Off-road Biking

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Thank you, Mrs Latham, for calling me to speak in this debate. I did not intend to speak, but some issues have been raised that I feel strongly about. I declare that I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on motorcycling, so I take a very specific interest in the issue as a licence holder and bike rider for recreational and commuting purposes.

There are a couple of issues that the Government could grasp here. We wrestle with the issue of wayward youth, verging on criminality—and I think there are a couple of things that can be done. Young people want the exhilaration of speed and the enjoyment of a bike or a quad, and unfortunately they do not always get to do that with good parental control or wise adult supervision, so they can go wayward. It is important to try to stop it at that point.

In Northern Ireland, we developed a scheme where the Department of Justice and the police, recognising that there was a problem in parts of Belfast and County Antrim, brought together a motorcycle club and a very active individual within the motorcycle fraternity who was able to bring the young people together, speak to them on the street and encourage them to come to a track set aside for them. They were encouraged and shown how to develop their motorcycling skills, which means they have become competent riders, both off and on-road. They were then taught how to maintain and manage their motorcycle, as a lot of them are used illegally and do not have proper braking equipment or proper lighting, and are not properly regulated, licensed or looked after. They were shown how to maintain the bike and have pride in the machinery they were using, and therefore to see it not as a reckless, youthful toy but as what it should be seen as: a helpful and productive piece of machinery that can be used sensibly and help them in their daily lives.

That process has taken young people who were right on the verge of doing stupid things with their lives and lifted them into an area where they have pride in and recognise the importance of motorcycling, but also recognise the danger of both motorcycling and using quads illegally. They have become advocates and ambassadors to other young people in their areas, reaching a very hard-to-reach section of the community. That was a brilliant, one-off programme that achieved some fantastic results. I have tried to encourage the police across Northern Ireland to roll that programme out, not just in other parts of Northern Ireland but across the UK, and to learn from it. We are at the cutting edge; we are doing something important for that wayward youth element.

Unfortunately, we also have another section of people who are involved in criminality with regard to quads. They are reckless, dangerous and do not care, and they put people’s lives at risk; unfortunately, people have lost their lives. A few years ago, a lovely young woman in west Belfast lost her life when an off-road motorcycle hit her and killed her outright. Two of my constituents—two young kids—lost their lives riding motorcycles in an unlawful way, and the tragedy had such a massive and heavy impact on the housing estate where those kids were from and the local community.

We have to encourage people to stay away. The consequences of getting this wrong—one wrong turn, one broken brake lever, one gear missed and someone is hit—for the rider, the pedestrian or both are significant and life-changing. We have to make sure that that is understood. I know those quad deaths and off-road motorcycle deaths are awful for people, so we need to tackle the issue. I encourage the police here to address the issue in the way that we have tried to with the pilot programme in Northern Ireland—to lift that into the national picture.

We should look at the quantities: there are 1.5 million daily motorcycle riders in the UK and a further 3.5 million motorcycle licence holders in the UK. That is a massive section of the community—most people will know someone who rides a bike—and the subject therefore generates significant interest across society. I encourage the Minister to look at some of the programme work that has been done, and even to visit, and then to say, “Yes, this pilot could be lifted and applied elsewhere.” That way, we could start to address some of the problems identified in the very able speeches made across the Chamber and see progress.

Metropolitan Police: Operational Independence

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

Which of course I accept without hesitation or reservation, as I always do.

I agree that hatred has no place on our streets and I have said that repeatedly, but this is an unfolding event. The hon. Gentleman talked about what happens after the event, but these protests have been going on for four weeks now. The Home Secretary was not commenting entirely before the events; she was also commenting after events that have been unfolding over the last four weeks, which have included 188 arrests and a number of communities, both Muslim and Jewish, but particularly the Jewish community, feeling very uneasy. It is reasonable for the Home Secretary to try to ensure that communities feel safe and protected, and that is what she was trying to do.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

When women were treated brutally and unjustly by the Metropolitan police in this city in the wake of the Sarah Everard murder, Members came, correctly, to criticise the police, inside this House and out, for their failure and for their brutality. I remember people on the Opposition Benches calling on the Government to be more brutal on the police at that point. The hand-wringing hypocrisy and the pant-wetting that we are seeing over someone correctly criticising the police is amazing. I have witnessed Irish nationalists and republicans, who the Home Secretary referred to in her article, running too quickly to the support of Hamas, to Colombian terrorists, to Hezbollah and a whole host of others. The Home Secretary is correct to call that out and to say it as she sees it, and this House is right to back her.

[Chris Philp]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his words. He is right to point out those examples where Members of this House, particularly on the Opposition Benches, have in the past criticised the police. No one on those occasions claimed that those criticisms impinged on the operational independence of the police; they were simply holding the police to account, as politicians on both sides are entitled to do. I am grateful to him for reminding the House of those previous occasions when Opposition Members have exercised their prerogative to hold the police to account.

Retail Crime

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I appreciate the opportunity to open this Adjournment debate so early in the day. At the outset, I want to register the fact that I am a member and officer of the all-party parliamentary group on retail crime. Given the debate that we have just had, it is very important that I do so. I have no pecuniary interest in that matter: it is about ensuring that our high street is protected, and that parliamentarians are aware of issues that are important to high street independent retailers and consumers. I believe that the APPG plays a vital role in doing that and in giving a voice to voiceless people on those important issues.

I thank the British Independent Retailers Association, which is one of the consumer voices for thousands of retail shops across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. It tries to make representations for those groups and bring together their views. I also thank the Association of Convenience Stores, which represents thousands of businesses across the country—small businesses, shopkeepers and traders—and aims to make sure that their issues are properly represented. I will make a prediction, Madam Deputy Speaker: my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) will intervene on me at some point this evening. I think it is important that that happens, and I look forward to it, but I am glad that other colleagues have indicated their interest in this matter, because it is something that affects the entire United Kingdom and every single one of its component parts: Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland.

This is a matter of concern because, quite frankly, the high street is under threat from a host of things. The modern way in which we shop has driven people from actual shopping to online shopping, which has an impact on retail trade. That, in turn, has an impact on the issue that I hope to bring to the attention of the House: retail crime. Survey after survey shows that the public feel it is important that we have a thriving local high street, and that they prefer to shop at smaller independent businesses that are unique—that have a connection to the local community and offer uniqueness, opportunities and, importantly, choice to the consumer.

However, independent retail shops such as those represented by the British Independent Retailers Association have indicated that they are under threat from a number of challenges. Those businesses are working on tighter and tighter margins, not only because of the lack of a level playing field with online retailers, but because of retail crime. Retail crime is not a victimless crime: it costs the UK economy approximately £1.9 billion a year, and policing it and putting protections in place costs businesses about £600 million a year.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing tonight’s Adjournment debate. Something I have noted from conversations with retail workers in my constituency is a reduction in the provision of security guards by many companies, despite increasing crime rates. While I understand the budgetary considerations, does he agree that companies need to take their duty of care to both workers and customers more seriously?

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[Ian Paisley]

I thank the hon. Member for raising that point. The protection of workers is very important to us all—I suppose we could all recount stories where members of staff in high street shops have been verbally or physically abused. That has to be taken seriously. Of course, with crime increasing, the availability of cash has also depleted. ATMs have moved inside shops and away from banks because banks on the high street have closed, and consumers are now charged for taking their money out of those cash machines. All those knock-on effects have an impact on retail trade and crime up and down the country. Those matters will bear heavily on shops.

I want to put that statistic on record again: retail crime costs the UK economy £1.9 billion a year, and it costs businesses about £600 million a year—over half a billion pounds—to put protections in place. Retailers across the UK report that one of the biggest threats to their businesses is customer theft, which comes as no surprise. Customer theft affects the productivity and competitiveness of smaller shops, not least because if those shops make a claim against their insurance, their premiums increase. Because they are working on margins of 4% to 5%, any theft impacts the profitability of a business. So a shopkeeper or retailer is actually discouraged from claiming off their insurance, which is there to protect them from this, because it will have such an impact on their profit margin that it could ultimately put them out of business, and that matter is incredibly important.

Of course, we all know that the cost of living crisis means that more people are desperate, and despair can cause desperate measures. However, that cannot mean people have free rein. On that point, I for one will not draw a distinction in saying that, because there is a cost of living crisis, that will make people want to steal. That is not the nature of the average citizen in this kingdom. The average citizens in this kingdom are good people and they want to do good things. But there are increasing pressures that drive other people to crime and I think we have to be very clear about that. The cost of living crisis is affecting everyone and it is affecting shops. More people have less to spend and, if retail crime is left unchecked, businesses will just buckle and fold.

Retailers do take responsibility and arm themselves against this type of crime by investing in loss prevention measures, as the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) has said. Loss prevention measures include CCTV, special mirrors, panic alarms, shutters, high-value items secured behind counters and overhead gantries. However, many independent businesses do not have the financial capability or the size of store to invest in the same way that large national chain companies are able to do and that have a physical security presence. Even if they do, the £1.9 billion cost is passed on to the consumers. Again, that highlights that this will drive the cost of living crisis even further, so it is a vicious circle. We in this House have an opportunity to challenge it and I hope the Minister, through his actions—I know that the Minister is committed to this—has the ability to help to break that vicious chain.

