Clause 1 Intentional harassment, alarm or distress on account of
sex Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con) I beg to move amendment 1,
in clause 1, page 1, line 6, leave out “in England”. This amendment
extends the application of the offence in new section 4B of the
Public Order Act 1986 so that it can be committed in Wales as well
as in England. The Chair With this it will be convenient to discuss
the following: Amendment 5, in clause 1, page 1, line...Request free trial
Clause 1
Intentional harassment, alarm or distress on account of sex
(Tunbridge Wells) (Con)
I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 1, page 1, line 6, leave out
“in England”.
This amendment extends the application of the offence in new
section 4B of the Public Order Act 1986 so that it can be
committed in Wales as well as in England.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 5, in clause 1, page 1, line 19, at end insert—
“(c) A considered that carrying out the conduct referred to in
section 4A(1) was reasonable because of the relevant person’s sex
(or presumed sex).”
Clause stand part.
Amendment 2, in clause 2, page 2, line 5, at end insert “,
subject to subsection (1A)”.
This amendment is consequential on NC2.
Amendment 3, in clause 2, page 2, line 5, at end insert—
“(1A) An amendment made by section (Consequential amendments) has
the same extent as the provision amended.”
This amendment is consequential on NC2.
Amendment 4, in clause 2, page 2, line 6, leave out “Section 1
comes” and insert
“Sections 1 and (Consequential amendments) come”.
This amendment is consequential on NC2.
Clause 2 stand part.
New clause 2—Consequential amendments—
“(1) In paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the Football Spectators Act
1989 (relevant offences for the purposes of Part 2), in each of
paragraphs (c), (k) and (q), after ‘4A’ insert ‘, 4B’.
(2) In Schedule 8B to the Police Act 1997 (offences which are to
be disclosed subject to rules), in paragraph 102, after paragraph
(e) insert—
‘(ea) section 4B (intentional harassment, alarm or distress on
account of sex);’.
(3) In Schedule 9 to the Elections Act 2022 (offences for the
purposes of Part 5), in paragraph 35, after paragraph (e)
insert—
‘(ea) section 4B (intentional harassment, alarm or distress on
account of sex);’.”Column 4is located here
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This new clause consequentially amends the Football Spectators
Act 1989, the Police Act 1997 and the Elections Act 2022 to
include a reference in those Acts to the offence in new section
4B of the Public Order Act 1986 (intentional harassment, alarm or
distress on account of sex).
New clause 3—Amendment of section 4A of the Public Order Act
1986—
“(1) Section 4A of the Public Order Act 1986 is amended as
follows.
(2) In subsection (3)(b), at end insert ‘subject to the exception
in subsection (3A)’.
(3) After subsection (3), insert—
‘(3A) Where a court is considering whether an offence has been
committed under this section for the purposes of section 4B, it
shall not be a defence for the accused to prove that his conduct
was reasonable because of the relevant person’s sex (or presumed
sex).’”
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir
Gary. I am grateful to colleagues for agreeing to serve on the
Committee. We have great experience represented, including
several fellow Select Committee Chairs, but the membership also
covers the whole breadth of the House; we have some of its newest
Members, and it is a pleasure to have them here.
The Bill is a short and simple one, but it is historic. It
creates, for the first time, a specific offence of public sexual
harassment, and provides for the possibility of that being
punished on conviction at the higher tariff. I will not repeat
the arguments made for the Bill on Second Reading, as this is its
Committee stage, but it is fair to say that on Second Reading it
commanded the unanimous support of the House after a debate that
showed Parliament at its best. Indeed, many members of the
Committee spoke in that debate, and did so powerfully. They drew
in some cases on their own personal experience, and on those of
their constituents, recounting the all too frequent reality of
life for many women, in particular, of enduring being followed,
obstructed, shouted at and having obscene gestures made at them
because of their sex. The Bill aims to make it clear that such
behaviour is a serious criminal offence, and to make it as
obviously unacceptable to harass someone on the grounds of sex as
to do so on the grounds of race or disability, for example.
I will concentrate in my opening remarks on the amendments I have
tabled. If you will allow me, Sir Gary, I will say something
about the other amendments that have been selected for debate,
especially those from the hon. Member for Walthamstow, once she
has made her opening remarks later in the debate. I am grateful
for the support of the Government, and I thank the Minister and
her excellent officials in the Home Office for their help in
tabling the four amendments that I have tabled and that are
before the Committee. They are designed not to alter the purpose
of the Bill, but to improve its working in practice.
