That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:
“Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament”.
My Lords, it is a privilege and pleasure to open this fifth day of debate on Her Majesty’s most gracious Speech. Today’s debate on justice, home affairs and cultural issues will allow us to explore some of the key themes that Her Majesty expounded in her Speech last week. Many of these matters are central to a well-functioning society, including the recovery of our justice system in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic; the prevention of violent crime and the delivery of justice for victims; the basis and operation of our constitutional settlement; the way that our immigration and asylum systems work in practice; and how the United Kingdom will respond to digital and technological developments, including online safety and the security of our communications. Given the wealth of experience on all sides of the House, my noble friend Lady Williams of Trafford and I look forward to hearing the contributions that will be made by noble Lords in today’s debate.
The last year was like none in recent memory and has been difficult for everyone. None the less, this Government have remained steadfast in responding to the Covid-19 crisis. The pandemic affected all areas of life, both private and public, and the justice system is no exception. The past year has been particularly challenging for our courts and tribunals, so I first, and importantly, want to express my gratitude to those working across the justice system, whose efforts over the last year meant that the wheels of justice never stopped turning. They are now turning faster: almost all jurisdictions are now completing cases at pre-pandemic levels.
However, we are aware that there is much further to go—so, as we begin a new Session and social distancing restrictions ease, one of our top priorities will be to accelerate the work already taking place to address the effects of the pandemic on courts and tribunals, and we will also use this opportunity to secure further improvements for our justice system. As such, we will implement measures to ensure that the Crown Courts are running to their maximum capacity, using every judge and courtroom available, with no limit on sitting days this year. We will learn from our experience with remote hearings and seek to retain them where appropriate. These measures will enable us to deliver swifter outcomes for victims who might otherwise see their cases delayed. We know the old adage: justice delayed is justice denied. We do not want to see justice denied to anyone, so we will work hard to speed up the justice system, as it emerges from the pandemic.
However, our commitment to delivering justice for victims does not end at trial, and it certainly does not begin there. We want to ensure that victims are supported and their rights recognised at every stage of the criminal justice system. During the last Session, we published a revised victims’ code, which set out the rights to which victims are entitled. We will now go further: we will work to ensure both the standard and the availability of victims’ rights, beginning with a consultation on a ground-breaking victims’ Bill that will enshrine the new code in legislation.
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing today’s debate. It is a privilege for me to respond and open for the Opposition. I remind the House that I sit as a magistrate in London.
I look forward to the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet, who brings unparalleled experience in the arts, particularly music. I look forward to her maiden speech, and I also look forward to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Fullbrook. She has a background as a former MP and in local government, and I note that she went to the same university as my daughter, which is no doubt a good omen.
I shall speak on the justice-related Bills and refer briefly to the DCMS Bills, and my noble friend Lord Kennedy will speak on the Home Office Bills. By way of background, a decade of cuts by the Conservative Government has left our justice system weak and vulnerable—and that was even before the pandemic began. Half of all courts in England and Wales were closed between 2010 and 2019; today there are 27,000 fewer court sitting days than in 2016. The Crown Court backlog, now more than 57,000 cases, has increased from 39,000 before the pandemic. Rape prosecutions are at an all-time low. Victims are being told to wait up to four years to get their day in court, which of course leads many to drop out of the system. Convictions for rape, robbery, theft, criminal damage and arson, drug offences and fraud have fallen to a 10-year low.
The Labour Party has called for the rapid extension of Nightingale courts and war juries of seven jurors, in an attempt to reduce the backlog, but the Government have not accepted our proposals. Beyond the pandemic, we need to increase sitting days to clear the backlog, provide greater support for legal aid, embrace technology where it works and restore victims’ faith in the justice system.
On judicial review and the courts Bill, the Government propose to introduce reforms to judicial review to, as they see it, protect the judiciary from being drawn into political questions. The Government are unhappy that their own panel has not advocated the widespread changes that they wanted, so they have announced further consultations on various aspects of judicial review to get a different answer. I have a specific question for the Minister. Why have the Government announced a further consultation on the use of ouster clauses, when their own review explicitly said not to do this? The Labour Party believes that judicial review is a key part of our constitution since it gives members of the public and organisations a legal forum to challenge the Government and public bodies when they act unlawfully.
My Lords, I first pay tribute to her Majesty the Queen as we enter her Platinum Jubilee year. Her example of a lifetime of public service at the highest level is extraordinary. I am also greatly looking forward to the maiden speeches of the noble Baronesses, Lady Fullbrook and Lady Fleet—the first of many valuable contributions to this House, I am sure.
