Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-28
Topic: Mixed Topics
Sarah Ann Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for his radical reformist speech. I had not realised he was in favour of such reform of the House of Lords There are three topics for debate today: the Food Standards Agency and tackling food crime; misogyny as a hate crime; and noisy protests. I can deal with the first relatively quickly. We welcome the Government’s amendments in lieu of Lords amendment 58 on increased investigatory powers for the National Food Crime Unit of the Food Standards Agency. I congratulate Lord Rooker and his colleagues on their doughty campaigning on this topic, and I congratulate the Government on listening to the argument and introducing additional amendments to bring the National Food Crime Unit within the remit of the Independent Office for Police Conduct. I understand that further legislation will bring the crime unit under the remit of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services. We will therefore support the Government in their amendments in lieu tonight Moving on to misogyny, I am sorry that yet again we are in a position where the Government are blocking legislation that would provide better protection to women. Given the Government’s woeful record on violence against women and girls, with prosecutions at an all-time low for crimes such as rape and sexual assault, it seems to us that they should be doing far more, from making street harassment a crime or introducing rape and serious sexual offences in every force, to longer minimum sentences for rape and more support for victims. As Baroness Newlove said in the other place, making misogyny a hate crime is simply about ensuring "that the law is on the side of women".—[Official Report, House of Lords, 17 January 2022; Vol. 817, c. 1379.] The Lords listened to the Government’s arguments that the Law Commission had concerns that making misogyny a hate crime might complicate the prosecution of rape and sexual assaults. They then came back with Lords amendment 72B, which narrows the scope of the proposals significantly. It makes it an offence to harass or intimidate a person based on hostility to their sex or gender. That negates all the concerns of the Law Commission. The amendment also requires the Secretary of State to pass regulations within six months requiring police forces to record data on offences which fall under this section or which the victim reports as being motivated by misogyny. These are relatively straightforward steps that will increase public awareness, improve victims’ confidence in reporting, and enhance the way the police respond to violence against women The Government have rejected those simple and progressive reforms. In their place, they have tabled an amendment giving the Government 12 months to respond to the Law Commission’s report. Surely that is a statement of the obvious, in that one would expect the Government to formally respond to the Law Commission. The Opposition do not understand why the Government would reject a law making it an offence to harass or intimidate a person based on hostility to their sex or gender. And we certainly do not understand why the Government still have not asked police forces to gather the data On that point, perhaps the Minister could help to clarify something for us. During the passage of the Domestic Abuse Bill in March 2021, the Government committed to asking police forces "on an experimental basis" to record the data and said that they would shortly begin the consultation process with the National Police Chiefs’ Council. In the other place, Baroness Williams said: "discussions with the police through the NPCC have been under way on this for some time."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 22 March 2022; Vol. 820, c. 790.] However, in a freedom of information response this month to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), the NPCC says: "a formal request to record has never been received to date." Can the Minister clarify if the Government have—if so, when they did—or have not formally requested, through the NPCC, that that data should be recorded? My concern is that, while I understand some of the arguments the Minister was making about the complexity of the data, some of the conversations have yet to actually begin We must be absolutely intolerant of misogyny in all its forms. The Government could choose to make that clear now by backing Lords amendment 72B. It is not a frisson of virtue, which is what the Minister described it as; it is a very clear and simple way to make sure the law works for women Turning to the third of the three issues we are debating this afternoon, the right to noisy protest, we stand at a significant moment in history following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We were all humbled and deeply moved by the presence of President Zelensky on our screens in this place, showing us his country’s bravery in the face of tyranny. Last week, President Zelensky called on people across the world to take to the streets in the name of peace: "Come from your offices, your homes, your schools and universities, come in the name of peace, come with Ukrainian symbols to support Ukraine, to support freedom, to support life." We saw brave Ukrainians protesting where there were horrific reports of Russian troops opening fire on the crowd, and brave Russians protesting in their country in their thousands on the streets, and being arrested and detained for standing their ground. We saw tens of thousands of people on the streets in London this weekend supporting Ukraine. But here we are again debating amendments that could criminalise singing the Ukrainian national anthem. Under the provisions in this Bill, protesters could be criminalised—[Interruption.] The Minister is heckling from a seated position—