In addition to the financial loss, there is also the emotional impact. If the shop worker is unable to go back to work after they have been verbally abused, spat at or physically abused, that has a dire impact on the economy of that family or of those people. The fact is that 47% of retailers have reported that vulnerable customers are not visiting their shops at night due to the fear of crime, which again reduces their ability to participate in the community, because shops are about community. They are about the high street flourishing and about people within the community meeting and greeting, and engaging in business.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

First, can I congratulate my honourable colleague and good friend? He is right to outline all the things that shops can do in relation to, No. 1, safety for their workers and, No. 2, safety for their customers. I have been the representative for Strangford in this House since 2010, but I was a Member of the Legislative Assembly before that and a councillor. Over those years, I have watched the shops in my constituency and seen shop workers who have been verbally abused, who have been attacked with knives and who have had to call the police after having been beaten up in their shops. Yet, with all the precautions that are taken in a shop, and it is right to take those precautions, it only ever works if the police are accessible, and the problem for us in many cases is that the police are so busy that they are not able to attend incidents in shops at the time when the people need them to be there. CCTV can retain the evidence, but the police need to be there. Has my hon. Friend experienced that in his constituency as well?

[Ian Paisley]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I think he has over 26 or 27 years of elected experience between these two bodies, and with that on Ards Council, over 30. I think it is telling that he has probably, like me, seen an increase in this and an increase in the threats to shops. Of course, that has been impacted by the things I mentioned earlier: the change in shopping habits with online shopping and therefore the inability sometimes to invest in some of these issues.

Everyone who works in a shop has the right to feel safe behind their counter and that their livelihood is not under threat. That is why I am pleased to be a co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on retail crime, safe and sustainable high streets and to be leading on this debate and pushing the matter forward. We want to ensure that high streets remain at the heart of our community, but unless shop theft is regarded as a serious crime, it will continue to grow. We need to flag up that this is not shoplifting and this is not petty; it is serious and at times organised and it must be addressed. We are talking here about serious and organised crime: this is a serious crime and we must deal with it.

I went through the history of parliamentary questions asked on this issue. From the response to a written question by the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) to the Ministry of Justice in 2018 we learned that a perpetrator of retail crime would, appallingly, have to be convicted 30 times before they were given a custodial sentence, up from 27 in 2017. In 2016, one offender received their first custodial sentence after—wait for it—435 previous offences; in 2017, the figure was 279 previous offences, and in 2018 it was 287 previous offences. For a prolific daily offender it took hundreds and hundreds of offences before they received a custodial sentence. What message does that send out to the kleptomaniac and the person who says, “I just need that item”? It sends the message that they will probably get away with it.

That is not good enough, and this issue is not being treated seriously enough. It is therefore no surprise that according to the British Retail Consortium only 15% of shoplifting crime is reported, and a majority of businesses—over 56%—say that they believe the police operate “poorly” or “very poorly” when dealing with retail crime. I understand that. I deal with the police regularly in my constituency, and this refers to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). Talking exclusively about Northern Ireland, when police budgets have been driven down and when the chief constable rightly puts out the message that people will notice the lack of policing because those budgets have been driven down, this sort of crime is only going to go one way—up. I know the situation in England and Wales is slightly different because the police here have been given additional support, which is very welcome. I would love for that support to be cross-applied to Northern Ireland. I have deliberately not made this debate specifically on Northern Ireland because that would let the Government take the easy path of saying that calling the Assembly back would lead to this being sorted out. That is not the resolution, however; this is about budgetary support from the Home Office for policing. We do not have that support and we require it.

So what needs to happen? All of this means that the retail industry feels largely unprotected. Unfortunately, that is the case across the entire country. From Abbott’s in Devon to Mackays of Cambridge and across to Fermanagh in Ulster, many members of the British Independent Retail Association have been campaigning on retail crime and have given evidence directly to the Home Office on this issue. They have found that, even with video evidence, there just is not the interest or imperative for some of the authorities some of the time to get involved. They feel ignored and let down. We must address that, because it is not in the interests of us as lawmakers or of those of us who want this country to flourish. We want to make sure that the law is seen to apply, is seen to apply fairly and, where it has to be, is seen to apply strictly and to punish people engaged in this crime.

Reductions in resources available to police forces are undoubtedly posing challenges, but, more pertinently, there is still a lack of consistency in responses to retail crime across the country. This has not happened by introducing the crazy £200 arbitrary figure that the Government set in the guidelines to the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which advises police forces that they do not need to respond if the value stolen was below that figure. A written question from the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson), who is a fellow vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on retail crime, safe and sustainable high streets, showed that the percentage of shop thefts dealt with by the justice system stands at 13%, down from 36%. That is simply not acceptable and I hope the Minister agrees.

Prosecuting shoplifting needs to be quicker, easier and cheaper from the point of view of police forces and retailers. With the use of compelling CCTV evidence and technology, processes can and should be modernised to increase the conviction rate. At the moment, data protection often means that shoplifters are protected from identification, even though they are a danger to the public and other retail businesses. That needs to change. I am not saying that we need to put “wanted” posters up all over the country, but sometimes we feel like that when we know that a particular person in our village or high street is a menace. In the town of Ballymena, the shops have a radio connection so that when certain people are seen in the town it goes around like wildfire: “So-and-so’s in the town today. Try to prevent them coming into your shop and, more importantly, be alert and make sure they don’t do it.”

When an arrest is made, the punishment must reflect the seriousness of the crime. With that in mind, it would be much better if part of the process for reporting this type of crime was a mandatory victim impact statement so the court can hear the dilemma shop owners and shopworkers are placed in and the pain they feel. It would help to ensure that criminals are more likely to get the sentence they deserve if the real impact of their crime is laid before the courts and the judge hears the impact it has had on the community. All retail crime needs to be treated seriously. We need to expunge the words, “This is just shoplifting”. It is not. That phrase has to be removed from our lexicon. That type of terminology implies that it is somehow less of a crime and not as important.

I will leave those thoughts with the Minister. I understand that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) wishes to make a contribution. He spoke to me earlier behind Mr Speaker’s Chair and I am more than happy to agree to that. In conclusion, this is an important issue on which we can have cross-party co-operation. Let us show retailers that that is the case and implement these simple solutions that will help our retailers live and thrive, and help the high street thrive again.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) for letting me make a short—perhaps uncharacteristically short, some might say—contribution rather than interventions. I agree with everything he said. I just want to focus on one particular aspect, which is the use of security guards in shops and a recent incident that happened in my constituency, and also attacks on retail workers. The Home Affairs Committee did a report on that a little while ago and pushed to make it an aggravated crime, in particular when retail workers are attacked because they refuse to sell restricted goods such as alcohol or tobacco to people because of their age and are effectively policing that in place of the state.

I had an incident in my constituency a couple of weeks ago that went viral for all the wrong reasons. I will not go into great detail, because although it is not currently subject to any legal action it may become so. A Co-op store in my constituency has, I am afraid, something of a reputation for shoplifting, particularly by gangs of young people who have been causing problems in an area close to a railway line recently. Somebody, a teenager, was drunk and blatantly shoplifting in front of a security guard who declined to do anything about it. A member of the public stepped in to say, “Hold on, you shouldn’t be doing that.” She was assaulted and then the teenager legged it. Somebody who had witnessed that then drove around the corner, where there was a police car with a PCSO sitting in it. He pulled up to the police car and happened to have his dashcam on. He recorded a conversation where he said, “You need to get round to the Co-op sharpish, because there is an incident going on”, only for the officer—I am not going to pre-judge, because this incident is being looked at—basically to say, “I cannot get involved.” What was supposed to happen there? Obviously the police need to be called and should intervene, but they had not arrived at that stage, although they did later. A member of the public was being attacked. A security guard who had been employed by the Co-op to look after the goods in that store should surely have intervened.

The Co-op is a good store, a good employer and it does some good things. The Co-op lobbied members of the Home Affairs Committee and we took evidence from it in particular about attacks on retail workers, but it needs to do its bit, too. We were told that retail workers would be fitted with bodycams, so that they could record the evidence to prosecute people. I have to say that in Sussex, largely down to our police commissioner, Katy Bourne, the Co-op has taken the lead on taking shoplifting—or however we want to term it, and I entirely agree with the hon. Member for North Antrim that we should not downplay the importance of the act. It is being taken far more seriously, and the police will now respond to shoplifting incidents more rapidly and with greater seriousness than they perhaps have in the past. It is not enough, but it is better than it was.

[Ian Paisley]

The hon. Gentleman is making a valuable point, and I am delighted that these proactive measures are being taken. One of the points that concerns me is that some shops and businesses will not be able to afford to take them. That is the problem. We have got to have something holistic that allows the small retailer the same benefit as those retailers that are better off. What he talks about is an expediential step in the right direction.

[Tim Loughton]

Absolutely. I agree with everything that the hon. Gentleman said earlier about how we underplay the significance of this issue, which acts as a green light for other people to come in saying, “Nobody is being prosecuted.” If, as in the case the hon. Gentleman mentioned, it is taking 400 times before somebody is actually incarcerated, it sends out a strong message that nicking from a supermarket or a store is fairly easy and people will probably get away with it. I am afraid that is the message that has been sent out from stores such as the one I have mentioned. They are not doing enough to prevent shoplifting by employing people to intervene—where they do employ security guards—so that a clear message goes out, saying, “We take shoplifting seriously here, so please do not try it.”

My point is that companies such as the Co-op need to employ security guards where there is a problem, but they need to be security guards who can intervene. There is nothing in the law that would stop that security guard intervening, restraining the person responsible for the incident I just mentioned, and detaining them until a police officer arrives and can take appropriate action. They chose not to, and that is policy in certain stores. That is not protecting the goods in the store or members of the public who were in danger, and, in this case, were assaulted by this person, allegedly. It is also not protecting the staff.