As we consider the home affairs, justice and culture aspects of the Queen’s Speech, I remind the House of the comments of my noble friend Lord Newby, who said last week:
“The Queen’s Speech contains many Bills of second-order importance but none offering fundamental change”.—[Official Report, 11/5/21; col. 16]
I would go further. The Government seem to be continuing along the same path, following policies where the broadsheet analysis of the right-wing tabloid headline shows the negative unintended consequences of government policy.
One of our strongest sectors is culture, yet the only legislation in that space is the online safety Bill, which is an inadequate reaction to protecting children and other vulnerable internet users who are being exposed to things online that they would be protected from in the physical world. Meanwhile, there is nothing to encourage or facilitate our musicians and performers, who are facing the disastrous twin impacts on their livelihood of a global pandemic and restrictions on their ability to tour in the European Union.
We on these Benches believe in freedom and fair play—what some might call traditional British values. That includes the freedom to succeed no matter who you are or what your background or backstory is, and the freedom of the individual from unnecessary interference by government. Yet this Conservative Government seek to unfairly discriminate, further marginalising minorities and the poor, further limiting challenges to government overreach, and pursuing populist policies where the evidence clearly shows that they do not work. This is a Queen’s Speech of promising headlines with unintended negative consequences.
My Lords, I shall focus not on asylum but on immigration. I declare a non-financial interest as president of Migration Watch UK.
Noble Lords may have seen a recent article in the Times by the noble Lord, Lord Hague. He referred to extraordinary events in France, where two groups of retired military officers have declared that their country is disintegrating—yes, disintegrating. A subsequent opinion poll found that nearly three-quarters of the French public agreed. The main theme of the article by the noble Lord, Lord Hague—with which I entirely agree—was the vital importance of a shared national identity. His view is that its promotion in the UK has become a matter of urgency.
I have three important points to add. First, this will not be possible unless and until immigration is sharply reduced. For the time being, the public believe the Government’s claims that they are taking measures for this purpose. For reasons I have set out elsewhere, the Government will fail in this matter.
Secondly, recent work has shown that high migration, combined with the higher birth rates in some immigrant communities—and a generally younger age structure—are driving major changes across the UK. We now find that about a third of all children born in England and Wales have at least one foreign-born parent. In both primary and secondary state schools in England, around one-third of all pupils are from an ethnic minority background. In the population of Great Britain, the share of ethnic minorities, including other Europeans, has nearly doubled to 21% in just 20 years. In more recent years, more the 90% of our population increase has been due to immigration.
Thirdly, there can be no doubt that the whole nature of our society is changing very rapidly and at an accelerating pace. Meanwhile, the public are instinctively aware of this and are, albeit privately, very concerned. A recent YouGov tracking poll found that nearly 60% say that immigration has been too high during the past decade. That is about 30 million adults.
My Lords, I too look forward to the maiden speeches of the noble Baroness, Lady Fullbrook and Lady Fleet. In my few minutes, I shall briefly mention women in the criminal justice system, the Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill, violence against women and girls and the online safety Bill. I refer to my interests in the register, as Anglican bishop to prisons.
I begin by asking: when will we see a renewed timetable for the 2018 female offender strategy? While I welcome the implementation of some of the deliverables, analysis by the Prison Reform Trust shows that the Government have met less than half the commitments. The concordat published last year does not appear to have been progressed. Then there was that shocking announcement of 500 new prison places for women, totally at odds with the strategy’s direction to reduce the number of women in prison. What evidence is it based on, and why is the designated £150 million not being spent on women’s centres and implementing the concordat?
The Government have pledged to give every child the best start in life. I am a big proponent of prioritising the early years. But, related to today’s subject, I would say that if one of the justifications for the new prison places is to allow children to stay overnight with their mothers, this seems a strange way to implement the Farmer review findings. It would be far better if those mothers who do not need to be in prison were supported in the community with their children. Again, why are policy proposals seemingly ignoring evidence and expertise?
Perhaps that is a good segue into the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. In our scrutiny, we will need to ask whether it is supported by the evidence available and reflects a clear strategy and ethos that can be justified ethically. While I welcome certain proposals, such as diversion and community cautions and empowering problem-solving courts, other aspects raise serious concerns. For example, the use of life sentences for younger offenders seems to undermine any chance of reform and redemption. The measures relating to longer sentences seem to ignore the fact that decades of lengthening sentences have done nothing to improve outcomes for offenders or prevent cycles of reoffending. Yet the myth is perpetuated that longer sentences will provide greater public protection. Rather than policies being driven by evidence, it seems that they are driven by populist views and some headline cases. Furthermore, there is a woefully little focus on rehabilitation and what happens during someone’s sentence. Thus, victims and communities, as well as offenders, are poorly served, and longer sentences will only put more pressure on our overcrowded prisons. It is also troubling that after all that has transpired in recent years, little attention is paid to racial disparities in the criminal justice system.
