Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

After Clause 49

Application of Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 to National Food Crime Unit of Food Standards Agency

I beg to move,

That this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 58 but proposes amendments (a) to (c) in lieu.

With this it will be convenient to consider the following:

Government motion that this House disagrees with the Lords in their amendment 72B but proposes amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.

Amendment (c) in lieu of Lords amendment 72B.

Government motion that this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 73, insists on its amendment 74A to Lords amendment 74, disagrees with the Lords in their amendment 74B to that amendment in lieu, disagrees with the Lords in their consequential amendments 74C, 74D, 74E, 74F and 74G, insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 87, insists on its amendments 87A, 87B, 87C, 87D, 87E and 87F to the words restored to the Bill by its disagreement to that amendment but proposes additional amendment (a) to the words restored to the Bill by its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 73 and additional amendment (b) to the words restored to the Bill by its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 87.

Government motion that this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 80, insists on its amendments 80A, 80B, 80C, 80D, 80E and 80F to the words restored to the Bill by its disagreement with that amendment, disagrees with the Lords in their amendment 80G instead of the words left out by that amendment but proposes additional amendment (a) to the words restored to the Bill by its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 80.

Our position on Lords amendment 58 has always been that we accept the case in principle that the Food Standards Agency should have direct access to relevant police powers to enable it to tackle food crime, but that such powers should be accompanied by appropriate accountability mechanisms, including in relation to the investigation of complaints. Lords amendment 58 was inadequate to the task, but as the disagreement between the two Houses was not one of principle, we have now brought forward amendments 58C to 58E in lieu, which seek to put a comprehensive legislative framework in place.

The amendments do four things. First, they allow the regulations to be made, conferring relevant Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 powers on the Food Standards Agency; we are principally concerned here with search and seizure powers. Secondly, they will enable regulations to apply provisions of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 relating to drawing inferences from a suspect’s failure to account for their presence at a particular place. Thirdly, the amendments create an offence of obstructing a food crime officer in the execution of the functions conferred on them under new section 114C of PACE. Fourthly, they amend the Police Reform Act 2002 to bring the National Food Crime Unit within the remit of the Independent Office for Police Conduct. I trust that the amendments will be welcomed by both sides of the House, notwithstanding the unfortunate way they were made in the other place.

I move on to Lords amendment 72B. I am pleased that the other place has seen reason in abandoning plans to make misogyny a hate crime, given that the Law Commission identified risks that the plans could generally prove counterproductive for women and girls. The Lords have, nevertheless, tabled an alternative. It would still mandate the police recording of crimes that effectively amount to hostility on grounds of sex or gender, although, perhaps recognising the Law Commission’s warnings, it does so without any attendant powers to recognise such crimes in court. The amendment would also introduce a new stand-alone offence related to harassment or intimidation that is aggravated by hostility towards sex or gender.

I am listening with great care to my right hon. Friend’s remarks about reporting—a concern that, as he knows, I share, having been in office when we made that undertaking, which I regard as very solemn. In order to help, I hope later to develop an argument about sentencing guidelines, but does my right hon. Friend agree that existing guidelines on intimidatory offences already refer to offences based on hostility in relation to sex, as opposed to a sexual motive? Would he with his officials look at the applicability of those guidelines to see whether that is already a hook on which the police can hang their monitoring and data collection task?

As usual, my right hon. and learned Friend has made a helpful suggestion. We will certainly review as he suggests. It is worth bearing in mind what we are trying to achieve, which is twofold. First, we obviously want to encourage women and girls to come forward and report in a way that they believe will have impact. Secondly, we have to make sure that that impact happens—that there is a police response. As many hon. Members will know, modern policing is driven by data. It is important that the police see crime through the data that appears daily in their management dashboard and that they can therefore assign resources accordingly. I have often said to groups of citizens that reporting crime is a little like that interesting philosophical problem: if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? If a crime occurs and no one reports it, how on earth are the police to know?

The reporting of crime is often a complex area, so marrying up the confidence that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) is looking for in reporting, and making sure that that then translates into police action on the frontline, is the critical piece of work that we want to do as swiftly as possible.