Amendment 1, by deleting the words “in England” in clause 1, will
extend the Bill’s application to Wales. The subject matter of the
Bill—the Public Order Act 1986—is devolved to Wales, but the
House can legislate to extend it to Wales if the Welsh Government
wish and the Senedd passes a legislative consent motion to that
effect. I am pleased to say that the Welsh Government wish to
apply the Bill to Wales, and they will table a legislative
consent motion in the Senedd in time for it to pass before
Report.Column 5is located here
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I hope the Committee will agree that it makes legal sense to
expand the new offence to include Wales, because the Public Order
Act on which the offence is based already applies to Wales. I am
grateful to officials in the Welsh Government for their alacrity
in supporting the Bill. By contrast, the section 4A offence in
the Public Order Act does not extend to Scotland or Northern
Ireland, so it would not be practical to expand the new offence
to those countries, given that the Act on which it is based does
not apply there.
New clause 2 picks up on the fact that the existing section 4A
offence in the Public Order Act 1986 is referred to in three
other Acts of Parliament: the Football Spectators Act 1989, the
Police Act 1997 and the Elections Act 2022. Without the new
clause, if in future someone were convicted under the new section
4B offence of sex-based harassment, they would no longer be
covered by the sanctions that those other Acts contain for
convictions under section 4A of the Public Order Act. Those
relate to football banning orders, the disclosure of criminal
records in Scotland and disqualification from elected office,
which follow currently from conviction under section 4A of the
Act. Amendments 2, 3 and 4 are consequential on new clause 2,
providing, for example, for commencement regulations to be the
same for new clause 2 as for clause 1.
I hope that my explanation of the amendments will command the
support of the Committee. I look forward to the debate that
follows and to hearing the case made by Members, particularly the
hon. Member for Walthamstow on her amendment 5 and new clause 3.
Having expressed gratitude to Members for being here, I remind
them that this is a private Member’s Bill to which limited time
is attached. We have an opportunity to right a historic wrong
with this legislation, and I hope that we can approach the debate
in a pragmatic fashion with the common purpose of achieving the
change in the law that was so clearly the House’s wish on Second
Reading.
(Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary, and
to continue to work on the Bill. I thank the right hon. Member
for Tunbridge Wells for his diligence on this legislation. Many
of us feel very passionately about the issue, and we are grateful
for his commitment and the work he has done to bring so many
people together around what has historically been quite a
difficult issue to make progress on.
I was watching my three-year-old daughter gambolling down the
street the other day. “Gambolling” is the right word; she was in
a party dress, half dancing and half singing, and she was joyful.
She was walking down the same street that I walk down when coming
home from work, with my keys in my hand, looking around, nervous
about who else might be on the street. It struck me how important
it is that we do not give into those who say that this is too
complicated an issue to make progress on.
The honest truth about being a woman is that you learn to live in
fear. You learn in our society and our culture to be half aware
of what is going on around you at all times, because you know
that there is danger out there. When I look at my little daughter
and think about what is to come, I know why this legislation is
so important. I wager that everybody who has young Column 6is
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children in their life thinks about these issues. In particular,
tackling the public harassment that women face on a daily basis
is long overdue, and many of us in this place have worked on it.
That is why it is so important that we take the opportunity to
get this right, because they come along so rarely. New clause 3
and amendment 5, which I tabled, and new clause 1, tabled by the
right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North but not
selected for debate as it was not in scope, all get at the same
point about ensuring we take this opportunity we finally have to
recognise in law the fact that misogyny is driving crimes against
women and to act on it.
I was thinking about some of the euphemisms we use and the things
that are part of the culture we grow up in. We become so used to
the fact that women are at risk and face harassment and abuse on
a daily basis that we minimise it. I remember when I was younger
being very concerned about somebody I was told had “deserts
disease”, because I did not understand what it meant, until
somebody explained to me that they meant wandering palms. We talk
about people being handsy, and we talk about “creepy”, but all
these behaviours are criminal.