My Lords, it is the greatest honour and privilege to address your Lordships for the first time. I have received such a warm welcome and so much helpful advice from all sides of this House. I thank noble Lords. In particular, I thank Black Rod and the doorkeepers, who have answered all my questions with knowledge and cheerful courtesy. I must also offer my thanks and gratitude to both my supporters—my noble friends Lord Trimble and Lord Arbuthnot. I was the council leader in the constituency of my noble friend Lord Arbuthnot when he was a Member of the other place. His guidance, intellect and good humour saw us take on many issues together. My noble friend Lord Trimble is an inspiration of mine.
As a Glasgow-born descendant of Ulster Scots with strong ties in both Scotland and Northern Ireland, I was seen by my company as ideal to be sent to Belfast for my first ever audit assignment—my first ever proper job—as a young woman in the 1980s. That assignment lasted for two years during the hunger strikes and the Troubles, and I saw the devastation brought to all people of Northern Ireland during my time there. I went on to spend over 20 years in senior management roles with several international blue-chip companies, working mainly in Europe and Africa and, latterly, in the Middle East.
But back home, having never considered elective politics, I experienced first-hand the fear, misery and devastating impact that illegal encampments have on the lives of law-abiding people. But what truly astounded me is that local victims of this criminal behaviour came second to the lawbreakers by a long way. This experience dramatically changed the direction of my life, as I put myself forward and was elected as a councillor to Hart District Council in Hampshire. Within a year, I was leading the council.
Before entering the other place in 2010, I was for several years the first executive director of Women2Win, working alongside my new Whip, as well as my noble friend Lady Jenkin of Kennington and the former Prime Minister, the right honourable Theresa May. By the time I had stepped down, we had seen Conservative women MPs triple in number, not through quotas or women-only shortlists, which I totally oppose, but through support, advice and training so that good, able women could navigate the political world—for women to contribute to their fullest. Many of those Women2Win alumni are still serving proudly in the other place.
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Fullbrook. We have been friends for many years, since long before her distinguished career as a councillor, council leader and Member of the other place. She led her council with great style, committed to producing quality services at an affordable price. That commitment to public service was further evidenced by her time in the other place. Her full title refers to Dogmersfield, which is Anglo-Saxon for a field of waterlilies—a fitting title for a noble Baroness.
I would like to say a few brief words in support of the election Bill. Many of the measures are based on recommendations that I made to the Government a few years back. Voter fraud is, by its very nature, covert and difficult to prove. A system that relies on trust is vulnerable to manipulation. We have ignored those concerned with the administration of elections, and overseas observers, for too long. Now is the time to make our ballot boxes safe.
The most important provision is on postal votes: banning party campaigners from handling postal votes altogether; stopping the practice of “harvesting” by limiting the number of postal votes that one person may hand in on behalf of another; extending the secrecy provisions that currently protect voting in polling stations to absent voting, so that it will be an offence for anyone to attempt to find out who a postal voter has chosen to vote for; and requiring those registered for a postal vote to reaffirm their identities by reapplying for a postal vote every three years. Postal voting will remain on demand but require renewal every three years. The total number of people for whom someone can act as a proxy would be limited to four, regardless of their relationship.
There seems to be opposition verging on hysteria to the sensible provision of voter ID, which would bring the United Kingdom in line with other democracies. In this respect, the Government have moved further than I recommended by insisting on photo ID. I am relaxed about this for two reasons. First, the number of people possessing photo ID has increased since my report. The pandemic has given that a push. Secondly, the Government have shown flexibility about what photo IDs are permissible. We are no longer restricted to passports and driving licences, but a much wider selection—including various concessionary travel passes, work pass cards, Ministry of Defence cards and blue badge parking permits, and even my OAP bus pass—would qualify. The result is that 98% of the voting population has a form of ID that would qualify. That figure, for ethnic minorities, goes up a further percentage point to 99%. The Electoral Commission and the OSCE support the measure; both organisations have warned about Britain’s vulnerability to voter fraud for years. Neither organisation would support voter suppression.
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Fullbrook, on her maiden speech and look forward to clashing with her over the years to come. I look forward to the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet, making her maiden speech today.
The right honourable Member for Haltemprice and Howden, speaking on the Queen’s Speech, said that he was concerned about an
“illiberal solution in pursuit of a non-existent problem.”
