My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my interests as set out in the register, particularly in the world of policing as a trustee of the Clink Charity.
Two centuries ago, in the aftermath of the Peterloo massacre, where a politically motivated militia killed and maimed dozens of citizens who were protesting for voting rights in Manchester city centre, Robert Peel introduced the principles of civilian policing. Those principles have served this country with distinction ever since. British police are civilians in uniform, not agents of state control. Their calling is to police by consent, enabling the public to exercise their rights and freedoms as well as maintaining good order. It is a delicate balance. It requires Governments to stay their hand when proposing legislation and senior police officers to guard their operational independence. It is especially sensitive when the rights of citizens to protest come into the frame.
From Tiananmen Square to the streets of some American cities, we see all too visibly on our TV screens when this balance is lost. More locally, I was
curate in the parish that included part of the Orgreave coking plant during the 1985 miners’ strike. The legacy of overaggressive and politically directed policing there, a legacy of broken trust, persists to this day, especially in the continuing absence of a proper inquiry.
I am far from convinced that this Bill maintains that delicate balance. As I read it, a commercial venture such as the much-loved but noticeably loud pop concert that took place two miles from my home—and very audibly from my bedroom—last weekend would have better protection than if those same citizens had been meeting to campaign against a major injustice. Both events may cause nuisance, but it is a strange set of priorities that make it less lawful to protest than to party.
My ministry in the Church of England took me from parish life in South Yorkshire to my first post as a bishop in the diocese of Worcester. There I discovered something of the rich heritage of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people. For many generations they have been a vital component of the local economy, not least in providing mobile agricultural labour in the market gardening communities of the Vale of Evesham. Their children were valued members of our church schools, and our churchyards provided the final resting places for the bones of those who had never in life possessed or desired a static place of rest. When complaints were raised with the district council about rubbish on the sites they occupied, we suggested that the local authority meet them to discuss how they would like their refuse collected. An amicable solution was swiftly found.
I note the wise words of the noble Baronesses, Lady Whitaker and Lady Chakrabarti, and others earlier in this debate. It grieves me that long-standing members of and contributors to the rural community are seen as having less right to live in the countryside than someone who has made their wealth in the city and can now afford to buy their trophy home in their chosen idyll. I do not begrudge the rewards of success, but I believe that Britain owes Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people a duty to provide legal sites, adequate in number and appropriate in location, in the places where they, by generations of living and working, belong. That we seek to address their belonging through a policing Bill rather than a Bill to require land to be made available for sites suggests to me that we have our priorities seriously wrong.
As this Bill moves to future stages, I will be keen to offer my support to amendments that properly maintain a balance between the rights of particular groups within society—including Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities and those undertaking acts of protest—with good policing and the needs of society as a whole. I will also follow with interest those sections of the Bill dealing with sentencing and the serious violence duty. I join other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Best, in urging that we take this opportunity to repeal the Vagrancy Act.
Perhaps, as a Bishop, I ought to show more gratitude to the Tudor monarch who created the context of a national Church within which I minister, but I am, along with many noble Lords who have spoken today, concerned by the extent of the so-called Henry VIII clauses presently in this Bill. I close by assuring your
Lordships that my most reverend and right reverend friends and I on these Benches look forward to engaging with the further progress of this Bill in the weeks and months to come.
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