What this legislation does is so powerful, because it says that
the criminal offences that have been so much a part of women’s
daily experience of public life should be acted on. For many of
us who have campaigned on the issue for years, one of the biggest
frustrations has been being told that we could not act on these
things, because if we did, so many people would be prosecuted
that the system could not cope, so it was up to women to take the
abuse and find ways of minimising it and protecting themselves,
carrying their keys in their hand and making sure they were alert
at all times when they were in public, rather than us stopping
it. What this legislation does that is so powerful is to say,
“No, actually, it is not women’s job to protect themselves; it is
society’s job to stop the people doing this.” The amendments I
have tabled speak to that culture and the challenge we face in
getting this right.
As the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells said, this is based
on public order offences. There are other pieces of harassment
legislation, which I am sure many people are familiar with. I had
the fortune in a previous lifetime to work on some of them, which
is why, on reading the Bill, I was concerned to identify some of
the challenges with using the public order offence. I hope the
Minister recognises that I want us to get the legislation right.
My amendment are probing amendments, but I hope that by the time
we get to Report, the questions they raise can be answered by the
Government, because this is not a partisan issue; I think that
Members across the House recognise the point I am making.
Public order offences are based on the concept of intent—did
someone intend to harass somebody? They therefore give the person
who is accused of it a defence that says, “Well, I thought my
behaviour was reasonable.” The concept of reasonable behaviour is
contained in other pieces of harassment legislation, but in that
legislation it is also defined by whether someone ought to know
it was reasonable. The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 refers
to conduct that
“occurs in circumstances where it would appear to a reasonable
person that it would amount to harassment of that person.”
In contrast, public order offences simply allow the perpetrator
to define whether they thought their behaviour was reasonable.
Every woman in this room will recognise the challenge that that
presents, because I wager that all Column 7is located here
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of them have probably experienced unwanted touching and unwanted
behaviour. I pay tribute to the Clerks, who have been fantastic
in working with me on how we address that challenge.
Let us put it in the simplest phrases: “Cheer up, love! I was
just trying to chat you up.” “Can’t you take a joke, love?” “It’s
a compliment.” “Don’t get your knickers in a twist!” We have all
heard those phrases when we said to somebody, “Stop.” We have all
had the experience of somebody feeling they are entitled to touch
us and harass us because they think their behaviour is
reasonable. These amendments speak to a simple point. Most men in
this country know how to approach a woman if they find her
attractive. They do not feel the need to touch her breasts or her
bottom or to harass her and abuse her, but some do. If we do not
close this legal loophole, a commonplace experience for
women—being challenged when they speak up for themselves and say,
“No, don’t touch me in this way. Don’t speak to me in this way.
Don’t harass me. Don’t abuse me”—will become a legal defence,
because in contrast with other pieces of harassment legislation,
there is no provision that says someone ought to know their
behaviour is unreasonable in the definition of intent in the
Public Order Act.
My amendments will do something very simple. They will introduce
the concept of “ought to know” that is contained in other pieces
of harassment legislation. I hope the Minister recognises that
that will help to create consistency in how we define harassment
in law. More importantly, none of us wants to see those women who
are brave enough to come forward under this legislation and say,
“This person did this to me” be put on trial about whether they
can take a joke. Nine times out of 10, that person will be a man.
I recognise that the Bill does not specify gender, and that is
important, but we know from the 11 police forces that are
defining misogyny as a hate crime and recording the gender of
victims that the victims are overwhelmingly—80% to 90%—women.
We do not want victims to be put on trial about whether their
response—their statement that such behaviour was not
acceptable—is reasonable, because that would bring into play the
very simple concept of whether anybody else would think it is
reasonable. That concept exists in other harassment
legislation—not just the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, but
the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. The Crown
Prosecution Service guidance says:
“In determining whether the defendant ought to know that the
course of conduct amounts to harassment, the question to be
considered is whether a reasonable person in possession of the
same information would think the course of conduct amounted to
harassment of the other.”
It is important to clarify, in relation to the Bill, that in
public order offences a judge can give what is called an oblique
direction to a jury, so they can say: “This concept of
reasonableness is not necessarily right.” That is there as a
precedent, but reasonableness is not defined in every single
case.