He was talking about the Bill to which the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, has just referred, but he might have been talking about several elements of other Bills as well. As with so much, there are elements of each of the pieces of legislation that have been put forward in this Session of Parliament with which you can agree; other parts lead to very grave concerns.
Very briefly, I will mention the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. I have got no problem dealing with anarcho-syndicalists who misuse and abuse the privilege of freedom to encourage others to do things they would never otherwise have done. I think we need, however, to be absolutely sure that we do not put the police in an impossible position, where they are making impossible judgments based on changes in the law, which will either not be implementable, and therefore ineffective, or will cause the exact opposite of the problem that they were trying to resolve. I hope we will be able to deal with this in your Lordships’ House effectively, amending those parts relating to public order.
I want to concentrate, in the short time available, on the issue of immigration. The Minister referred to border officials having the resources. Tell that to the people, in the limited numbers that are currently allowed in, coming through Heathrow. Either the decision by the Home Secretary is because of incompetence or indifference or intent. It has to be one of those three, and if it is intent, then the lack of application of resources is causing not only major hold-ups but, in doing that, causing the likelihood of a greater spread of infection. If we cannot get that right in the months ahead, how on earth are we going to deal with the complex piece of legislation that creates two tiers of asylum seekers, in circumstances where we claim that we can send people back to countries that will not have them and were not aware of their presence in the first place? Having pulled out of Europol, no longer having the European arrest warrant, having disengaged effectively from working on organised crime across borders and detached ourselves as an island, it ill becomes the Government to then say that we are going to find ways of returning people to countries that will not have them.
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We are acutely aware that crimes such as domestic abuse, rape and sexual violence, which disproportionately affect women and girls, shatter not only the lives of the victims but also those of their families. The whole country was shaken earlier this year by the death of Sarah Everard, which was a harrowing reminder of the violence to which many—far too many—women and girls in our society are subjected. As such, in addition to the landmark Domestic Abuse Act passed last Session, we will continue to make supporting victims and survivors of these crimes a priority. We will publish the end-to-end rape review action plan, working to ensure that, at each stage of our justice system, from reporting and investigation to trial and sentence, rape cases are considered with the diligence and gravity that they deserve.
We will publish a new tackling violence against women and girls strategy and a domestic abuse strategy, which will work in tandem to drive real change in this area. We received 180,000 responses to our call for evidence to inform these strategies. The views of victims, survivors and the public will be at the heart of our approach. We will also review our national statement of expectations, to ensure that police and crime commissioners approach these crimes in a collaborative and robust way.
This approach reflects our wider strategy. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which has been held over from last Session, will further our commitment to being tough on crime and its perpetrators. We will give our police more powers to tackle crime, we will protect our emergency workers and increase sentences for those who would harm them, and we will establish a new, smarter approach to sentencing that sees our most dangerous criminals spend longer in prison.
I am aware that there has been a lot of discourse about the public order provisions in this Bill, much of which is based on a misunderstanding of what the provisions actually do and the genesis of the legislation. These measures have been portrayed by some as draconian and a dismantling of our civil liberties; this is both misinformed and wrong. The right to protest is a fundamental and important freedom—but so is the right to go about your business unhindered. These provisions allow police to take a more proactive approach in managing disproportionately disruptive protests, which place an unnecessary burden upon our citizens.
It is that sense of balance that permeates a lot of the work which this Government plan to deliver over the next Session, and nowhere is this more apparent than in relation to our work on the constitution and judicial review.
I am sure everyone will agree that our uncodified—I did not say unwritten— constitution is something to be both celebrated and preserved. That includes examining the fine and critical balance between the Executive, the judiciary and the legislature.
That is why we plan to introduce a judicial review and courts Bill, which will not only introduce many of the court recovery measures I mentioned earlier, but will work to restore the balance between our institutions of state. We want to protect the judiciary from being unnecessarily pulled into political matters. Let me be clear and unambiguous: this is not about abolishing judicial review. We will ensure the integrity of the judicial review process. But the idea, put about by some who should know better, that the judicial review process cannot be improved or that it must remain a no-go area for government is false. Public law is too important to be left only to public lawyers.
We are still considering the submissions made to the recent consultation, which itself built on the work by the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, and his team, and considered further areas for reform. We expect to increase the flexibility provided to judges by ensuring, among other things, that more flexible and effective remedies are available, and to review the merits of the Supreme Court’s decision in Cart.
Our desire to ensure that our society’s vital systems function as fairly and as effectively as possible extends to our plans for the borders Bill that we will introduce. This will implement the most significant overhaul of our immigration and asylum systems for decades.
