Public Order Act 2023
Debate between Anne McLaughlin and Sarah Jones(11 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
I thank all Members who have spoken in this SNP debate on the repeal of the Public Order Act 2023. I particularly want to mention the speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) and my hon. Friends the Members for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) and for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard), but where on earth were the Back Benchers from the Labour party? They are supposed to be the official Opposition, but perhaps we should not be surprised that the party that claimed to be opposed to this clampdown on the right of people to speak out and then U-turned when the polls said that we might actually be able to do something about it seems to have clamped down on its own MPs. No doubt those Labour MPs who have been—
Anne McLaughlin
No, as the hon. Lady refused to take my interventions.
No doubt those Labour MPs who have been consistent and committed in their principled opposition to this Act have been reminded that they are up for reselection soon. What about the rights of their constituents to be represented? What on earth has happened to the Labour party?
These are turbulent and troubling times. I doubt anyone in this place expected much of what we have witnessed in the last five years. From the global pandemic to the outbreak of war in Ukraine, from the mammoth surge in our constituents’ energy bills to the unprecedented rise in inflation, or from the erosion of our shorelines to the erosion of our human rights and liberties under Conservative rule, nobody could have predicted the extent of even that, but we can decide how we respond to it.
As a republican, perhaps the only positive to come from the King’s coronation for me is that the police’s use of this Act and other recent policing legislation has shone a light on exactly what these pieces of legislation really mean for people. The world watched on as members of Republic were shamefully arrested for holding pre-arranged, peaceful and lawful protests. The world must have been aghast, too, when three volunteers from Westminster Council’s Night Stars team were arrested while handing out rape alarms to women the night before the coronation. The police could do both of those things because this legislation hands them almost a free rein. This Conservative Government were hoping that might have gone unnoticed by the masses, but the coronation has ensured that the world now knows just how oppressive the UK has become.
The Public Order Bill was cobbled together when the Government did not get their way with their long list of 11th-hour amendments to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. The House of Lords defeated those amendments. I am no fan of that institution, because I believe in elected representation and I do not believe in gifting power to friends, but the Government do, and they should have accepted that the system they support does not always go in their favour.
Anyway, the Government could not accept that, so they simply repackaged those amendments and within months moulded them into this badly drafted mess. It is not the only example: this is the Conservative Government’s new way of circumventing their version of democracy when they do not get their way. When the legislation is so bad it cannot get through, it is temporarily shelved and brought back in the hope that we have forgotten about it or do not have the energy to fight it. I can see why they might think that about the Labour party, as it has ably demonstrated for us today, but the SNP will always have the energy to fight for our constituents, because this pattern of behaviour is making an absolute mockery of the legislative process, and, worse still, a mockery of this place and our time here. It is also evading parliamentary scrutiny and procedure. For months, we argued that a definition of serious disruption must be written into the legislation and we were told that the Home Secretary would define it for us. The House can imagine how much reassurance that gave me. A day after Royal Assent, the Home Secretary introduced legislation by statutory instrument. Those regulations lowered the threshold for serious disruption from “significant” to simply “more than minor”, which does not fit with the descriptions we have heard from Tory Members today. Those regulations covered proposals that had already been rejected by peers across all parties during the Bill’s passage.
The haste by which the Acts were given assent and enacted meant that, when they hit the streets, the police were given zero time to train frontline officers. That is not fair on those officers. I remember seeing incredible footage last year. Officers arrested a well-known-to-us and pretty noisy protester outside this place under the policing Act just days after its enactment. It was ludicrous: when the protester rightly questioned why he was being arrested, those officers were forced to take out a laptop to look up the relevant legislation. Liberty, which is probably the most foremost civil liberties organisation in the UK, called the combination of the policing Act on public protest and the use of facial recognition technology a “toxic cocktail of measures”. It is not wrong.