My ask out of all of this is that the police do more. We need to do more to up the conviction rates to show that this is an important crime. Stores, particularly larger stores, need to do more to ensure that where they do employ security guards, they are security guards with a purpose who do not just stand there and say, “I cannot intervene”, which is completely and utterly useless.

Another branch in my constituency does not employ security guards at all. On Friday evenings, as I have recently found out, two young women are in charge of that store. People are coming in, potentially aggressive or drunk or to commit crimes. Retailers, particularly the bigger ones, need to take this issue seriously and step up to the mark if they want to protect their customers and their goods, and particularly if they want to protect their staff. I hope that the Co-op has heard that, because I have invited it to come down urgently to my constituency to talk about the problem that we have with stores in the area. It is sending out entirely the wrong message and creating a bigger problem for the future.

I am grateful for the opportunity to hijack and leap on this debate, because it is an important subject that is not treated with the importance that it needs.

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[Ian Paisley]

I welcome the Minister’s point, which needs to be driven home to local police services and, importantly, to shop owners. On the group that he set up and is taking advice from, it is brilliant that progress will be made, but I encourage him to invite the British Independent Retailers Association and the Association of Convenience Stores to that group, so that smaller businesses can have their voice heard.

[Chris Philp]

The Association of Convenience Stores was at the meeting on Monday and will come to the subsequent meeting that I referred to. I will be happy to invite the other group that the hon. Gentleman referred to. Officials are listening and will make sure that the invitation is extended.

To repeat the point on goods that are stolen with a value under £200, the previous Policing Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), wrote to all chief constables and police and crime commissioners to make it clear that section 176 does not restrain the police’s ability to arrest and prosecute. Further to that, in 2020 the National Business Crime Centre surveyed police forces in England and Wales, asking if they had a policy of not responding to shoplifting where goods are worth less than £200. No police force said that it had any such policy, which is reassuring. However, I want to make sure that the practice on the ground is appropriate. I was concerned by the points raised by Dame Sharon White, the chair of John Lewis, in her article in The Times over the weekend, saying that she felt the police response was not adequate. That is why I will have further discussions with the relevant NPCC leads and others in the near future.

I would like to address the short but excellent speech by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham. I have touched on the incident he mentioned, but he also made a point about security guards, and he is right to say that even though they are not warranted police officers, security guards have the right, under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, to physically intervene when there is no police constable on the scene and a crime is being committed. They can make a citizen’s arrest, as any member of the public can.

Interestingly, I was refreshing my memory about section 176 of the 2014 Act, which I mentioned. When the crime of stealing goods worth less than £200 was made summary-only, it would have fallen outside the scope of offences where a member of the public, including a security guard, can make a citizen’s arrest, were it not for an express provision in section 176 that makes it clear that shoplifting goods under the value of £200 does still trigger the right to make a citizen’s arrest under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. Back in 2014—I was not a Member of Parliament then, but my hon. Friend was—Parliament legislated expressly to allow that power of citizen’s arrest to apply specifically to shoplifting when the goods are worth less than £200.

Of course we need to be conscious of the safety of security guards, but I would urge them to intervene when they see someone shoplifting. If they do not, that simply allows shoplifting to go unchecked, and people will be almost encouraged to shoplift if they think it will go unpunished. I have seen plenty of video footage from the United States in which store security guards do not intervene—perhaps because people in the United States often have guns, which, thankfully, is not normally the case here—and the problem escalates out of control. I agree with my hon. Friend that security guards should intervene appropriately, unless they really believe that their safety will be at risk, because that acts as a deterrent. As I have said, they have the legal powers to do so.

There are also some very good technical solutions that retailers can adopt to be proactive. One company that works in a number of retail stores, including the Co-op in parts of the south of England—it is a private sector company, so I will not name it—uses a live facial recognition system that hooks into the CCTV cameras. It is connected to a database containing images of known prolific shoplifters. When one of them walks into the store, an alert is triggered so the staff know that a prolific shoplifter has just walked in. The company recommends that a staff member should approach the shoplifter and do nothing more than say, politely, “Excuse me, sir, can I help?” The mere act of doing that often acts as a deterrent, and the shoplifter simply leaves, knowing that he or she is being observed.

The company has shown me data revealing that the number of assaults against retail stores deploying the system has dropped by about 20%, while in the stores that have not deployed it the number rose. In the stores where it has not been deployed, there has been a significant rise in the incidence of theft—part of the wider increase that we have discussed—whereas in those that have deployed it, there has been a very slight decline. The system was recently scrutinised by the Information Commissioner’s Office for the usual data protection and privacy reasons, and, following lengthy consideration, the company is being allowed to proceed. I think that systems of that kind can be extremely helpful.

I do not want to try the House’s patience by going on for too much longer. Let me conclude by reiterating my agreement with the view of the hon. Member for North Antrim that this is a serious form of crime that causes enormous financial loss, leads to many assaults on hard-working staff members and, if it goes unchecked, escalates to a point at which widespread disorder permeates society. For all those reasons, I think that we need to do more, and I commit myself to doing that through the meetings to which I have referred. I thank the hon. Member again for drawing the matter to the House’s attention.

[Ian Paisley]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I think a point of order is the only way in which I can say this. I want to thank the Minister, because his was one of the most helpful responses I have ever received during an Adjournment debate. I just wanted to put that on the record.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. It was rather removed from the actual Standing Orders, but there we are; I am sure that the Minister appreciated the hon. Gentleman’s words.

Question put and agreed to.

Population Growth: Impact of Immigration

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Order. This debate has a hard stop at 5.55 pm. I intend to call Alison Thewliss at 5.32 pm or thereabouts, so Members, monitor yourselves.

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[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. It is great to be able to participate in this debate, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) on introducing it.

I will concentrate on the issue of the population, because that is the core issue we have got to address. In 1990, which is the base date for all our policies relating to net zero and so-called climate change, the population then was about 20% less than it is now. There has been a 20% increase in population since then, yet all our net zero targets are related to absolute figures, rather than to carbon dioxide emissions per head of population. That is a dimension to the debate that I do not think we have sufficiently addressed.

When the Environmental Audit Committee, on which I have the privilege of serving, was asking an environment Minister the other day what is being taken into account in determining the impact of rising population on the ability of the Government to deliver on their net zero targets, there was a big gasp—“Oh, well, there is no briefing on that.” He did not have a clue. All that happened was that the Minister resorted to talking about heat pumps. He seemed to think that that was the answer to the question, which I raised. Yet we know that heat pumps are a subsidiary issue.

The Government keep setting targets for almost everything under the sun. Yesterday, I visited a garden centre and found that the Government are prescribing the amount of peat that we can have in a grow bag. They are prescribing that, but they have no policy whatever on the number of people we think it is right to have in our country.

I visited Hungary with some colleagues a few weeks back. Hungary does have a strong population policy. The Prime Minister there, who recently got re-elected with a two-thirds majority in Parliament, has the support of his people in recognising that one can limit immigration and at the same time grow one’s population and grow one’s economy.

On the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings made about growth in the economy, I think that is one of the most destructive policies that this Government are adopting. They are talking about GDP growth as being a good thing, but what should really count is GDP growth per person—per capita—and if you look at the figures, Mr Paisley, you will see that, in effect, over the last 10 years GDP per head of population has been static. We have not had that growth, so when people feel that they have not shared in the growth, the answer is no, they have not, because to a large extent the growth is actually being generated just by having more people in the country. The Government can brag about the fact that we have higher growth than Germany, but actually that growth is a mirage in terms of the economy, because it is not growth per head of population; it is the overall growth created by just bringing more people into the country, so this is an overdue but very timely debate.

The contribution that net migration makes to population growth is important, but let us first of all get a policy on our population. We have not had a population policy in this country. Why do not Ministers go off and see what is being done in Hungary, which is addressing this problem in a really constructive way? It is incentivising the home-grown population to grow their families, while at the same time having tight control over migration from outside, and encouraging people to develop their skills instead of allowing employers to take the easy shortcut of bringing in people who are already trained from overseas, thereby denuding those economies of their skillsets. There is a lot to be done, and I do not know whether my right hon. Friend the Minister, in responding to this debate, will be able to promise that we will introduce a population policy. I hope he will.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

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[Sir John Hayes]

On a point of order, Mr Paisley. Hyperbole is one thing; calumnies are another. I did not mention people in this country not having children. I did not mention families. I do not know whether that was an invention or a misunderstanding, but it was one or the other.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Order. That is not a point of order, as you know. Throughout this debate, people have been listened to quietly and all their points have been made. Allow the SNP representative to make her points quietly and with dignity.

[Alison Thewliss]

Thank you kindly, Mr Paisley. I will accept that the right hon. Gentleman did not make that point about demographics, but one of his colleagues did. Perhaps that is happening because in this country, people have been demonised for having children by the two-child limit, which has reduced family size. It has had an impact on the number of people in poorer demographics having children, because there is no support through the social security system. There is a cost of living crisis—perhaps Government Members have not quite noticed that—which means that families are holding off from having children because they do not feel that they can afford them.

We have talked about housing policy in the UK, and issues with measures chopping and changing, as well as with targets moving and shifting and disappearing. In Scotland, we have built lots of social housing. We have invested in that sector and we have stopped things such as the right to buy, which removed affordable housing from many communities in England.