At the heart of this Bill is a simple principle: fairness. Presently, we have a generous asylum system that offers protection to the most vulnerable people around the world through defined safe and legal routes. But this system is collapsing under the pressure of parallel, often extremely dangerous, illegal routes to asylum, facilitated by criminals smuggling people into the UK.
We believe that access to our asylum system should be based on need and not on the ability to pay people smugglers. When people are dying, as they are, we have a duty to act. The Border Force already has a range of powers and capabilities to deal with maritime threats, but we will use this legislative opportunity to strengthen them further. We will introduce new powers to target the increasing use of vessels by criminal gangs to facilitate illegal entry to the UK.
Over and above that, our ability to enforce immigration laws, passed by and with the authority of Parliament, is being impeded, contributing to a downward trend in the number of people, including foreign national offenders, being removed from the UK. Our Bill will enable us to remove more easily those with no right to be here. Our time and resources should be directed to protecting and supporting those in genuine need of asylum, and to reclaim control of our borders.
Cicero’s maxim, “Salus populi suprema lex esto”—your Lordships will of course require no translation—remains absolutely true. The safety and security of the people of this country must be, and will be, the primary concern of this Government. We live increasingly in an online world, as the television screens above me show, so we also want to ensure that the United Kingdom is the safest place to be online as well as offline.
That is why we will deliver on our manifesto commitment to introduce an online safety Bill to set a global standard for safety online. It will include the most comprehensive approach yet to online regulation, requiring platforms and search engines contained within its scope to tackle illegal content and protect our young people from harmful material.
Major platforms will also be required to set out, with clarity, their own terms and conditions about legal but harmful content for adults, and to enforce these rules consistently and transparently.
The Bill will also enshrine in law safeguards for free speech. We will use this opportunity to defend freedom of expression and promote the valuable role of a free press that now exists online as much as it does in newsprint. This will allow us to usher in a new era of accountability for technology giants, and to protect our children, ensuring that future generations have a healthy relationship with the internet.
We are also aware of the importance of ensuring the long-term security and resilience of our telecommunications network. The Telecommunications (Security) Bill will create one of the most rigorous telecommunication security regimes in the world. It will protect and future-proof our networks as technologies grow and evolve, shielding our critical national infrastructure both now and in the future. It will allow us to manage the risks posed by high-risk vendors.
We will also ensure that the national telecommunications system flourishes. We will introduce a second Bill, the product security and telecommunications infrastructure Bill, to allow us to deliver on our connectivity ambitions by making sure that telecommunications equipment can be installed, shared and upgraded as quickly and efficiently as possible, and by assuring consumers that the smart devices that we all now bring into our homes—the so-called the internet of things—are secure. This legislation will underline the UK’s continued global leadership on cybersecurity and allow consumer-connected technology to continue to grow.
We also have to look at the threat posed to us by hostile activities from other states—a threat that is ever-growing, diversifying and evolving. Unlike terrorists, who rely on grabbing the public’s attention, this sort of hostile activity operates in the shadows and remains hidden. Although these acts fall short of open conflict, the consequences for our democracy, economic security and prosperity are real. To address this threat, we will introduce a counter state threats Bill, which will modernise our existing counter-espionage laws to reflect the modern threat and introduce modern legislative standards. It will create new offences, tools and powers to detect, disrupt and deter hostile activity in and targeted at the United Kingdom. We will do this through reform of the Official Secrets Acts 1911, 1920 and 1939, as well as the Official Secrets Act 1989, and the creation of a foreign influence registration scheme. The Home Secretary has published a public consultation on our proposals in this area, and the response to that consultation will help us shape the tools and powers at our disposal to make sure that they balance the protection of national security with the important rights and values that we all enjoy in the United Kingdom.
Lastly, we will introduce two new Bills to support the voluntary sector by reducing unnecessary bureaucracy for charities, and to unlock additional funds for good causes. The first is a charities Bill. Charities occupy a special place in our society, and the law should both protect and regulate them. The reforms that we introduce will remove or replace inappropriate and unnecessary burdens while safeguarding the public interest in ensuring that charities are properly run, so that charities will have more time and more resources to spend on their charitable objectives.
The second of these Bills is the Dormant Assets Bill. The dormant assets scheme has already released £745 million, including £150 million for Covid relief last year. Expanding the scheme using this Bill has the potential to unlock a further £880 million over the coming years.
