This 300-page incoherent mish-mash of a Bill contains some truly odious measures, and I have time to deal with only one of them: the dangerous and unjustifiable crackdown on the freedom to protest in clauses 54 to 60. Those clauses alone are enough for me to vote against Second Reading tonight, despite the Bill containing some good measures.
This populist Government have swiftly developed a penchant for authoritarianism, born of their approach to getting the vast amount of Brexit legislation necessary through Parliament. They have got into the habit of writing framework Bills with extensive Henry VIII powers, leaving vast scope for Ministers to change primary legislation by personal fiat, without adequate parliamentary scrutiny. This trend has been made worse by the necessity to legislate swiftly for public health reasons because of covid, again with no scrutiny ahead of laws being brought into force. The coronavirus crisis has led to a draconian removal of basic liberties that is necessary temporarily for health reasons, but not for a minute to be thought of as desirable. The Government now want to make this emergency way of doing things the norm, to enable police officers to have far too much power effectively to silence any protest.
We have a Government who attack judges who decide cases in ways they do not approve of; some Law Officers
who will not defend the independence of the judiciary; a Government who legislate to enable themselves to break a treaty that they have only just signed; Ministers, including the Home Secretary, who break the ministerial code with impunity, while senior civil servants they disagree with are hounded out of their jobs; and a Government who now want to take the power to ban demonstrations or vigils if they are too noisy—they are literally silencing any protest they do not like.
This legislation allows for convictions for breach of conditions that the police have imposed, even where the person on trial has no knowledge of what that condition was; it increases the punishment for such a breach from 12 weeks to 51 weeks in prison. The Home Secretary seems to have hijacked what was a worthy enough sentencing Bill to insert her divisive and polarising measures on protests. The original timetable for the Bill gave the game away. It was due to be completed in time for the police and crime commissioner elections in May. This is being done to enable the Government to claim that their political opponents are not supporting the police enough—indeed, we have already heard speeches from some Government Back Benchers claiming just that.
There has been no real focus on how the law should be changed for the good of society. For example, we have just seen how much it fails to meet the needs of women, who just want to be safe. This Bill just does not tackle any of those issues. Clauses 54 to 60 are intended to destroy the fundamental rights of citizens in our democracy to protest, and just for some cheap headlines ahead of an election. The Bill is draconian and undesirable, and the Government should not get away with enacting it.
3.57 pm