In Scotland, our issues are about emigration, not immigration. The depopulation of areas such as our islands has been a problem for generations. For that reason, I am sure the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) will be pleased to hear that Scotland has a national action plan and population strategy. We started that because we are losing people, not because we want to close the door and prevent them from coming in. We want devolution of immigration law to allow us to tackle issues such as the depopulation of our island communities and to put further investment into them.

Brexit is the elephant in the room in many ways, but not in the way Government Members seem to think. Brexit has meant a loss of skills. It has meant people feeling unwelcome. It has meant that qualified staff in universities have gone elsewhere because they cannot further their research in the UK. Government Members mentioned graduates. They seem to want to take international students for their fees and then kick them out. That is no way to welcome people or to thank them for choosing to be in this country.

On the issue of students and dependants, in a written parliamentary question I asked the Minister how the Government calculates the amount brought into this country through immigration health surcharges and dependant visas. They could not draw out that number from their immigration figures. There is no evidence to suggest that dependants of students are any kind of burden, because the Government cannot produce that information when asked.

It is a fact that we are more likely to be treated by an immigrant in hospital than find one in the bed next to us. They come here and help out our health service to a ridiculous degree, if indeed they are allowed to work. I have constituents who are waiting for Home Office permission to be allowed to work in the NHS. They would dearly love to be able to be using their skills to help people in Scotland, but are not permitted to do so at a time when health and social work has its highest number of vacancies. In September to November 2022, there were 3.9 vacancies for every 100 employee jobs.

The skills gaps go right across the other sectors in our society. We have huge shortages. We need people to come in and work because there are vacancies, and the vacancy rates significantly impact both the UK’s productivity and its GDP growth, as other Members have mentioned. We are refusing to take those skills—refusing to let people come in, and closing the door on them—and that makes me incredibly sad because that is not what Scotland chooses.

People talked about hearing about immigration on the doorsteps. I go around the doorsteps in my constituency just the same, listening to people’s concerns, and they accept that immigration is important—that people come to Scotland to contribute skills and jobs. People in Pollokshields love the joy of being able to go and buy fresh mangoes and pakora on their doorstep. They welcome all of those things that immigrants bring to enrich our culture, and it makes me incredibly sad that the Conservative Members do not think that immigrants have anything to bring.

I will close with some words from The Proclaimers:

“All through the story the immigrants came

The Gael and the Pict, the Angle and Dane

From Pakistan, England and from the Ukraine

We’re all Scotland’s story and we’re all worth the same

Your Scotland’s story is worth just the same”.

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[Stephen Kinnock]

Yes, of course. I am just checking the time, but—

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

You have about a minute.

[Stephen Kinnock]

Under the five-point plan, we will scrap the unworkable, unethical and unaffordable Rwanda plan, and channel the funding into the National Crime Agency. We will triage the backlog so that there is much faster processing of high grant-rate and low grant-rate countries, and reverse the catastrophic decision made in 2013 to downgrade caseworkers and decision makers’ seniority, which led to a collapse in productivity and to poorer decisions being made. We will make the resettlement schemes work—the Afghanistan scheme has completely collapsed, which is frankly shameful, given that we owe a debt of gratitude to people in Afghanistan. We will get a returns deal with the European Union, which we know has to be based on having safe and controlled legal pathways, and we will get our aid programme working so that we are focused particularly on countries that are generating a large number of refugees rather than plundering the aid budget, which is being used to fund hotels in this country.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Order. I thank the hon. Member for his comments. I have to call the Minister at this point. Minister, you have about 11 minutes.

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[Robert Jenrick]

I only have a few seconds. I don’t want to deprive my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings—

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

The debate will finish at 5.55 on the dot.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Can the Minister set out what the Government believe the right target is for the population of this country?

Strip Searching of Children

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Miss Dines]

As I mentioned, collecting data is fundamental. Initially, that will be on a voluntary basis, but the Government are working with forces and the National Police Chiefs’ Council to improve data collection in future years. Such information will be part of our annual statistical bulletin. It is important that we have proper evidence and data, so the hon. Lady is right to want that. The Government are committed to improving this provision in discussion with the NPCC.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The Minister has made it clear that, if the police are to have these powers, they must be used proportionately and within the guidelines, but it is as obvious as a galloping horse that they are not being used proportionately and they are not being used within the guidelines. The statistics that have been produced with regard to Northern Ireland show that in 2021—whenever we had a period of devolution—there were 27 searches of children, and in only one case was there an appropriate adult accompanying that child. The justice system in Northern Ireland allowed that atrocious set of circumstances to pertain. Between 2021 and 2022, there were 53 searches of children, and only three items were found: in one case, a mobile phone; and in two instances, drugs. The Minister can say, “If you have devolution of these issues in Northern Ireland, it can all be swept under the carpet.” It cannot. This House and the Department are responsible now. What will the Minister do about it?

[Miss Dines]

If the Northern Ireland statistics put forward by the hon. Gentleman are accurate—I am sure they are, as he has done the research—they are shocking and concerning. I am therefore very happy to say that, in the absence of the Assembly, I will speak to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to see what more can be done. These are draconian powers; the police need them in circumstances and in some circumstances they should not be used, but there needs to be a proper balance. I am very happy to undertake to speak to the Secretary of State about this issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miss Dines]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. I will of course work with the Ministry of Justice, and I am sure that it will also reach out to the Northern Ireland Department of Justice. I, too, will reach out to the Secretary of State to see what can be done. As I said in answer to the question about Manchester, some areas have more concerning statistics, which is why data collection is essential. This Government have moved further than any other Government in collecting data. Data is really important. I am not normally someone who relies to that extent on statistical analysis in isolation, but it is important because it enables us to point a finger at certain police forces that frankly need to do better. I am grateful to the hon. Member for raising that matter and I can reassure him that I will work together with the Ministry of Justice.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

A point of order comes after statements unless it is relevant to the urgent question.

[Ian Paisley]

It does have relevance, Mr Speaker.

During the course of questions this morning, the terror threat level in Northern Ireland was raised to severe, making it clear that an attack is now highly likely. Is the Department able to inform the House of the reasons for that increase in the terror threat?

[Mr Speaker]

There are two things. First, the hon. Gentleman has misled me, because I thought the point of order was in relation to the question that he had asked. Secondly, we do not discuss security at this level. I think it will have been mentioned, and I am sure that somebody can contact him to give him the information that he is seeking.

That completes the urgent question.

Public Order Bill

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Lewer]

I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend, and that is the concern. The part of the Bill I am referring to is Lords amendment 5; put forward in the House of Lords by Baroness Sugg on the matter of “interference” within buffer zones.

I understand that many people will find it highly inappropriate for vocal or difficult protests to be held right outside abortion clinics, and I categorically condemn harassment against women at all points in their life, let alone near an abortion facility. However, that is a world away from the police being able to detain people and question them over what they are doing if they are merely standing there or praying quietly—or worse, if they are praying silently and are then asked by the police, agents of the state, “What are you thinking about?”

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for tabling this amendment. Does he agree that the Government could do one thing today: they could indicate clearly that this measure does not apply to people engaged in prayer? Secondly, does he agree that if the Government allow this situation to continue, they are going to turn the police into a laughing stock? People will be mocking them, saying, “What about all the knife crime and all the other problems that you have? And you are arresting people for silently praying.” This provision really does make a fool of the police, does it not?

[Andrew Lewer]

It does cause reputational damage to the police; the videos that some colleagues have seen are hugely disturbing. It makes it difficult for Ministers to stand up and say, “The police are on your side, they will defend you”, when people see a woman who is on her own and standing perfectly still being harassed by the police. I agree entirely with the comments that the hon. Gentleman has made.

So, “What are you thinking?” is covered by the Bill in its current state and remains there despite the Sugg amendment. Action such as I was describing is entirely unacceptable in a free and open society, and I could have my pick of dystopian novels—one has already been referenced—from which it would not be out of place.

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[Jon Trickett]

That is the point I was just making, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for repeating it.

The police used the covid rules, which had been passed by the House, possibly regrettably. But under this Bill, the police will need no excuse whatever, because the law will allow them to arrest people even if there is no suspicion of any kind. It is quite extraordinary to see a clause in a Bill brought before this British House of Commons proposing that people can be intercepted by the police on no suspicion whatsoever.

[Ian Paisley]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful point. Is it not the case that this Bill removes from the police the right to use something that we expect from them: discretion? It removes the ability to use their discretion and be proportionate. This Bill applies a disproportionate action and forces the police to take that disproportionate action.

[Jon Trickett]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point. He is right that the British state claimed historically to be the bastion of our liberty, but today it is proposed that it become an engine of our suppression. An authoritarian state is being created here, and it is not acceptable.

When I said earlier that these rights go back centuries, I was not exaggerating. The right to freedom of association—for people to meet with whoever they choose, on the streets or anywhere else—is part of the very structure of our society. The rights of free speech, freedom of association and freedom of assembly were built into our constitution for generations and centuries. They will all be fundamentally disrupted by this piece of legislation.

Habeas corpus, the right of individuals not to be intervened on by the state or its apparatuses without good reason, goes back centuries. Protection against arbitrary imprisonment by the state was incorporated in the Habeas Corpus Act 1679. The Bill of Rights 1689 went through this House of Commons, and now the House of Commons is being asked to surrender at least part of the principle of habeas corpus, and on no suspicion whatsoever. I add that point one more time, because it is extraordinary that that is what is being said.