These measures, as outlined in Her Majesty’s gracious Speech, will set a clear direction for the future of our country. By implementing them, we will ensure that we are a country where swift justice is delivered to victims and meted out to perpetrators of crime, and that victims’ rights are respected and enshrined in the law of the land. We will ensure that our police, judges and border officials have the powers necessary to secure our society and protect our citizens. We will ensure that when they are online, as well as offline, our citizens are protected, and that our systems are robust and secure. In the wake of a life-altering pandemic, and a year of prolonged difficulty and disruption, we will ensure that our country has all the resources needed to build back better, stronger and safer. Over the coming weeks and months, I look forward to discussion, discourse and debate, with your Lordships and with others outside this House, about the many measures which it has been my privilege to outline today.
On the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which is a carryover Bill, the Government say that this legislation will increase sentences for the most serious and violent offenders and ensure the timely administration of justice. This is a large Bill which is poorly thought through. It is a mess and could lead to unintended consequences; for example, we could have harsher penalties for damaging a statue than for attacking a woman. In recent months and years, the Labour Party has worked constructively with the Government to, for example, increase maximum sentences for front-line workers and increase sentences for terrorists. We would like a similar constructive approach to this Bill, and call on the Government to drop their poorly thought-out proposals and focus their legislation on tackling violence against women and girls. Why not use this Bill, as well as the victims Bill, to enact a more comprehensive strategy to protect women and girls? Indeed, yesterday the Labour Party published a “green paper” with a number of suggested policy proposals to end violence against women and girls, which could be adopted through this and Home Office legislation.
Having said that, we believe there are good and important parts of this Bill. Some of those have come from Labour MPs: Stephanie Peacock on dangerous driving, Holly Lynch and Chris Bryant on protecting the protectors, John Spellar on reform of the DBS system and Sarah Champion on sexual abuse by people in a position of trust—all this as well as reforms taken from the Lammy Review. We believe that the Government are undermining the parts of the Bill that we support through unnecessarily draconian measures on free expression and the right to protest. There is no evidence that I have seen that these more severe measures will do anything to reduce reoffending. The Minister said that many of the protests are misinformed, and I hope that he is right; we will look forward to exploring that when we come to the legislation.
I move on to the victims Bill. It has been a long wait for this Bill, which was first announced in the 2016 gracious Speech. In fact, Keir Starmer, when he first became an MP in 2015, introduced a Private Member’s Bill, co-drafted with the Victims’ Commissioner for London, which in many ways underpins this Bill. Speaking as a magistrate who sits in both adult and youth jurisdictions in London, I rarely see a victim in court, and it is also relatively unusual to have a victim impact statement read out in court—although I acknowledge that this has improved in recent years.
There are many things that we can do to improve the legal rights and the experience of victims, both inside and outside court. I look forward to working constructively with the Government to enshrine victims’ rights in legislation and protect those who suffer persistent anti-social behaviour.
I will briefly refer to the four DCMS Bills. The charities Bill will introduce a range of Law Commission recommendations. We support this Bill; we will be focusing on the issues of governance and transparency and on ensuring that they are not watered down through the Bill.
With regard to the Dormant Assets Bill, the Minister said that he hoped to get £880 million by unlocking further assets. We support that and look forward to working with the Minister on it.
Next is the product security and telecommunications infrastructure Bill. As the Opposition, we would be concerned about reforms to the electronic communications code. There is a lot of detail in this Bill, and we will wait to see it before we consider our approach.
The Telecommunications (Security) Bill is a carryover Bill. While there were some amendments in the Commons, we agree with its general thrust.
Finally, I want to talk about the online safety Bill. The Minister used some expansive language in talking about this Bill: he spoke of setting global standards to which other countries could aspire. However, nobody knows better than the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, the great strength of feeling in this House on the slowness of the introduction of the Bill. During the passage of the Domestic Abuse Act and many other bits of legislation there has been constant frustration at the fact that we are not getting on with this Bill. We understand that there will be pre-legislative scrutiny by both Houses, and that the intention is to enact a statutory duty of care, to be enforced by Ofcom that would require companies to prevent the spread of illegal content and activity online.
The Bill is presented as a once-in-a-generation opportunity for legislation, and the Government’s thinking appears to be a continuation of the self-regulatory approach that we have seen to date. This approach has failed our children. Online crimes are proliferating, and people’s rights online remain confused and unclear. The Government’s decision to water down its legislative proposals and hold back on criminal sanctions for company executives will continue to put children and others at risk.
This will be a complex piece of legislation, and it will be one of the most important in recent years. Although Ofcom has been named as the regulator, it is far from clear that it will have the powers or resources needed to address the issues that it will face. The noble Lord gave a good example of disinformation. We see it on an almost daily basis—in fact we see disinformation being spread about, for example, vaccines and their use literally daily. That is another reason why this legislation is so important.