For the majority of people, the right to protest is one of the few tools left at their disposal to push for change. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central, in an excellent speech, listed numerous peaceful protests that she has joined here. The Minister listed all the deliberate planned disruptions that he said people are sick of. Equally, I could list all the deliberate planned Tory policies that they are sick of and should have the right to protest against. We will all face serious disruption when the ice cap melts—a point not lost on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk. How embarrassing to be called out by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights when apparently Britain used to be this bastion of human rights. How the mighty have fallen.
I thank the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) for her support for this today. In answer to her question, the legislative consent motion that the Scottish Parliament supported was for one small clause, and she knows that the Scottish Government are not asked for legislative consent unless the measure is specific to Scotland. I can be clear that the SNP utterly opposes the Public Order Act.
One of the most egregious parts of the Act is suspicionless stop and search, which the Labour Party was vehemently opposed to, and rightly so. The right for the police to stop one of our constituents and search them without any suspicion of wrongdoing is better suited to Putin’s Russia than it is here. Yes, the blame for it lies fairly and squarely with the Conservative Government, but people expect to be able to rely on the main Opposition to oppose, and sometimes stop the governing party when that is called for. They expect to be able to rely on the Labour party to fight for their human rights and fight against racism—make no mistake, the huge disparity in the number of black people being stopped and searched is racist—but where was the Labour party when it came to the final hurdle? It caved, and it de-prioritised suspicionless stop and search.
We all know in here that Opposition parties often work much more closely together than the public realise. I want to try to explain what happened to people who might not know much about the internal machinations of Parliament. The SNP had an understanding with the Labour party that we did not need to call a vote on suspicionless stop and search because it would do it. Unlike in the Scottish Parliament, here, every party can only call votes on one or two parts of a Bill—I am saying this for members of the public. Because Labour told us that it would call the vote on it, we did not. Guess what? Labour did not either, so we lost the chance to remove suspicionless stop and search from the legislation at that stage.
Labour colleagues later said that it had been a mix-up at their end, so I said nothing publicly, despite being bitterly disappointed at the wasted opportunity, because I thought that we were on the same side. I thought that we could fight this dreadful piece of legislation together. The Labour MP in question assured me that there would be opportunities to tackle it in the Lords and Labour did duly table amendments, but again it fell at the final hurdle and caved in.
Now that the polls are finally turning and there is a chance Labour will get into power next year, we are told that it will not repeal the Act because it cannot unpick legislation and its party leader says he does not care if their policies sound like Conservative policies. How can Labour Members look their constituents in the eye and say that, yes, they will allow police forces under a Labour Government to carry out intrusive searches on anyone even near a public protest for no good reason? This is not a debating society and they are not supposed to be simply a change of management. This is Parliament. This is where we can and should make radical changes. If they are not interested, why are they even here?
I will end with a warning for both main parties in here. We are here to get independence for Scotland and, mark my words, we will get it. They are both utterly opposed to the people of Scotland making their own decisions, but if they keep stifling the right of the people of Scotland to protest against the decisions they make on their behalf, they will find more and more of them turn to us and they will make it a whole lot easier for people to vote for independence, whenever the next opportunity arises.
Macpherson Report: Twenty-two Years On
Debate between Anne McLaughlin and Sarah Jones(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McDonagh. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), the chair of the Home Affairs Committee, on her important contribution today. I put on the record how incredibly important the Home Affairs Committee report is, how thorough and good it was, and how important it is, 20 years on from the Macpherson report, that there is something looking back on what has been achieved and what has not.
My right hon. Friend set out very well what stage we are at, and how much more needs to be done. I am particularly pleased that during the process the Committee managed to talk to young people about their experience at the other end of a stop and search. I was talking to a Conservative police and crime commissioner the other day, who is black, and has been stopped and searched many times. I suspect that most of us in this Chamber have not had that experience because we are white. To understand what it feels like, and how intrusive it can be, I think we need to speak to people who are affected. I congratulate the Committee for thinking to do that—and for ensuring it was done.