It may be said, “Well, in the light of what’s happening in the country, with the protest movements and so on, we need new powers.” Just a minute, though—will the Minister in responding perhaps tell us why a breach of the King’s peace, or the Riot Act 1714, or other items of legislation which have gone through this House and have protected our liberties over the centuries, might not be appropriately used? A breach of the peace is an act of common law going back before the year 1000, to King Alfred—that is how deep the attachment to liberty is in our country, yet it is about to be broken.

The Justices of the Peace Act 1361, preventing riotous and barbaric behaviour that disturbs the peace of the King, also went through this Parliament. Why is it suddenly necessary now, after more than 1,000 years of our history, to empower the state to operate in these ways? We have many other Acts; the Riot Act was read on the steps of the town hall, I think, in my home city of Leeds, against the gas workers who were on strike in the 19th century. In Featherstone in my constituency, the Riot Act was read and people were killed. All they were doing was striking to protect their wages and incomes. How can it be that there is no legislation in place that might deal with the kind of actions we can envisage taking place? Why is it that suddenly, in this century, we are about to abandon 1,000 years of our history? I will come to an explanation in a moment.

I have spoken to Lords amendment 6, but I will briefly speak to Lords amendment 1 and the attempt to define what the Government mean by “serious disruption”. The amendment is now being replaced by the Home Secretary, who is proposing amendment (a) in lieu. The amendment in lieu is quite astonishing. It suggests that anybody may be arrested if they have taken action that might, in more than a minor degree, affect work or supply of goods and services. Subsection (2)(b) of the Home Secretary’s amendment in lieu refers to the following activities: the supply of money, food, water, energy or fuel, communication, places of worship, transport, education and health. It so happens that those are the areas where there is industrial action—where people are taking action to protect their living standards, a right they have had for more than a century.

Why is the list that has been provided to this House in this amendment proposing those particular areas of action? How can minor disruption to services now be regarded as a criminal offence? This will provoke a breakdown in trust between the police force, the state itself and people taking action. I represent a mining community. I went there just over 27 years ago, and during the strike—[Interruption.] Are you trying to say something, Madam Deputy Speaker?

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[Ian Paisley]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Dr Huq]

Okay, I will give way now.

[Ian Paisley]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way. The issue of “for or against abortion” is really not what we are debating here today, but I want to know, loud and clear, whether the hon. Member believes that, if a person is engaged in silent prayer, that person should be arrested.

[Dr Huq]

Well, I would say to the hon. Gentleman that there is a time and a place for everything. Regarding prayer, does it have to take place literally outside the gates of the clinic at the moment that these women, in their hour of need, are seeking their treatment? Is it necessary for it to take place at that place at that moment? I would say that, no, it is not.

We had this argument over the vaccination centres, didn’t we? The anti-vax people would try to deter people from getting in the door. Everyone should be able to seek lawful medical treatment—this procedure has been legal in this country since 1967—without interference. That is what I believe. It is public highway issue as well.

As I say, Sister Supporter, our local campaign group, wishes that it did not have to be there—and it does not, now. The problem is that only three other local authorities have followed that PSPO route, because they have enough on their plate without that onerous process and without the threat of a legal challenge. In Ealing, it has been upheld three times—in the High Court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.

The other week, the Prime Minister was challenged at that Dispatch Box—I had a question that week as well—by someone raising a case from Birmingham. He said that, yes, we do accept the freedom of thought, conscience and belief, but that, at the same time, there are freedoms of women to seek legal treatment unimpeded and uninterfered with, and we have to balance the two.

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[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

I have spoken in favour of this legislation in each of its stages thus far. I would like to continue to express my support for the Bill and the principles behind it, and also place on the record my appreciation for the work that so many colleagues have done. As a relative newbie, it has been a learning experience to hear the expertise that has been brought to bear to ensure that, as this legislation passes through Parliament, it has become more focused and more able to deliver the intended outcomes.

This morning I visited my constituent Mr Bhalla at his home because, for the second time, his car had been stolen from his driveway. He wanted to express his frustration at having been a victim of a serious and very costly crime for the second time. Often, when we debate in the House we focus on a great deal of the detail, but when constituents have been a victim of crime, we feel a great desire to ensure that Parliament takes advantage of every possible measure. My constituent certainly expressed his view robustly to me—he would like to see suspicionless stop and search for anybody on his road, wherever they might happen to live. He would like the strongest possible measures to be taken.

We need to achieve an appropriate balance between protecting the right to exercise free speech and to protest, on the one hand, and preventing unreasonable disruption to our constituents’ lives on the other. I represent an outer London constituency, and one of my reasons for speaking in favour of the Bill at previous stages was the disruption, frustration and difficulties that have been caused for my constituents while they are trying to go about their normal daily lives.

Personally, I have a great deal of sympathy with some protesters, such as those who have been camping out and seeking to disrupt work on HS2, which is causing huge difficulties in my constituency and which many of my constituents continue to oppose. However, I recognise that for the thousands of constituents who travel by car or on public transport and have found that as a result of peaceful but extremely disruptive protests they cannot get to work, attend medical appointments, visit family members or get their children to school, it is clear that the balance needs to be shifted. Their interests, and those of other law-abiding people who are perfectly reasonably exercising their rights and their need to go about their daily business, must be appropriately protected.

It seems to me that greater focus on the definition of serious disruption will make the powers in the Bill more legally effective and enforceable. We have all had experiences of supporting things and then discovering that in the real world they do not work quite as well as we had hoped, so I very much welcome amendment (a) in lieu of Lords amendment 1, which will bring such a focus and will ensure that the powers in the Bill work effectively to remedy the impact of serious disruption that is not reasonable, while maintaining free speech.

I also welcome amendment (a) in lieu of Lords amendment 17 on the protection of journalists. We all value the media’s ability to scrutinise the work of the Government and the various arms of the state, as we did during the covid era when it was difficult for this House to do so. It is enormously helpful that we now have greater clarity.

Let us consider what will happen once the Bill has made its way through this House. I was struck by what my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said about the history of the right to peaceful protest. Most importantly, he pointed out that legislation is all interpreted by the courts.

As a magistrate in north-west London, I recall people being brought in who had been stopped and searched and were found to be in possession of bladed articles. I remember one case of a man who explained to the court that he was a carpet fitter, that the bladed articles were the tools he needed to fit carpets, and that he travelled around on public transport to appointments to fit them at various locations. He provided appropriate evidence to demonstrate it, so the court acquitted him. In other cases involving similar offences, it was clear that the individuals concerned were seeking to do harm to others, perhaps in connection with drug dealing, so the court took a different view. It is always valuable to remember that interpretation and enforcement will be down to juries of our peers, to magistrates or to judges. We have learned to place a great deal of faith in our judicial system’s ability to interpret “reasonableness” in a way that reflects the expectations and aspirations of all our constituents.

Finally, I join several colleagues in expressing my continuing support for Lords amendment 5 on buffer zones. I think it right that the House should agree to it. I have listened carefully to the views of many colleagues, and I understand the need to ensure that those of a religious faith have the freedom to express their views. None the less, access to medical and clinical services should be available to all our constituents without undue disruption. It seems to me that their lordships have done a good job of refining what we mean in the drafting of the Bill. This House would be wise to welcome the amendment; I shall certainly vote in support.

[Ian Paisley]

I commend the way in which the hon. Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) spoke to the amendments; I think that he served the House extremely well.

Let me begin by saying that I am opposed to harassment. I think it intolerable for a woman to feel that she is being harassed, and indeed for a man to feel that he is being harassed. We were given a demonstration of harassment in the Chamber earlier today when a female Member came in, told male Members to “pipe down” because essentially this was none of their business, and then beetled out. That is harassment according to any definition of it, and it is wrong and should be called out as such. This is a good debate, and it is important for us to have it. Debate is what the Chamber is for, and we should not be afraid of combative ideas, but telling Members to pipe down just because they are male is not an argument that should be entertained in this place. So harassment should be called out, and we should not be afraid of doing that.

I object to, for instance, the harassment of women who go into abortion clinics if that is their free choice and they wish to do it. I am not advocating that in any way, but harassment cuts both ways. It is important that those who wish to pray, to express their identity or to make points that are fair in a non-combative way should be encouraged to do so. A Home Office review published in 2018 found that many protesters in the UK—it identified some of the places involved—were simply praying, sometimes displaying banners and sometimes distributing literature. Is the proportionate response to that introducing a law that essentially says, “You cannot pray silently in public”? That seems to be what the Government are saying today.

[Ashley Dalton (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Paisley]

I will make this point, and then I will give way.

We are all aware of the Bible story about Daniel daring to pray and being put in jail—

[Chris Philp]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ian Paisley]

Of course I will give way to the Minister.

[Chris Philp]

The Government are not saying anything about this matter. It is a free vote, and there is no Government position on the “buffer zone” amendment.

[Ian Paisley]

I look forward to the Minister joining me in the Lobby this evening.

Whenever we walk into the Palace of Westminster, we walk beneath a massive portrait of Moses by Benjamin West. We walk through St Stephen’s Hall, and what is St Stephen’s Hall? It is a church. We walk over the catacombs under which is another church. We come to this place—to the “mother of Parliaments”—and debate a piece of legislation that essentially says, “If you dare to pray in a certain part of this Christian nation, in silence, you will be arrested.”

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ashley Dalton]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ian Paisley]

I want to make this point. I will give way later.

