Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dhesi]

I completely agree with the hon. Lady. As she says, the damage from the many things being combined by the Government will have a devastating impact on our democracy.

The measures proposed by the Government to tackle crime are also deeply worrying. They are failing to tackle the roots of crime and antisocial behaviour, and yet I am hardly surprised. Their record is of taking more than 20,000 police officers off our streets and ceding ground to criminals, and even now they have not made up for the numbers of police, civilian staff and police community and support officers that they cut. When people do not see police in their communities, as has been the case in my constituency, they feel less safe and secure, and crime goes up. In actual fact it is up 14%, according to the Office for National Statistics—not to mention the huge reduction in convictions for rape and domestic abuse. Why are the Government, through the Bill, making such an appalling attack against the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities even though the police do not want the extra powers?

There is chaos in the criminal justice system with a backlog of years for cases. Victims and witnesses are simply giving up and criminals are laughing up their sleeves. The Government’s response is to close courts, with 300 closed since 2010. They simply do not get it. We must defend the right to protest, to picket and to make a racket when we feel that we are not being listened to.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I rise to speak to the amendments on noise and protest. Frankly, I should not have to. At the beginning of the Bill process, I was discussing the Bill with a friend of mine who said, “This is a ridiculous thing to put in the Bill.” I said, “Don’t worry—the Government will accept amendments in Committee.” They did not. Then I said, “Don’t worry—if they do not do it in Committee, they will surely accept their lordships’ amendments.” I have certainly yet to see the Government make enough concessions on that. That has led me to worry.

I worry that at a time when Conservatives should be promoting freedom of speech, we have created a weapon for our opponents to say that we oppose it. We should not be doing that. I worry that Government Members give the impression that we think that demonstrations are okay as long as they are nicely decorous, barely audible and easy to miss, and we forget that anger and frustration are natural human emotions that find their expression in a democratic society through the ability to protest and, yes, make a noise. I worry that, while Opposition Members have talked about the concern regarding large protests, the measures will actually have more effect on more marginal issues and smaller groups. I think back to the 1980s and the group AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, which was protesting to provide AIDS treatment to people. There was never a noisier, more active, disruptive group than ACT UP in my memory. They were representing a group that was marginalised, so they could only make a noise to make their voice heard. I worry that the Bill will have an undue impact on marginal groups.

I worry that, at a time when we need clarity so much in the way in which the law affects people’s lives, the Bill is so vague that people will say, “Why are we ‘noisy’ and not them?” How on earth does that help us to create a calmer discourse between those who have different opinions? I worry that we are asking the police to make too many judgments at a time when the police themselves want clarity, and not to be put into the mix. I love the fact that the British police do not care what people are protesting about, so why are we creating something where, in the moment, they have to make a judgment? I worry ultimately that, at a time when in our society we need trust between people with profoundly different opinions, the provisions in the Bill do nothing at all to help in that regard.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Recent days have indeed underlined the importance of peaceful protest and freedom of expression. Only this weekend I helped to organise, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams), a rally for solidarity in Caernarfon for the people of Ukraine against the illegal invasion of their country. We joined, of course, a wave of demonstrations that have been sweeping across Europe. Meanwhile, the whole world is witnessing the bravery of protestors in Russia, who are defying Putin’s authoritarian regime to take to the streets against the illegal invasion of Ukraine. Thousands of Russians have been arrested, some simply for holding up anti-war signs—a clear violation of people’s right to peacefully protest. Yet what do we find ourselves discussing here?

While the UK Government are quick to denounce the authoritarianism of Putin’s Russia, they are set on implementing part 3 of the Bill, which is a direct threat to people’s right to protest in Wales—a right that is integral to the history of Wales as a nation. From protests against the enclosure of land in Gwynedd in the 1810s, the Chartist uprising in Newport in the 1830s, the Rebecca riots by tenant farmers against the payment of tolls in the 1840s, language rights—the very essence of noise—protests in the 1960s, and the miners’ strikes in the 1980s, to recent protests on racial injustice and the cost-of-living crisis, it is clear that the act of protest is woven through the past and present of Wales.

I welcome the changes to part 3 in the other place to remove the limits on our protest rights, such as Lords amendment 30, which removes new restrictions from public assemblies, but the Government have made it clear that they have no intention whatsoever of listening to the overwhelming cross-party opposition on these issues. Not content with clamping down on our right to protest, the UK Government have launched a new attack on Welsh Gypsies, Romas and Travellers through part 4 of the Bill. Despite already being marginalised by society, it will criminalise their way of life and allow for the confiscation of their homes. Importantly, it will directly undermine existing devolved Welsh legislation.

The criminalisation of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller adults will have a knock-on effect for their children, who are at greater risk of being taken into care, directly undermining the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011, which places a duty on Welsh Ministers to have due regard for the rights of children as set out under the United Nations convention on the rights of the child. Criminalisation contravenes part 3 of the Housing (Wales) Act 2014, which places a legal obligation on local authorities in Wales to both assess and provide for residential and transit provision for Gypsies and Travellers. Our Senedd rightly refused to grant consent for the changes to part 4. It would therefore be wrong to apply it in Wales. That is just one example of the creeping effect of this place on devolved legislation. We must stand firm against it; otherwise, our Senedd in Wales will be being ignored.