There is a risk that if we do not clarify that we want those same
protections and the same questions in this Bill, that will create
a legal loophole. My amendments are about that. I am sure the
Minister will argue that they are not quite at the level they
need to be. I completely understand that; this is a first attempt
to flag the issue. If the Minister can suggest other ways to set
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the fact that we need consistency and that we want to close the
loophole, I would be very open to that, but the Bill will not do
all the things we want unless we are clear that it does not
matter that a person thinks it is reasonable to grab a woman by
her breasts to express their sexual interest in her—most other
people would not. This Bill is about those commonplace forms of
public harassment—24,000 women every single day experience
harassment—and it needs to be tightened up.
I hope Committee members understand where I am coming from with
these amendments, and I hope they will find common cause across
the House. I look forward to what the Minister has to say and to
hearing how we might take the issue forward.
(Romsey and Southampton
North) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I
pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge
Wells, who has done an enormous amount of work to bring together
a coalition of reasonable people—to use the word of the hon.
Member for Walthamstow—who have sought over many years to find a
way forward on this really serious issue.
We know it is a serious issue because each one of us has listened
to tales from our constituents and organisations in our patches.
I always highlight the incredible work of Plan International UK,
Girlguiding, the Women’s Institute and Soroptimist International.
I had the pleasure of speaking about this issue at the
Soroptimists’ regional conference, probably at the start of last
year, although I fear that it may have been 2021. I am sure they
will not mind me saying this, but it was a group of mature
ladies. They were very clever, very sharp and very determined to
ensure that their daughters and granddaughters do not experience
the same things they had, albeit some years before.
The hon. Member for Walthamstow painted a picture of her
daughter. My message to the Committee is that they are all our
daughters. Those of us who are blessed with daughters often cite
our experiences, but it is about every woman and young girl out
there who has been the victim of this sort of harassment. The
tragedy is that they all have.
I will not speak to my new clause, which was deemed out of
scope—you need not worry about that, Sir Gary —but I will speak
to the broad theme of this Bill, which is a huge step forward. We
have been looking for this progress. I know it has been
considered over many years by the Home Office under successive
Home Secretaries. I pay tribute to the work of my right hon.
Friend the Member for Witham (), my hon. Friends the Members
for Louth and Horncastle () and for Redditch (), and the Minister. I know
they want to find a way forward.
I regard the Bill as the first step—this should strike fear into
everyone’s heart. I will be completely candid: this is not
perfect legislation. It omits some of the things that I would
like to have seen included. We must keep a weather eye on what
has been done to improve it when it comes back on Report and how
it works in practice, because that is what really matters. It
does not matter that we get the wording right in a piece of
legislation if it is not any use on the ground. It is the
practical implications that will make a difference to all those
women out there who walk home with their keys in their
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We cannot shy away, and the hon. Member for Walthamstow did not
shy away, from the fact that this is about women protecting
themselves from male perpetrators. My Committee, the Women and
Equalities Committee, is doing an enormous piece of work on
misogyny and violence against women and girls. We never shy away
from saying that in the vast majority of cases—of course I
acknowledge that it is not every case—the behaviour is
perpetrated by men, and it is cultural.
9.45am
That is why this legislation is so important: because it draws a
line under that culture and says, “No, this is wrong. This is not
reasonable behaviour.” It is about ensuring that we focus not on
the extreme end of violence against women and girls—the repeat
offenders who are out on probation, or the most violent—but on
the root of the offences. I say it repeatedly: not every flasher
becomes a rapist, but every rapist has started somewhere.
Sexual harassment and the harassment of women in the street are
part of a pyramid of offending. I really shy away from using the
term “low-level offending”, because that undermines the
seriousness of the impact that such an event can have on the
victims, predominantly young women and girls, who will remember
it for the rest of their days. That is why it is so crucial that
we emphasise the wider issues. Every one of us supports the Bill
and wants it to succeed, but there are wider issues around sexual
harassment that I feel it still does not address. Believe me, our
Committee will be watching carefully, and when we need to go
further we will make that point.
I have probably said enough. My final comment is about victims,
to whom the hon. Member for Walthamstow alluded. Our focus must
be on intent and reasonable behaviour. We cannot have a situation
in which a woman is put on trial for not getting the joke. Too
many times, I have to listen to the phrase, “It’s just banter.”
It is not banter; it is harassment. Let us make sure that it is
recognised as such.