I think that Members need to stop and seriously ask themselves whether that is the sort of law that they wish to pass. The Government have an opportunity here. Is the Minister willing to say—perhaps he will want to intervene at this point—that the Government would exclude silent prayer from the Bill as an indication that the liberty of freedom of thought, of the freedom to have an opinion in one’s head, will be allowed? That would be the moderate thing for them to do.

Freedom of thought is a right enshrined in article 9 of the European convention on human rights and in article 18 of the international covenant on civil and political rights, while freedom of opinion is enshrined in article 10 of the convention. These are international rights which we should all support and defend to the very end, because they are about our right to think, to express ourselves and to maintain an opinion that we hold dear. Even if it is an objectionable opinion—even if a person does not believe in the God to whom we are praying—we are entitled to have that opinion, and to prevent that in any way is to remove a legitimate right. However, we have heard a justification in the House, and I really had to pinch myself when I heard it. The justification was that we should limit our thought and limit our opinion.

[Ashley Dalton]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ian Paisley]

I am going to make this point. I promise I will give way after that.

The hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) stated very clearly that praying was not proper in certain places. The hon. Member is entitled to that opinion, but where is not the proper place to pray? Is here not the proper place to pray—will that be the next argument? Where ultimately is not the proper place to pray?

[Ashley Dalton]

I would like the hon. Member to help me understand why it is particularly important that prayer must be carried out openly, publicly and ostentatiously. Most often, if we pray, no one else will know that we are doing it. He briefly referred to the Bible and to Daniel in the lion’s den. I draw his attention to Matthew, chapter 6, verses 5 and 6:

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others…But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.”

Is it not possible to do that privately, without intimidating others by doing it ostentatiously and publicly?

[Ian Paisley]

The gospel of Matthew is a wonderful gospel—as a son of the manse, I know a little bit about this—but the reference I made was to Daniel, who was praying privately in his home. I did not talk about ostentatious public prayer. Maybe the Member should have used their ears and listened to the point that I made, which was about silent prayer and about freedom of thought in someone’s head, not freedom of outward expression. If the Member had listened, she would have got the answer to her point.

Despite the level of crime across this society—I think there were over 500 knife crimes last year—are we actually going to ask the police to get engaged and be detained in questioning people about what they are thinking in certain parts of the United Kingdom? That is a complete waste of police resources and police time, and it should not be done. When hon. Members stand up in this House and demand more police action in the future, it should be pointed out to them that constraining the police in this way and saying that they must chase after people who are silently thinking things, silently worshipping or silently praying is a total waste of police resources.

In Northern Ireland we have brought in a safe access zone law. I do not like that law—it was brought in by the Northern Ireland Assembly while I was a Member of this House—but it states that there must not be an unnecessary or disproportionate response from the police. Unfortunately, what we are doing in this House is bringing in disproportionate actions by the police when we should be moving away from them. Northern Ireland’s law gives the police at the right to use discretion and take steps to calm a protest, as opposed to stopping a protest. It also says that the Department of Health must maintain and regularly publish a list of all potential premises where the clinics could be taking place, so that people are aware of where they are so that they cannot, for example, be caught out wearing a T-shirt or a badge, or driving a car with a bumper sticker on it, in an area where it might give someone offence.

[Eddie Hughes]

The point that the hon. Gentleman has just made is incredibly important. In the circumstances that I was talking about previously, the lady was arrested in Birmingham and the police arrive to interrogate and subsequently arrest her. Given the other crimes that were going on in Birmingham at that time, it is important to see that the police had clearly determined that the most important thing they had to do at that particular time was not to deal with knife crime or with people stealing tools out of other people’s vans to stop them earning a living, but to arrest and interrogate a woman who was silently praying outside a clinic that was closed. Surely that shows a sense of complete disproportionality on the part of the police.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. It is important that interventions are short, and I know that the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) will want to come to the conclusion of his remarks now, as he has been speaking for 10 minutes.

[Ian Paisley]

I will conclude now, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I agree with the point that the hon. Member has made. The arrest of Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was atrocious. It sends out a terrible message to women and to anyone who wishes to engage in silent prayer in this nation. I am glad that that attempt at a conviction was overturned by the court and thrown out. It is unfortunate that she has been arrested again today by another police officer saying, “What are you thinking? What are you praying?” That is wrong, and we need to stand up against that sort of harassment.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I rise to speak to amendment (a) to Lords amendment 5.

I recognise that there is a genuine problem that the Bill and the Lords amendments seek to address, of harassment, intimidation and offensive behaviour directed at women going into abortion clinics. I recognise that this requires policing and that it is appropriate for the authorities to stop harassment and intimidation. This House and the other place have decided that additional legislation, on top of what is already on the statute book, is required to enable that additional policing. All the arguments made by the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq), who has campaigned so hard on this issue for so long, have been accepted by the House, and I do not think there is any particular value in unpicking her arguments. That debate has been had.

The question now before us, and the purpose of amendment (a) to Lords amendment 5, is about what is to happen in these safe access zones, as they are now to be called. I recognise that is the intention behind the Lords amendment, and the intention behind the original clause, but my concern is that, in asserting a general principle of something we do not want, and couching that desire in very broad terms, we are taking a momentous step. We are crossing an enormous river. The Rubicon was actually a very small stream, but it was a momentous step. When we criminalise prayer, private thought or, indeed, consensual conversations between two adults, we are doing something of enormous significance in our country and our democracy.

Probationary Police Officers: Cost of Living

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to introduce the Adjournment debate this evening, and I thank the Minister for being in his place at the outset. It is important to set the tone for this important issue, and that is that in Northern Ireland we have a police service that is in crisis. It is in crisis for several reasons, which need to be addressed if the problems with the recruitment of police probationers, and of new blood into the service, are to be thoroughly and properly addressed.

The crisis is such that it is not unusual to hear statements in the local media, from Police Federation chiefs and other senior police officers, about their concern that the growing levels of criminality in Northern Ireland are because the police have a budgeting crisis. That deepening budget crisis needs to be nipped in the bud before the policing crisis becomes so deep that we cannot deal with it.

Let me set the scene. The Police Service of Northern Ireland faces an unprecedented operating shortfall of some £226 million for the next three years. There will be a net loss of more than 300 officers in this financial year alone. But that tells only half the story. On average, 36 officers leave the PSNI every month. Many of those officers are probationary officers who joined the service wanting to make a difference, but who then realised that they cannot afford to do the job. Unlike any other service, they are being squeezed from both sides. The arrangements that we have in place say that there should be 7,500 police officers in Northern Ireland, and we are about 1,000 short. So officers are squeezed because they have to do more duties to try to keep up—they are running just to stand still and maintain where we are. On the other side, they face a budgetary crisis which means that they are not properly rewarded for the extra hard work that they are doing.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend my hon. Friend for introducing the debate. This is a big issue, which is why we are all here to support him. We all hear of young PSNI officers leaving to work in car dealerships and even, in one case I heard of, in Tesco, because of what was described to me as “low morale”, but in fact it is clear that the stress of working for the PSNI is not compensated enough. Many realise that the negligible pay is not enough and we must urgently review that. In other words, we must provide better wages to retain the quality officers that we now have.

[Ian Paisley]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. In setting the scene, I will come on to some of the detail in a moment, but he has put his finger on what police officers are being forced to do in their private lives to try to make ends meet.

Northern Ireland now has the lowest number of officers since the formation of the PSNI. I remember being on the Police Board at the time when the PSNI came into existence, and we were promised that the number of police officers would keep pace with the developing needs of the community. We reduced the service from between 12,000 and 13,000 officers right down to 7,500. Today we have between 6,700 and 6,800 officers, which frankly is not enough.

We should recognise not only that are we 800 below where New Decade, New Approach tells us that police levels should be, but that Northern Ireland’s population has risen in recent years. In fact, it has risen by 300,000 people since the Patten report recommended that police numbers should be cut from that high point. If we were doing a fair calculation, a more realistic revised figure, against the backdrop of Northern Ireland becoming a peaceful society without terrorism, would be having 8,600 police officers, given the size of our population, but that is not the case. Police officers, including young officers and probationary officers, joined the service and realised that they are being squeezed because there is an insufficient number of colleagues to do the work and they are not being properly rewarded for doing the job.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this Adjournment debate. He is right to outline the figure of 7,500 officers provided in New Decade, New Approach. Contained in New Decade, New Approach was also a commitment from the UK Government indicating that the PSNI would receive the appropriate and necessary levels of funding to continue its efforts in tackling paramilitarism and organised crime, and to continue the work of the paramilitary crime taskforce, yet the Government have been found wanting on that taskforce. Does he agree that that commitment needs to be delivered by the Government and that, while policing and justice have been devolved, there are commitments on terrorism and paramilitarism that the Government still need to be honour?

[Ian Paisley]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point; he makes it well. The fact of the matter is that policing in Northern Ireland cannot be done on the cheap, and that is essentially what has been asked for. Not only do we have to tackle the crimes that are prevalent across this part of the United Kingdom, but we have an added layer of serious and organised crime that derives from paramilitary activity. That puts even more pressure on the policing budget. My hon. Friend is quite right to outline that this additional pressure makes the PSNI like no other police service in the United Kingdom. With 42 other comparisons to look at, the issues that our officers have to tackle are completely unique. They operate in a unique environment and under unique circumstances. With a hangover of policing the past, as well as trying to cope with the present and laying sound foundations for the future, it is almost impossible for them to do it on a shoestring budget that needs to be agreed year on year.

[Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate. I want to highlight the number of young officers who come into the force and are left having to do additional duties, which is driving down morale. They do not have a proper work-life balance; never mind just the pay issue, the work-life balance is a serious issue for young officers.

[Ian Paisley]

Of course, if there was not the opportunity for overtime, police officers in Northern Ireland would absolutely be on the breadline.

Again, in setting the scene, let me add a layer that is unheard of and rarely reported in this part of the United Kingdom. Last year there were 2,500 assaults on police officers in Northern Ireland. Of a force of 6,800 officers, 2,500 of them were seriously assaulted, with broken bones or having to be off duty. In fact, 900 of them are unable to serve at present because of injuries. That is a serious pressure on our police. There have been four attempted murders of police officers in the past 12 months. One of them from earlier this year we cannot talk about—it is subject to a court case—and there were other very serious ones, including a stabbing, a bomb under an officer’s car and an attempt to fire a projectile at a station where an officer worked.

Our officers in Northern Ireland work under a unique set of circumstances where the threat against their lives and the targeting of them continues when they leave work and go home to be with their partner and family. That is a very different stress level from that of other officers. Not only do we have that aggressive targeting and attacks on police officers; we also have what I can only describe as a woke culture developing in Northern Ireland that says the police should not be allowed to use certain weapons to defend themselves from attacks. We all know of the benefits that Tasers give to police officers in the United Kingdom. If a police officer feels they are under attack, they can use a Taser to keep the assailant at a distant and under control. We have only 100 officers in Northern Ireland who are allowed to use a Taser, and the Taser has been deployed on only 21 occasions in the past year. Why has it been deployed so rarely, when we have so many attacks on police officers? Because there is an agenda to stop a Taser being rolled out to every single officer so that they can use it in a proportionate and balanced way when they face a threat.

Water cannon, which are not regularly used on the British mainland, are used for large crowd dispersals in Northern Ireland. CS spray is offered to our police officers; they also have baton rounds and are routinely armed with sidearms, but they do not like to use or deploy them because that would mean a fatality. In the past year, there were 400 withdrawals of a sidearm from a holster to point at a person, so severe was the threat to our police officers. Let me just put that into context: there have been 400 withdrawals of a gun from a holster, to point at a citizen of the United Kingdom, because there was a threat so serious that an officer felt his life was in danger. Thankfully, because of good, proportionate policing, there was only one discharge of a weapon.

We need something in between. Tasers may be one of those things; I certainly encourage the Chief Constable to apply for Tasers to be used and to make sure that they are widely issued. The Home Secretary offered £6.7 million to the other 42 United Kingdom police services to look into using Tasers as a proper mechanism for defending police officers. That offer was made to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, but it has not yet been taken up. I encourage the PSNI to take it up, so that we can create an atmosphere in which young police officers feel confident, in which their morale is not under threat and in which they feel able to use everything in their quiver to properly defend themselves and their actions.

I turn to the key issue, which is how young probationary officers are being treated in such a way that the cost of living crisis is putting real pressure and a real squeeze on them. It is important to put that into context. There is a benevolent fund in the police service that is run by the Police Federation. It was essentially set up to assist retired police officers and their families after they leave the service, but in the past year, more claims on and payments from the fund have been made for serving officers than for retired officers. That includes payments for home heating, for food for children and to assist with getting through the month. More currently serving officers than retired officers are having to rely on the police benevolent fund—that is an appalling picture for police officers.

I was chatting to an exceptional probationary police officer who lives in my constituency. He serves in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), but he was seconded to do some work in a market town in my constituency while he was operational out of another part of the country. He was, quite frankly, brilliant. His conduct was brilliant, and so was his ability to deal with the public, help to resolve crimes and get on with doing the ordinary job in which every police officer takes regular pride.

That police officer came to see me in my office one day and said, “I want to show you my bank account.” He had 17p left in it. He is not a drinker, he is not a smoker, he is not a gambler; he has two young kids, and he was trying to organise his kid’s birthday party the next week. He had to drive a 45-mile round trip every day to do duty. He said, “I’ve maxed out my credit cards. How am I to get to work, let alone care for my kids and do this job? As a probationary officer, I’m on less than £26,000. My buddy who lives a few houses away works in a supermarket and is paid £7,000 or £8,000 more a year. He doesn’t face the same problems and stresses that I face”—the picture that I have outlined of the conditions under which police officers are operating. That story, unfortunately, could be repeated over and over again.

My hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned officers taking second jobs. This month, in the news magazine of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland, there was an account of a police officer who had to get a second job as a delivery van driver. That might be okay here in Great Britain, but the one thing that I am told, our colleagues are told and police officers are told in Northern Ireland about our security is “Do not engage in any regular activity. Do not allow anyone to say, ‘On such-and-such a day, that person does such-and-such.’ Change your system: change the way you operate.” A regular van driver cannot change the way he operates, and is therefore an easy target for those who wish to target him; but this is what that officer had to do in order to make ends meet. What is more, according to the article, he referred eight colleagues to the same job, encouraging them to earn extra income in order to live. It is not appropriate, in this day and age, for police officers to need to do that. It sends a clear signal that they are not being properly rewarded.

Last month the chairman of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland, Liam Kelly, wrote to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee outlining what an ordinary constable would receive. I am pleased to report that at the weekend there was an uplift in policing budgets, although they are still behind where they need to be. A probationer who would normally be on about £25,000 a year is now on about £26,500, a trainee officer who was on £21,500 is now on about £24,000, and an officer must reach year 5 after being a probationer to earn about £30,000.

It is a huge struggle for those people to remain in the job, survive and pay for the upkeep of their families and their homes, and they do so at a time when, as we all know, the cost of living crisis is upon us. Food prices are rising faster than they have for 45 years, inflation has reached 16.2%, and the pressures on everyone’s home budget is increasing. Apparently the average disposable income of a police officer in Northern Ireland who is in rented accommodation and paying for a car—officers have to live in certain areas and police other areas—is about £108 a month. We could not live on that, Mr Deputy Speaker, and we should not be asking our police officers to live and raise their families on that.

The Police Federation also kindly produced for the benefit of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee a series of alternative jobs—equivalent in terms of training and skill level—with which Northern Ireland police officers are competing. After year 3, a software engineer is making £43,500, a software developer about £33,500, a deputy principal—a middle manager in the Northern Ireland civil service—about £39,500, and a security guard about £28,500, and we are asking people who are genuine security experts to do their job for about £6,000 less. From day one, police officers in Northern Ireland face a terrorist threat and are under immense pressure. For the past five or six years, pay awards that should have been effective from 1 September have been delayed for months.; often, when discussions on the following year’s pay award have begun, officers have not yet received the previous year’s award.

I appeal to the Minister not to stick to a brief that says, “If we had devolution, all this would be sorted out.” That will wash with no one, because this problem has been building up for six years, and we had devolution for half that period. This is a problem of how we manage policing resources and whether or not we have devolution, and we need it to be addressed with a much sharper answer than “Well, if you had an Executive in Northern Ireland, all these things could be sorted out.” I wish that the answer were as easy as that, but I fear that it is not, and I fear that giving such an excuse for an answer will only fail to answer the pertinent question of how, in this day and age, we can properly reward our police officers and find the resources that will enable us to do so, and what we can cut in other sections of governance to ensure that they are properly paid.

These are national, not local awards for police pay. As my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) identified, we must make sure that the policing budget is strengthened in Northern Ireland, so that the issues that I have put on the agenda tonight can be properly addressed once and for all.

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

Let me start by thanking the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) for securing this evening’s debate and for setting out the issues with such care, thoughtfulness and compassion, clearly based on personal experience of talking to police officers in his constituency and in Northern Ireland more generally.

As a Home Office Minister I have responsibility, primarily, for policing in England and Wales. I will make some remarks about policing more generally and about police officers’ salaries, which broadly speaking are the same in Northern Ireland as in England and Wales. I will then touch on some issues more specific to Northern Ireland although, being a devolved matter, they fall more properly within the responsibilities of my colleagues in the Northern Ireland Office, one of whom, my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), is with us in the Chamber.

Starting with policing more widely, in England and Wales we are well on track to recruit an extra 20,000 police officers by the end of March 2023. Once we have done that, we will have a record number of police officers. Never in the history of England and Wales will we have had more police officers than we will have by the end of March. That goes to show that the package offered has some attractions and merits.

In the most recent pay awards, police in England and Wales received a flat, consolidated increase for this financial year effective from 1 September of £1,900, as the hon. Member for North Antrim said. I believe that in the last day or two it has been confirmed that that will apply to police in Northern Ireland as well, and will be backdated, so officers such as the one he described should get all that money in their March pay packets. For officers with children to look after such as the one he mentioned, that will be a welcome payment.

That £1,900 equates to an average of 5%, but for officers on lower salaries it represents a lot more. For entry-level officers such as those the hon. Gentleman described, it equates to 8.8%, because it is a fixed proportion of a smaller number. The view was taken that it was important to try to direct the increase disproportionately towards officers on entry point wages, for all the reasons that he set out with great eloquence. That means that since 1 September last year, officers have had a basic starting salary of between roughly £23,500 and £26,500. That is typically an 8.8% increase.

A median police constable will receive £41,000. The hon. Gentleman mentioned comparisons with other occupations; the police salary review body stated that median full-time gross annual earnings—not officers starting out at the beginning of their career—are 33% higher than the whole economy, 26% higher than so-called associate professional and technical occupations, and about the same as professional occupations. I am speaking about median earnings across the whole police force, not entry-level salaries, which are lower.