I move on to the question of a stand-alone offence. The Law Commission’s review of hate crime laws did touch on this issue, while noting that it was not within its terms of reference. In doing so, it suggested that the Government should tread carefully, recommending that we explore the possible need for such an offence and ensure that, if one is required, it is proportionate and well defined. It also briefly echoed some of the Government’s own considerations about the need for further analysis, speaking to some of the complexities.

With that in mind, I am pleased that in the other place my noble Friend Baroness Williams committed to consulting publicly on the issue before the summer recess. That is entirely the right approach—ensuring that we are moving forward to elicit answers while taking account of the competing considerations at play. Again, short of rushing into legislation before we have the right answers, this part of the Lords amendment is also in my view rather redundant.

Obviously, Northern Ireland has a history and tradition of protesting, and it is about getting the right balance. I say honestly to the Minister that I, and probably other Opposition Members, would like Lords amendment 73 to be approved. If someone is preaching the Gospel, or if a single person or group of people are singing hymns on the streets of the United Kingdom, can the Minister reassure me that they will be able to continue and there will be no restrictions? We all know those services last no longer than about an hour—that is a fact. We are keen to ensure that the Government are not suppressing the right to religious freedom in the way it has been suppressed in the past.

There is no desire or intention to suppress religious or other freedoms. This is about giving the police powers not to ban protest or assembly, but to place conditions on it. As I said in previous stages of the Bill, the job of this House in a democratic society is to balance competing rights. There is no doubt that, as is accepted at the European Court of Human Rights and across the liberal world, the right to protest is not unqualified. Someone cannot protest in such a way that it unreasonably impinges on my right to go about my business as a non-protester. Where noise is concerned, we are seeking to give the police powers to strike that balance where appropriate.

Can I take this point just a little further? This is about an interpretation not only of how loudly something is being said, but of what is being said. Is the Minister saying that the Bill would allow a police officer to make a judgment that he does not like the particular verse of scripture or quote that is being used, and could therefore stop it being said? That breaches the European convention on human rights in a number of areas.

The amendments have no bearing on the content of the noise, merely on the impact the noise is having on people nearby from a decibel or distress point of view. Other legislation governs content, particularly if it promotes hatred or incites violence, although as I hope the hon. Gentleman will understand, that will not necessarily be true in this case. The amendments are agnostic as to content.

I must press the Minister further. We surely live in a society that allows difficult things to be said. Unfortunately, the Bill is going down a road—it is considerably un-Tory-like, I have to say—where difficult things will no longer be allowed to be said, or at least to be said loudly, proudly and boldly. That appears to be where the Bill is taking us.

Not at all. Difficult things will and should still be said loudly, proudly and boldly, but it may be different in certain circumstances—for example, we have already conceded in the Bill that certain things should not necessarily be said consistently loudly, proudly and boldly outside a school. We have already conceded the power to control noisy protests outside a school, or indeed a vaccination centre. Why should those areas necessarily be privileged over others? This is about the distress and alarm caused by that noise, and its imposition on the rights of others. It is not necessarily about the content.

Only the other week, alongside RMT and Nautilus members I engaged in a very noisy protest outside the P&O and DP World headquarters in London. That protest was noisy, and I hope it was a nuisance to those working in P&O head office. People are very concerned that the Government have such a stubborn attitude to trying to retain provisions that could make the noise of that important protest against injustice unlawful.

Let me give the hon. Gentleman an example. At that protest, legitimate and right as it is, individuals are exercising their right to free speech. Imagine, for example, that next door to the P&O headquarters there was an old people’s home. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) laughs, but such circumstances do occur, and that is why we have local authority noise teams. There could have been a hospital next door to the P&O headquarters. If the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) had continued his noisy protest, and the shouting, screaming and flying of banners through the night for days on end, to the extent that occupation of that hospital became difficult, it would seem perfectly reasonable for the police to say, “Would you mind awfully not shouting and screaming between 10 o’clock at night and 7 in the morning?” In certain circumstances the police would have to form a judgment about that. An area might face prolonged and noisy protests that impinge on the rights of others who are not necessarily even involved in the dispute or protest. In the face of changes and developments in amplification technology, we have a duty to seek to strike a balance between those competing rights.

The question of distress and alarm is an interesting one jurisprudentially. By what means does the Minister anticipate that it will be established in court? Does he see it as an objective or subjective test?