Keeping children safe is the most important task we have. If children were being abused and put at risk in the same way offline as they are online, people would rightly go to jail. Criminal sanction for senior executives is the most direct way to get large corporations to take their responsibilities seriously.
We routinely co-operate across parties to amend legislation in this House. Sometimes the Government say that they welcome this approach. I hope that we can continue to co-operate with all corners of the House to improve this legislation.
Proposals to ensure that speakers are not “no-platformed” in universities make it more likely those with radical views—ones that need to be heard, challenged and debated—are not invited in the first place. The electoral integrity Bill is a solution in search of a non-existent problem, and is likely to disproportionately disfranchise the poor and ethnic minorities.
Whether through the extension of treason offences, or longer and longer prison sentences for existing offences, not only are the Government pursuing a policy that has proved to be ineffective in deterring criminals, they are adding to overcrowding in prisons, making rehabilitation more difficult and radicalisation easier. Sedition has its roots in the perceived unfairness of society, and draconian punishment is one of those unfairnesses.
In their immigration proposals, the Government seek to penalise legitimate asylum seekers, contrary to our international obligations on refugee resettlement. This is not because they do not have a valid and lawful right to seek sanctuary in the UK, but because they arrive here by what the Government consider the wrong route. For the majority of those desperate enough to put their lives at risk by crossing the channel, there is no alternative safe and legal route to take. There is currently no way for those being bombed in Syria by their own President, or those caught between warring factions in Yemen, to claim asylum within their own country. All UK resettlement schemes are currently closed, with no plans or timetable for reopening them, nor for establishing new ones.
Instead of first establishing or re-establishing resettlement schemes and setting targets for the number of asylum seekers to whom the UK will give sanctuary, the Government are spending millions of pounds on barbed wire and enforcement patrols on the French coast. They are forcing legitimate asylum seekers into the hands of people traffickers—the only people who know how to get around the increased security measures.
One people smuggler, quoted by the Guardian, said:
“We thank your government for our full pockets.”
If you say to voters in the red or blue wall, “Look at these illegal immigrants crossing the channel”, you encourage xenophobia. If you say, “This is the only way these desperate people, who are not safe in their own country, can seek sanctuary here”, you encourage understanding. It is a choice, and the Conservative Government, through their immigration proposals, are choosing the former.
In the year of the 40th anniversary of the Brixton riots, this Conservative Government choose to ignore the recommendations of the Scarman report and instead condone enforcing the law over maintenance of the Queen’s peace, as we saw at the Clapham Common vigil. At the same time, they fail to address the unfairness, discrimination and waste of scarce police resources on disproportionate stop and search.
Placing further restrictions on protests might seem reasonable in the light of the Extinction Rebellion protests last year. I know from years of experience as an advanced public order-trained senior police officer that it takes several degrees of magnitude more police officers to enforce a ban on a demonstration than it does to work with organisers to ensure compliance with conditions. Outside London, the majority of police leaders consulted by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary said that it was not a lack of legislation but a lack of police resources that was the limiting factor in policing protests.
What are the consequences? Following the tragic case of Sarah Everard, the Mayor of London claimed that women and girls were not safe on the streets of London. The commissioner of the Met barely qualified that statement last week, when she said that the streets were
“not safe for everyone all of the time.”
The streets of London are not safe because police officers are increasingly being withdrawn from their beats to enforce bans on demonstrations and because they are targeting stop and search on black people, looking for drugs. You are eight times more likely to be stopped and searched for drugs if you are black, but no more likely than white people to be found with drugs. The overwhelming majority of stop searches are for drugs, not for knives. No wonder the black community still feels “overpoliced and underprotected”, as a black clergyman told the Macpherson inquiry into the tragic death of Stephen Lawrence.
We all want the freedom to be able to walk our streets in safety and for our women friends and family to walk safely down any street at any time. For this to happen, we must restore a visible policing presence, as the National Police Chiefs’ Council said yesterday. We do not want even more of our police officers sitting in police vans, ready to enforce a ban on a peaceful protest —which is the likely consequence of the Government’s proposals. We do not want our police officers wasting their time stopping and searching innocent people in the vain hope of finding a small quantity of drugs. We want violent criminals to be in fear of the police, not for women and girls to be in fear of men.
Fair play is not just about protecting the most vulnerable. It is part of what makes us proud to be British. Fair play is not just about ensuring lawful protest and that black people feel welcomed and protected. It is about focusing scarce police resources on ensuring everyone’s freedom to walk the streets in safety. Freedom and fair play are what make our country great. This Government’s proposals are in danger of undermining that greatness.