(Edinburgh West) (LD)
I will make only brief remarks. I could not agree more with the
hon. Member for Walthamstow and the right hon. Member for Romsey
and Southampton North.
I was struck by what the hon. Member for Walthamstow said about
her daughter being three. Before my daughter was born, a number
of us at work found it immensely frustrating that we constantly
had to face “banter” in the office. We were called unreasonable
if we did anything about it, because it was just “reasonable
banter”. We might miss the significance of the Bill and think it
a small step. In a way it is, but in another way it is huge and
important, because we have put it on record that such “banter” is
not the reasonable thing; being offended by it is the reasonable
thing. The reasonableness is with the women.
The hon. Lady’s mention of her daughter being three reminded me
of the situation we faced daily in the workplace before my
daughter was born. It struck me that my daughter is now 26. The
workplace situation has improved, but the so-called banter
continues. Those offensive statements and that harassment fall
below the level of violence, but they are just as damaging
because the issue is cultural. It affects women’s self-esteem,
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we do and where we go in the evenings, even with our keys between
our fingers. It is important to recognise today that we have to
draw a cultural line, as the right hon. Member for Romsey and
Southampton North said. It is a cultural problem that we have to
continue to fight daily. I hope that when the daughter of the
hon. Member for Walthamstow is 26, we will have made more
progress than has been made in the past 26 years.
(Birmingham, Yardley)
(Lab)
People always say this, but I actually mean it: it is a pleasure
to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I express my thanks
and those of the Labour party to the right hon. Member for
Tunbridge Wells for the opportunity to have this longed-for
conversation and to start to build the legislative framework.
The right hon. Member was drawn out of the legislative lottery,
which is an odd quirk of this place. At the time, I noted—I mean
no offence to him—that there were more people in the top 10
called Greg than women on the list. Hearts sank somewhat for some
of us in the room, as they did for charities such as Plan and
Girlguiding that have been working on the issue and trying to
find a sponsor, so it was a relief that the right hon. Member
immediately and clearly wanted to do it. I thank him for allowing
us to have this conversation and move the legislation
forward.
As we have heard in today’s very reasonable debate, including in
the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow,
the Labour party stands ready and willing to work with the
Government before the Bill’s final stages so that we can all
agree without dividing the House. Nobody wishes to divide the
House on the issue; we wish to sing with the same voice. I make
that offer to the Minister.
I am not blessed with daughters, unlike others who have spoken. I
am blessed with sons—I have two teenage sons. My hon. Friend the
Member for Walthamstow made an important case about what people
ought to know and how they ought to be reasonable. My sons know
that you don’t shout at women in the street and that you don’t
find your way into their heart by touching them up in a crowded
place. My sons know that, not out of any spectacular parenting on
my part but because they are reasonable human beings.
When our children were young teenagers—they are basically adults
now, which I do not like to admit because it makes me feel old—my
husband and I were in a park in south London. A woman was jogging
past us. There were two men sat on a bench: it was 4 o’clock and
they were drinking cans of lager, having a perfectly nice time.
The woman jogged past and they started shouting at her about her
arse and her physique. She was none the wiser: she had headphones
in, though not out of design on her part, I should have
thought.
I did not even notice that this bad thing was happening, because
I am so used to it—I am so used to this sort of thing happening.
My husband turned on his heels and absolutely blazed the two men,
not even for what they were doing to the woman, but for doing it
in front of his sons: “Don’t teach my children that this is the
way to behave. Don’t ever do that.” Obviously they gave him some
lip back, but the next time they go to shout at a woman, they
will look around in that moment and they will stop. It is not
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that it is not reasonable, but it made me feel incredibly sad
that because that behaviour is standard, I did not even notice
it.
On the reasonableness of men, I should mention that after the
Sarah Everard case, women came forward and described all the
stuff they have to do to keep themselves safe. They described the
keys in the hands, the headphones in, the heads down on the
train—“Don’t talk to me, don’t touch me.” We all know that; we
have all done it. It is important to say that the huge weight of
that burden falls on young women. A school uniform is a red rag
to a bull, which is terrible.
When we were all saying that we did all this stuff—thinking about
how we were going to dress and how we were going to get home,
tagging our friends, calling each other—my husband said to me,
“If you had the time back, and you had the level of detail that
you have lived your life at since you were about 10, you could
make a feature-length stop-frame animation film as good as
‘Wallace and Gromit’. That is the level of detail and time that
has been taken off you as an individual.” That was labour that he
did not have to do, as a man.