We have been talking about racism and disproportionality in policing for decades, certainly since the Scarman report in 1981, the death of Stephen Lawrence in 1992 and then the Macpherson report in 1999. That report was a watershed moment for British policing. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North said, the national figures on public confidence show that there is a significant variation, depending on their ethnicity, in people’s confidence in the police. Confidence in the police was at 74% for white British people, 69% for black African people and 54% for black Caribbean people. The murder of Stephen Lawrence and the campaigning that has been done since has been so important in shining a light on these issues. I cannot not mention Doreen and Neville Lawrence, who have been so instrumental and gracious in the way they have tried to help us all do better when it comes to these big problems of racism.
When the Home Affairs Committee looked at Macpherson, it did find, as has been said, that there has been positive progress in some areas and that the policing of racist hate crimes and the representation of ethnic minorities within police ranks has improved. However, it found that there are persistent, deep-rooted and unjustified racial disparities in key areas. It found a lack of confidence in the police, a lack of progress on recruitment, problems in misconduct proceedings and stark racial disparities in stop and search. Although the Committee found that policing today is very different from 22 years ago and that there have been improvements, there are persistent problems and unjustified racial disparities in a number of key areas.
Macpherson rightly called for police forces to be representative of their communities. At the current rate of recruitment, it will take 20 years until police forces are such. I represent Croydon Central. Croydon is a very diverse borough and although our police force have done some brilliant work with local communities on building trust and confidence—important work, and I praise them for it—the colour of our police officers is still not reflective of the communities that they serve. The unit that goes out and does stop and search in Croydon has about 80 people, and last time I checked there was not a single black officer among them. That absolutely has to change, and change is happening too slowly.
Black and minority ethnic police officers are more than twice as likely to be dismissed from their role than white officers. The report also found that stop and search is more disproportionate now than it was 22 years ago. We know that when it comes to stop and search, the measure of success is whether a knife or something similar is found. When the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) was Home Secretary and reduced the number of stop and searches and made it more intelligence-driven, the incidence of disproportionality fell in that period. It has got worse again with greater use of section 60 stop and search.
Anne McLaughlin
Just on that, does the hon. Lady agree that allowing suspicionless stop and search under the Public Order Bill will increase disproportionality rates between the different ethnicities, because now officers will not actually need an excuse to stop and search somebody who might be near a protest?
Sarah Jones
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. We both served on the Public Order Bill Committee and it was deeply concerning to note that there has been a large increase in the use of section 60, not just to tackle violent crime and threat of harm but protest without any real consideration of how that will increase disproportionality. That is a real risk. The figures on disproportionality and ethnicity and drug use have already been given. They are really stark, and there is a lot of work to be done on stop and search in that context.
Recent high-profile cases have highlighted concerns around policing. The conduct of officers following the murder of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman was deeply shocking for everybody. The strip-searching of children such as child Q and the adultification of children, particularly black children, that seems to be commonplace, the failings in the case of the death of Richard Okorogheye and the IOPC report on that and the conduct unveiled in the IOPC’s report into the Charing Cross police station show that there are pockets in policing where progress is not happening fast enough. Those pockets seem to cover large areas, because such problems have not just been seen in the Met police; we have seen similar issues across the country, so all forces need urgently to address the deep and troubling lack of confidence among black communities in policing and the criminal justice system.
I have been working with police chiefs and the NPCC since they set up a big programme of work on disproportionality and racism in policing, and I am pleased that their action plan is significantly better than it was when first drafted. It has been beefed up and has some real legs. I am pleased to see the recommendations in there and the very honest way in which the police chiefs have articulated the problem. They have set out an ambition to identify and address disproportionality in the use of stop and search, particularly in relation to drugs and searches of children. They will have robust accountability and learning processes, based on security and supervision.
