My Lords, I spend my life being furious at the Government, as I am sure some noble Lords will recognise. However, I want to spare a moment of sympathy for the Minister, who has had to bring this to your Lordships’ House. Clearly, this is going back on a promise; the Government are cheating. They are choosing not to honour a promise. That is really rather disgusting, as it shows a complete lack of respect for your Lordships’ House. I really hope that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, who has made a brilliant opening speech, will take this to a vote, because clearly we would have voted on these issues before if we had had the chance. We trusted the Government, but this shows that we cannot. That is very depressing because, if you cannot trust your Government, the whole of democracy falls apart.
I am also worried about the fact that the Government are putting the police at a disadvantage. Trust in the police is at an all-time low, and I think these measures will make it much worse. We worry all the time about the police being distrusted. They cannot do their job if they do not have the support of communities. Of course, with this sort of measure, there will be social and racial barriers to implementing it, and there will be disparities about who the police target. The Government are actually making life much harder for the police. There should not be a power to search without reasonable suspicion.
While I am talking about not trusting the Government, I should say that they are also treating peaceful protest like gang and knife crime. I just do not understand why the Government cannot see the difference between those things. Dissent is healthy; it is part of our democracy. In measure after measure and legislation after legislation, it seems to me that this Government are saying, “We don’t like society the way it is. We are going to radically change it”—and make it much worse for the majority of people.
On the issue of knife crime, my Green Party colleague Caroline Russell, who is a member of the London Assembly, has repeatedly asked the police to stop posting pictures of knives on social media, because it makes things worse. The evidence says that young
people feel more at risk and that it encourages them to carry knives. There are other measures that the police can use to reduce knife crime. We have to show young people that it is safer for them not to carry a knife.
All in all, I have two questions for the Minister. First, do this Government have absolutely no respect for this House and for democracy? My second and much smaller point is: why on earth are the Government doing this before the pilots are finished? Surely the pilots should show us the way forward. The Government seem very confused about what pilots are for. Why promise a pilot and then go ahead and introduce these measures anyway? I am disgusted with Lambeth.