In the arguments that my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow
is putting forward, all I think we are asking for is not to make
the victim do the labour. We have done enough labour and put in
the work to provide security for women. As individuals, we have
done the state’s work for generations. In every rape case and
every sexual violence case, there is still the problem that the
person doing the labour, both in the investigation and on trial,
is the victim. We have an opportunity to take that labour
away.
We all want to see this legislation on the statute book. Anyone
who says it will mean loads of people ending up in prison has
never been at a trial relating to violence against women and
girls. Hope springs eternal that anyone will go to prison for
anything! We have a real opportunity here, but as the right hon.
Member for Romsey and Southampton North says, we have to make
sure that this legislation is the beginning and that we make it
as good as possible. What we should not do is put the labour on
the shoulders of the victims.
I think I have been positively manny in my response. People come
back at me saying that harassment is “banter” and that boys will
be boys, but I hate that idea because I think much more of men
than that. I think men are capable, brilliant human beings who
can make choices. When they make choices to do bad things, it is
nothing to do with boys being boys. They are not base or inhuman.
They can control themselves. They are cracking—I raised two of
them! They are not without control over their own faculties. It
is not “boys will be boys”; it is “abusers will be abusers”. That
is the top and bottom of it. I thank all hon. Members, and we
obviously support the Bill.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home
Department ( )
It is a pleasure to appear before you, Sir Gary. I confirm that
the Government support the legislation, and I thank my right hon.
Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells for his work on the
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I remind hon. Members about the effect of the Bill, as it stands.
The Bill provides that if someone carries out behaviour that
would fall under section 4A of the Public Order Act 1986,
intentionally causing someone “harassment, alarm or distress”,
and does so because of the victim’s sex, they could receive a
longer sentence of up to two years.
My right hon. Friend has already set out the effect of his
amendments, but I will confirm the Government’s position. New
clause 2 and amendments 2 to 4 are purely consequential. They
will ensure that the scope of the other statutes is unaffected by
the Bill.
New clause 2 will add the new offence of sex-based harassment in
public to schedule 1 to the Football Spectators Act 1989.
Schedule 1 is a list of the offences that will generally cause a
person to be issued with a football banning order
“unless the court considers that there are particular
circumstances…which would make it unjust”.
An FBO prevents a subject from attending UK football matches and
may place conditions on them on match days, for example by
forbidding them from going to a particular city centre or being
within a certain distance of a stadium. It can require them to
report to a police station in connection with matches
overseas.
Section 4A of the Public Order Act 1986, the offence on which the
Bill builds, is listed in schedule 1 to the Football Spectators
Act 1989. As that is the currently available offence for
prosecuting someone who deliberately harasses another person on
account of their sex, such a person should be issued with an FBO,
but in future such a person would instead be convicted under
section 4B. If we do not add the new offence to schedule 1, such
a person could slip through the net and escape an FBO. The
amendment will prevent that consequence and help to ensure that
those who engage in sex-based harassment cannot sully the
beautiful game.
New clause 2 will also add section 4B to the provisions listed in
schedule 8B to the Police Act 1997. The legislation is devolved
in Scotland, but with the agreement of the Scottish Government we
seek to make the amendment here; it is right that when a
consequential change arises from a UK Bill, we should make the
necessary amendment ourselves wherever possible, in the interests
of not unduly troubling our colleagues in Holyrood with the
effects of our legislative changes. Schedule 8B lists the
offences for which a person’s conviction, even if spent, will be
disclosed on a criminal record certificate, unless certain
conditions apply that relate largely to a period of time having
elapsed since the conviction. Section 4A of the Public Order Act
1986 is listed in the schedule. Adding a new public sexual
harassment offence will ensure the maintenance of the Act’s
existing coverage, thus ensuring continued safeguarding.
10.00am
New clause 2 will further add the new offence to the list in
schedule 9 to the Elections Act 2022. The offences listed are
those for which a conviction would usually cause someone to be
barred for five years from being nominated for, standing for or
holding elected office if their offence was aggravated by
hostility towards those standing for or holding elected office,
or towards other parties involved in the electoral process, such
as campaigners.