That is enough about numbers. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, will be a valuable addition to this House. She put it very well in her report of December 2016:
“It is not racist to say that the pace of change from immigration in recent years has been too much for some communities.”
People are understandably uncomfortable when the character and make-up of a town change out of all recognition in five or 10 years.
In calling for a sharp and sustained reduction in net migration, I am conscious that I shall be strongly opposed by those who profit from immigration, whether politically or economically. My answer is clear: these are vital issues for the future of our country. Having been appointed to your Lordships’ House for my work in this area, I think it no less than my duty to speak for those who have entirely valid concerns which our political system is simply not addressing.
We did good work in this House on domestic abuse with the Act. Yet a number of issues remain, not least the vulnerability of migrant victims. The pilot project must be closely watched. I look forward to the publication of the violence against women and girls strategy, and, once again, I commend Australia’s framework for primary prevention. I would also welcome greater consideration of the contributions of faith groups in the future VAWG strategy.
I want to end by commenting on the draft online safety Bill. Within the commendable commitments to safety, there is still work to do. From my conversations with young people around physical appearance and self-worth, I urge the Government to encourage more diverse representation in advertising and to ban, or at least restrict, the use of altered images.
I must close. I will finish by encouraging the Government to ensure that future legislation is based on evidence and research and underpinned by a clear ethos of the flourishing of all people.
I was the first female to represent the constituency of South Ribble in Lancashire. But through my passion for law and order I was drawn to the home affairs brief, and I was fortunate to serve on the Home Affairs Select Committee for five years in the other place, with a personal focus on policing, counterterrorism and the trade in narcotics. Given my experience of local government and on the Home Affairs Select Committee, I would like to take this opportunity to state my support for the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill outlined in Her Majesty’s most gracious Speech. This Government are committed to protecting and empowering our police by passing the police protection Bill and introducing new powers to tackle unauthorised Traveller camps while empowering the courts to tackle crime and ensuring a fair justice system. It is clear to me that this Bill contains several important measures to support the delivery of those commitments. I would like to mention some specific elements of the Bill.
Experience has taught me that unauthorised encampments create significant challenges for local authorities and cause distress and misery to those who live nearby. Unfortunately, as I have found all too often, current law enforcement provisions are simply inadequate to deal with the scale of the disruption these invasions have caused. Therefore, I support the measures to create the criminal offence of residing in a vehicle on land without permission. A person guilty of this offence will be liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale—currently £2,500—or both.
If we are to look after our communities, we must ensure that the police are provided with sufficient powers to effectively and efficiently enforce against a range of harms caused by unauthorised camps. I believe this new offence and strengthened police powers will also deter the setting up of unauthorised camps in the first place. As we emerge from this tragic pandemic, it is right that the Government seek to lead with a programme that does just that.
I thank noble Lords again for their kind welcome to this House, and I look forward to working with all noble Lords for the good of the country.
I agree with the Labour Minister’s assessment introducing this same measure for Northern Ireland in 2003:
“The measures will tackle electoral abuse effectively without disadvantaging honest voters.”—[Official Report, Commons, 10/7/01; col. 739.]
I also agree with the Labour official on the introduction of photo ID for Labour Party elections when he said,
“It is rare members have no form of ID.”
The Bill contains sensible measures that will make our ballot boxes safe.
We need a much more sophisticated approach. In the year leading up to the pandemic, 32,000 people were turned away because of the measures that were taken in 2003 to put immigration and security officials on European soil, enabling us to turn people back not just on Eurostar but at the border itself so they did not actually reach Britain. More of that effective work, across countries, tackling the criminals that the Minister quite rightly referred to in his speech, would be the way forward. I hope we will be able to do that in a way that, in reference to the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Green, does not counterweight the decision to welcome Hong Kong residents—27,000 to begin with, but possibly half a million over the five years ahead—by making it impossible for other people to make their way to this country and claim their international rights. That would be a great disservice to the name of our country as well as, by the way, to those we are welcoming from Hong Kong.
In essence, there is a great deal we can do in this Queen’s Speech that will be extremely welcome out there—the victims Bill is an obvious one, and the online safety Bill is another. But let us also be clear that, if we do not get the measures right, instead of the bluster and frippery that substitutes for clear thinking and positive action, then we will let people down. In making it possible to take practical measures, we build trust. When we tell people—as I know from my time in Government—that we are going to do something that in our hearts we know is impossible, we lose their trust. While the Government are riding high at the moment, in a few years’ time some of the measures that have been outlined in the Queen’s Speech will catch up with them, and people will realise that they have been misled.