The challenge with stop and search and disproportionality across the board is that we can see the numbers but we do not know why there is an issue. We assume things about racism, but there is not proper evidence. Evidence needs to be gathered about the places where people are stopped, the interactions and what happens to people. For example, if someone driving a car is stopped and searched, recording data is now being introduced. That was not the case before, and we know that there is huge disproportionality in stop and search for people who are driving. The evidence is not there for us to pull together and find out what needs to be done.
The NPCC will review the use of the smell of cannabis as grounds for stop and search, because that increases disproportionally. It will also review the use of Tasers, section 60, intimate searches and standardised recording practices. The breadth of what it has set itself to do shows how seriously it takes this issue. It will increase the awareness and understanding of every officer and member of staff about racism, anti-racism, black history and its connection to policing, through the introduction of a mandatory programme of training for all police officers and staff. Of course, we welcome that. It is looking at reducing racial disparities in misconduct cases and the complaints process, and is improving support to black officers and staff. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North highlighted, there are pockets of good practice, but it is not across the board.
The NPCC is looking to trial and test methods for better enabling black people to have their voices heard and raise concerns. It is looking at the criminal exploitation of young black men, which we have talked about, and is working to disrupt the cycle of victims becoming offenders.
The NPCC is introducing a national standard across all recruitment and promotion processes to minimise race disparities. The Home Affairs Committee suggested targets. I am quite a fan of targets, and I have had lots of conversations with police officers about the unintended consequences of them. It is good that the NPCC has gone for a national standard.
All that work is good, but I worry that the Government do not take this issue as seriously as they should. They tend to push it out to individual police forces or to the NPCC, when it chooses to come together. I worried about the introduction of serious violence prevention orders in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 without a proper analysis of what the disproportionate impact will be on young black men. I worried about the extension of section 60 to protests without any proper consideration of disproportionality. We all worried when we read the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report, which the Government commissioned, and the lack of action in it.
I worry that the Government have a habit of waiting for the IOPC or HMIC to look at something and bring out a report, which often takes years, instead of taking action themselves. For example, the IOPC and the inspectorate looked at what happened during lockdown in London, where there was an increase in the use of stop and search. Habits formed around handcuffing people—in particular, young black men—when they were being stopped and searched, which the police are not supposed to do unless there is a threat of violence. What I think happened was that a lot of new, inexperienced police officers came in through the uplift. They were not supervised properly and they learned bad behaviour. They learned how not to do stop and search, because more experienced people were not there to do it. I worry that the Government did not see that problem and intervene to do something about it.
The Labour party has long called for improved anti-racism policies and for tougher action to increase diversity in all ranks of policing. A clear combined plan needs to be implemented by police forces, driven by the Home Office, with proper scrutiny and consequences if action falls short. Racism and bias must be tackled wherever they are found.
After child Q, we all called for new guidance on strip searches, but we still have not seen it. When it comes to the pressing issues of reforming police culture and standards, there are myriad actions that Ministers could choose to take, but they point to inquiries that have been set up and tell us that we must wait for this and wait for that, without taking action themselves. A record number of police forces are in the engage phase, a form of special measures. We need a national overhaul of training and standards. There is much to be done on leadership in the police. We need better leadership development at every rank and a new vetting system. We need to overhaul misconduct cases and new rules on social media use. All of those things would help tackle some of the disproportionality and bad culture in the Home Office. All of those issues could be led from the front, with the Home Office taking action.
A lot of these problems are in the Met. If we look at its ratio of PC to sergeant, we will see that supervision has been cut more than that of any other force, so there are not enough supervisors to make sure that the right cultures and practices are in place for PCs. Surely the Government cannot be happy with that ratio and the lack of support for the raft of new officers. There has been a hollowing out of experience. The Government cannot replace the 21,000 experienced officers they have cut without losing all their helpful experience.
The report is very important. It highlights that progress has been made, but there is lots more to be done. I congratulate the police leaders and the NPCC who are independently pushing new proposals to improve things, but without Government intervention and leadership I do not think we will go fast enough. The suggestion that it will take 20 years to have a police service that is reflective of the communities they serve is a stark example of that.
