegal. That is not what this instrument is talking about.
On the point of the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act, the noble Lord indeed was very helpful and we had a great deal of useful interaction when it was a Bill. I always opposed that Bill and I look to an article I wrote for Left Foot Forward on 25 January 2023, saying that this Bill should not go forward. That was, remained and still remains my position.
I will pick up on a couple of points made by the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, who said that international standards demand animal tests. Besides the UK there are, of course, many other countries looking to move at pace to get away from animal tests. I point in particular to leading action in India, the Netherlands and even the United States. As in the UK, all those actions are informed, and to some degree driven, by protests. That is part of the political process that is pushing in that direction.
The noble Lord, Lord Willetts, also unintentionally provided an argument against the Minister’s claim that this SI has be approved now, otherwise we will halt the approval of biocides and medicines, et cetera. The noble Lord referred to his time as Minister for Science. I looked up the dates: it was from 2010 to 2014. He said that even then unacceptable protests were happening. There is no evidence of anything new happening that justifies this SI.
I turn to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Trees, who said that peaceful protest was not in any way stopped. I will pick up also on points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and by my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. This was published without a full rights-based assessment. Ministerial responses to parliamentary questions have failed to rule out online activity or information sharing as not falling within scope. That puts NGOs and campaign groups at risk of criminalisation for lawful and utterly reasonable advocacy of boycotts, for public awareness campaigns and for education programmes. The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, made the point that people are not allowed to know where these facilities are but could be criminalised for protesting near them, which really does identify the problem.
The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, pointed out that there has been only one direction of travel over many years: the rights of people are going backwards while the rights of corporations are being advanced. That is what is happening and, as my noble friend Lady Jones said, we are seeing juries saying, “Enough is enough, this is not acceptable”. That is a true expression of public will.
I also thank the Minister—and I will round up on this point—for pointing out that this SI is rejectable, this House has the power to do this and this is within the constitution. The reasons why the SI should be rejected were laid out by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, who said that this is the clearest abuse of legislative power she can remember in 27 years. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard—
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Lemos) (Lab)
I ask the noble Baroness to bring her remarks to a close.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
This is my last sentence. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, conjured up for many of us very fond memories of the noble Lord, Lord Judge. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said that this pushes the boundaries too far. Your Lordships’ House has a choice. This is so constitutionally important that I must ask to test the opinion of the House.
West Papua: Deforestation
Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Lemos
Lord Lemos (Lab)
As I have already said, the UK respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Indonesia, including the region of Papua. The UK is working to agree a strategic partnership with Indonesia, and we hope to make progress on that soon.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, by coincidence, this morning I had a meeting facilitated by ActionAid UK with babassu coconut-breaking women from the Cerrado in Brazil. Will the Minister acknowledge what they told me: that deforestation is associated not just with climate change and collapsing nature but, in West Papua, Brazil and elsewhere, with human rights abuses, the displacement of indigenous people, and violence against women and girls?
Lord Lemos (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. I have already commented on the UK’s stance on human rights in Papua, but I also recognise that, as she said, deforestation is not only associated with the climate. In fact, the biggest contributor to the growth of deforestation in recent times has been wildfires.