I rise in support of Lords amendments 6 and 20 and to urge the Government not to strike them out. I received some excellent briefings, as many hon. and right hon. Members did, from Big Brother Watch and Liberty, supporting the arguments that will be made this afternoon as to why Lords amendments 6 and 20 should be retained, but actually I found an even better briefing in support of those amendments, and it was provided by the Whips Office.
In “Chamber Brief: Public Order Bill”, the Whips make the best argument possible for retaining these two amendments. If I may, I will just quickly read it out. The brief states:
“Lords amendment 6 removes clause 11: power to stop and search without suspicion from the Bill.”
That sounds an outstanding thing to do. It continues:
“This would mean senior police officers would not be able to give an authorisation allowing a constable in uniform to conduct a suspicion-less stop and search of a person or vehicle”.
That sounds excellent. I do not want suspicion-less stop and searches. It sounds extraordinary that anyone in this House would support suspicion-less stop and searches. In fact, I am surprised that the Whips in my party are requesting colleagues to strike out Lords amendment 6 in relation to suspicion-less stop and searches. When I am going about my business, I do not want to be stopped by a police officer and asked about my business. When I say to the police officer, “Why are you stopping me?”, it seems pretty odd that they can say, “I have not really got a reason to stop you, it is just that I can.”
The Whips’ brief, or the Government’s brief passed through the Whips Office, has a wonderful bit of doublespeak at the end of the paragraph. It states:
“Removal of this clause from the Bill reduces the tools available for the police to use when responding to serious disruption and the Government cannot support it”.
The police do not have these tools yet, so how can the amendment reduce the tools available? That does not make any sense at all.
In promoting their position that Lords amendment 20 should be struck out, the Government say:
“Lords amendment 20 removes clause 20: serious disruption prevention orders made otherwise than on conviction entirely from the Bill. This would mean that an order could not be made by a magistrates court on application by a relevant chief officer of police. It is important that the police have the power to seek an order on application, rather than solely at the point of conviction.”
I understand that, when someone is convicted, the police might have a point of view, but to begin placing restrictions on people before they have been convicted of any crime strikes me as somewhat unBritish.
4 pm