The policing style in Britain is one of consent. The public have to trust the police for the system to work, and at the moment some communities, particularly black communities, do not. The public need to trust the police. Victims need to get the justice they deserve, regardless of the colour of their skin, and our officers deserve to work in a police force that has high standards and a respectful culture.
Given the chaos around us, the Minister does not have this power right now, but the new Government could choose to drive up standards. They could insist on the recruitment of more black officers, tackle disproportionality and increase professionalism in policing, instead of saying, time and again, as the former Policing Minister always did, that there is an inquiry into this, a report on that, and that we would just have to wait and see. Tackling racism is an active job. As one of the resigning Ministers, the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), said yesterday:
“not doing something is an active decision.”—[Official Report, 6 July 2022; Vol. 717, c. 876.]
Public Order Bill (Seventh sitting)
Debate between Anne McLaughlin and Sarah JonesTuesday 21st June 2022
(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Anne McLaughlin
Yes, but it does not have a number outside. I was unable to be here last week due to a diary clash, and I apologise for that, although I advised the Committee.
I recall that the previous week the Minister and others in the debate and here today suggested that there is some hypocrisy going on. That is my reason for saying a few words today. I want to explain why they are wrong in their assessment. That said, the measure applies to England and Wales only, so I will abstain in any vote because, as most colleagues know, the SNP does not vote on matters that do not directly impact on their constituents. However, I will put my name to a motion similar to this at the SNP conference later this year.
The position is not hypocritical, because there is a world of difference between somebody being harassed, as the Minister puts it, by protesters, and being told an airport is not doing enough for climate change. There is a world of difference between that and somebody being told with words, verbally, on a poster, or implied by presence, “You are killing your child. You individually are responsible for the death of your child.” That is what those protesters are saying.
I know women who have had abortions, and even those certain from the outset that it is absolutely the only and right choice for them, wrestle with their conscience, and they live with that decision forever. The guilt is there already; they do not need somebody else to make them feel even more guilty, yet that is what the protesters do. Even the ones who silently stand and pray quite often have posters with pictures of foetuses and the message that abortion is murder. It is cruel in the extreme.
Nobody changes their mind once they have got to the clinic. Nobody who turns up at the clinic and who is attacked by someone verbally, on posters or by their presence, stops and says, “Wait a minute—you are right. I am killing my child. I am going to cross the road to you and ask for your help.” That does not happen. It is fine for people to have those views and want to offer assistance, but not at that stage and in that way. That is why it is completely different from any other type of protest talked of in the Bill. I am sorry that I cannot vote for it. That is not much good for the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton, though others are not going to vote for it anyway. However, I do want to voice solidarity, because I support the gist of what she is trying to do.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
Given the contributions so far, I will be brief. I want to add to what the hon. Lady has just said and to try to explain that this different, because it stops people getting the medical support that they need.
I have had cause to walk into the abortion clinic in Streatham. On that occasion, I was not getting an abortion but, I promise, if I had been what I saw would have made me feel very scared, guilty and inclined not to go in. Although the protesters were not shouting and yelling, they were judging. For many women—people—that judgment means they want to run away. It was worse when we came out than when we went in. The protesters do not know what has gone on inside, so the judgment when you come out is 10 times worse than when you go in, because the protesters think that you have committed murder. This is a very different matter; it is about getting medical attention that you are entitled to. It is about your legal duty to—
Public Order Bill (Second sitting)
Debate between Anne McLaughlin and Sarah JonesThursday 9th June 2022
(1 year, 10 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Public Order Act 2023 View all Public Order Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 9 June - (9 Jun 2022)
Sarah Jones
Q
David Dinsmore: Indeed.
Anne McLaughlin
Q
Public Order Bill (Second sitting)
Debate between Anne McLaughlin and Sarah Jones(1 year, 10 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Sarah Jones
Q
David Dinsmore: Indeed.
Anne McLaughlin
Q