In addition to the 8.8% annual pay increase for people on starting salaries, there is incremental annual pay progression as officers get more experience. Those increases are at least 2%, and can be between 4% and 6%, on top of the regular annual increase. As an officer—like the young officer he mentioned—stays in the force, they will get not just the regular increase but the progression as well, so they will not have to stick with it for too long before they start seeing some meaningful increases coming through. I hope that the hon. Gentleman can pass on that message to officers in their first couple of years.

[Ian Paisley]

I thank the Minister for setting that out. That is helpful, and the timing could not be better because of the award that was made at the weekend. I also thank the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) for being here. The fact that he is here says a lot, and officers will be grateful that he has turned up for this debate. He did not have to, and I know that he is very busy with other responsibilities.

On the point that the Minister has made, keeping pay parity with the rest of the UK should be a principle, and making the award to PSNI officers on 1 September each year is also critical. We are now at the beginning of February and the award has just been made in Northern Ireland. That has not really helped, and I hope that that lesson can be learned by the civil servants who help the Minister with this.

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point. Salaries are not exactly the same but they are pretty much the same in Northern Ireland as they are in England and Wales, and the settlement that has just been announced is exactly the same. That is an important principle in relation to Northern Ireland in particular.

I emphasise again that this is a matter for my colleagues in the Northern Ireland Office. As the hon. Gentleman has said, policing is a devolved matter in Northern Ireland, and it is not in my area of ministerial responsibility as the Policing Minister for England and Wales. A functioning Executive would give more flexibility and freedom to Northern Ireland to determine its own path and how it chooses to allocate money between different budgets. I understand that the Secretary of State, in setting the budget for Northern Ireland’s Department of Justice this year, has given a 3.1% increase—a total allocation of about £1.2 billion—but as the hon. Member knows, the freedoms available to Northern Irish civil servants are limited in the absence of an Executive, so the sooner we can get an Executive up and running, the more flexibility and autonomy the people in Northern Ireland and the elected representatives of the people in Northern Ireland will have.

The hon. Member made some comments regarding security, and he is quite right to draw attention to that. The UK Government provide the PSNI with additional security funding to tackle the obvious threat from terrorism in Northern Ireland, and the amount of money being paid over for that purpose in the current financial year, 2022-23, is £32 million, which is the same as it was in the previous year. In addition to that, there is a security funding payment of £8 million a year towards the tackling paramilitaries programme, which is designed to match the funding that comes from the Northern Ireland Executive. That money designed specifically to tackle terrorism, which has a unique Northern Ireland element, is continuing.

Equipment Theft (Prevention) Bill

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 1st February 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Greg Smith]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. We work well together on the Transport Committee, and it is a pleasure to work with him on the Bill. He makes an excellent point. The immobiliser and unique key provisions in the Bill are the most critical to preventing the antisocial use of stolen quad bikes. As I said on Second Reading, at the moment it is far too common for a key for a particular manufacturer’s quad bike to be able to start all of them. If we make it far more difficult for opportunist thieves and those who wish to go joyriding in an antisocial manner to be able to start the things in the first place, it will cut down on that antisocial use.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

This is the nub of the issue, and it is why I support the Bill. I had a case in my constituency in a place called Derrykeighan—I will help Hansard with that afterwards—where two quad bikes were stolen. Because immobilisers were on the bikes, the owner and the police were able to trace them to where they were being held and retrieve his stolen property, which had been stolen to order. Other farmers in my constituency have had similar vehicles stolen without these excellent immobilisers on them and have lost their vehicles forever. This is a key aspect of the legislation and why I support it.

[Greg Smith]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I am grateful for his support for the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Smith]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. He has read my mind—or maybe my script—because I am coming right now to the very point of clause 3 and how the Bill will be enforced. It will be an offence to fail to install an immobiliser, forensically mark the equipment or register the relevant information on the appropriate database as will be set out. A person who commits that offence will be liable on summary conviction to a fine. The level of the fine will be specified in regulations, but it will be a level 5 fine, which is an unlimited fine.

Breach of the requirements will be enforced, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw alluded to, by a local weights and measures authority or district council under schedule 5 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015. The Bill amends paragraph 10 of that schedule to include clause 3 of the Bill to provide trading standards officers with the necessary powers. I do not anticipate non-compliance as manufacturers and trade associations have been involved in the Bill’s development from an early stage. We have held many roundtables, including in Parliament.

I turn to clause 4. Subsection (1) provides further detail on what regulations made under the Bill may include. Such regulations may make different provisions for different purposes, which will allow for a requirement for certain equipment to be forensically marked and registered on a database while not requiring immobilisers to be fitted if they are not relevant to the equipment or not desirable. That goes beyond quad bikes and ATVs and into other equipment. Regulations made under the Bill will be subject to the affirmative procedure so will be debated in each House.

Finally, clause 5 covers the Bill’s extent, commencement and short title. Subsection (1) states that the legislation extends to England and Wales. Subsection (2) provides for commencement, with the Bill coming into force six months after receiving Royal Assent and becoming an Act. However, its provisions will not commence until regulations are made through the necessary secondary legislation.

[Ian Paisley]

It is great to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I commend the hon. Member for Buckingham for introducing the Bill. These thefts probably affect every part of the UK. I mentioned earlier a theft in my constituency and, unfortunately, that was not a one-off but has been a feature, with crime gangs targeting and deliberately seeking to steal plant machinery and now quads and motorcycles from farmlands and farm owners as well as other private owners. It is very good to have legislation that puts the onus on both the manufacturer and a willing consumer to have his or her vehicle properly secured.

I hope that the Bill will ultimately extend to Northern Ireland and protect our farmlands and rural communities. I recently hosted a meeting with the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the Ulster Farmers Union and a number of rural dwellers who had suffered the scourge of these crimes, and there was a willingness in Bushmills that evening to ensure that something is done about it. Thankfully, this timely legislation touches on that and identifies the problem and a solution. I therefore commend it and will willingly support it.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

I rise to speak in support of this Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham, who represents the constituency directly next door to mine. Our constituencies have much in common, not least beautiful countryside and excellent farmers dedicated to producing superb food and caring for our environment. Sadly, they also have in common the theft of a considerable amount of agricultural machinery, and especially quad vehicles.

I recently visited a farm near Saunderton in my constituency and was told that the theft of such machinery was undoubtedly a problem and had been for many years. In the current economic climate, theft of equipment is the last thing farmers need, not just because of the cost of replacing it but the fact that they are unable to carry out their work while they wait for new equipment, which is not always easy to replace quickly. The help that my hon. Friend’s Bill will bring will be extremely beneficial.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

As a result of the good work undertaken by the Home Office in recent weeks to ensure that the Manston site in Kent is operating appropriately, we have now been able to implement some simple criteria, including risk to public order or disorder, when choosing new hotels. If there is compelling evidence in that regard, it should be taken into account by the Home Office, but there are no easy choices in this matter. The UK is essentially full, and it is extremely hard to find new hotels or other forms of accommodation.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Can the Minister confirm that no citizen will require an electronic travel authorisation to travel from one part of the United Kingdom to another part of the United Kingdom, and that there will be no equivalent to an Irish sea border for citizens travelling from Northern Ireland to Great Britain or for citizens travelling from GB to Northern Ireland?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise that point, because concerns that need to be allayed have recently been raised in some quarters. There will be no checks at the border between the Republic and Northern Ireland for tourist and other visas. His other points are absolutely correct. It is important that we proceed with our own ETA, as the European Union will be proceeding with its own version next year. This will enable us to improve security throughout the UK by ensuring some dangerous individuals do not enter.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

There is no desire or intention to suppress religious or other freedoms. This is about giving the police powers not to ban protest or assembly, but to place conditions on it. As I said in previous stages of the Bill, the job of this House in a democratic society is to balance competing rights. There is no doubt that, as is accepted at the European Court of Human Rights and across the liberal world, the right to protest is not unqualified. Someone cannot protest in such a way that it unreasonably impinges on my right to go about my business as a non-protester. Where noise is concerned, we are seeking to give the police powers to strike that balance where appropriate.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Can I take this point just a little further? This is about an interpretation not only of how loudly something is being said, but of what is being said. Is the Minister saying that the Bill would allow a police officer to make a judgment that he does not like the particular verse of scripture or quote that is being used, and could therefore stop it being said? That breaches the European convention on human rights in a number of areas.

[Kit Malthouse]

The amendments have no bearing on the content of the noise, merely on the impact the noise is having on people nearby from a decibel or distress point of view. Other legislation governs content, particularly if it promotes hatred or incites violence, although as I hope the hon. Gentleman will understand, that will not necessarily be true in this case. The amendments are agnostic as to content.

[Ian Paisley]

I must press the Minister further. We surely live in a society that allows difficult things to be said. Unfortunately, the Bill is going down a road—it is considerably un-Tory-like, I have to say—where difficult things will no longer be allowed to be said, or at least to be said loudly, proudly and boldly. That appears to be where the Bill is taking us.

[Kit Malthouse]

Not at all. Difficult things will and should still be said loudly, proudly and boldly, but it may be different in certain circumstances—for example, we have already conceded in the Bill that certain things should not necessarily be said consistently loudly, proudly and boldly outside a school. We have already conceded the power to control noisy protests outside a school, or indeed a vaccination centre. Why should those areas necessarily be privileged over others? This is about the distress and alarm caused by that noise, and its imposition on the rights of others. It is not necessarily about the content.