This is a subject with which we are all far too familiar. The
abuse that we, and others we work with in upholding our
democratic processes, have to experience on a daily Column 13is
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basis is horrendous and all too often misogynistic. Ensuring that
those who are convicted for it cannot stand for office is a
crucial measure. By adding section 4B to the provisions listed in
schedule 9, alongside the existing section 4A offence, the new
clause will ensure that intentional harassment based on a
victim’s sex continues to attract that censure.
Amendment 1 will ensure that the Bill applies not just to
England, as it does now, but to Wales. The matter is devolved to
Wales, so making this change will require the consent of the
Senedd. I confirm that Welsh Ministers are content to table a
legislative consent motion before the Senedd; I anticipate that
it is likely to pass. Since the section 4A offence on which the
new offence builds applies to England and Wales, it makes sense
that the new offence should have the equivalent application. I
confirm that we cannot expand the application of the Bill in the
same way to Scotland and Northern Ireland, as a section 4A
offence does not apply to those parts of the UK, nor do they have
wholly analogous offences.
I turn to the important issues raised by the hon. Member for
Walthamstow. I thank her for tabling amendment 5 and new clause
3; more generally, I pay tribute to her consistent campaigning in
this field and on related issues. There have been few more
doughty campaigners in this place for ensuring that women feel
safe on our streets. She makes serious points; we all understand
that. While I do not think at the moment that the approach is
exactly right, I am pleased to confirm that the amendments will
be given proper consideration. I know that we all want to move
forward on this matter.
I will respond to the amendments on a technical basis, but I
reassure the hon. Lady that we will look at them carefully. I
respectfully suggest that the amendments would not achieve their
purpose. New clause 3 provides that the defence in section 4A of
the Public Order Act, necessarily inherited by the proposed new
section 4B offence, cannot be used by the defendant to claim that
their conduct was reasonable because of the sex or presumed sex
of the person to whom it was directed.
However, a statutory defence comes into play only if the criteria
for the actual offence have otherwise been met. In this case, for
a prosecution to succeed, it must prove that the defendant
intended to cause harassment, alarm or distress. If it cannot
prove that, the prosecution will fail, and the defendant’s need
to argue a specific statutory defence will not arise. This is a
technical point, but if the prosecution can prove that, it seems
hard to envisage a situation in which the court accepted that the
defendant intended to cause harassment and was also persuaded
that the defendant’s conduct was reasonable, regardless of the
victim’s sex.
In other words, how can someone intend to cause another person
harassment, yet say that they have acted reasonably? I said that
it was very hard to envisage, but perhaps it is not impossible.
Part of the value of a reasonableness test defence is that there
are “never say never” scenarios that cannot be envisaged until
they happen, so it is right that the defence remains available. I
suggest that such scenarios do not justify new clause 3 at this
stage, but we are thinking very seriously about the points that
the hon. Lady made.
Similar considerations apply in relation to amendment 5, which
specifies, as the hon. Lady set out, that it does not matter
whether a defendant’s conduct is reasonable because of the sex or
presumed sex of the person at Column 14is located here
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whom it is directed. Again, it is a separate requirement of the
offence that the prosecution proves that the defendant intended
to cause harassment, alarm or distress. If it cannot do so, the
prosecution fails, so there is no need for the second stage.
I respectfully suggest that the hon. Lady’s amendments do not
work technically, but we understand what has been put forward and
it will be considered very carefully. I know that my responses
will raise the question why we are restricting the new offence to
cases in which the defendant’s intention to cause harassment,
alarm or distress must be proven. That is what I think lies
behind the amendments.
I apologise if I was not listening correctly, but the Minister
mentioned intent. I am not sure that, in simply reiterating the
question from the hon. Member for Walthamstow, the Minister gave
us an answer. Is she going to give us an answer about intent?
Miss Dines
To be able to get forward to the next step of the offence, the
prosecution must always prove intent, so we would not get to the
statutory defences until we have dealt with intent, and intent
depends on the circumstances. I think we all know that it is all
quite obvious, although I and the Government are willing to look
at a better form of wording. I appreciate that my right hon.
Friend feels passionately about this issue, and it is something
that will be considered very carefully.
I thank the Minister for her time looking at this, because I have
spent many hours doing so. I pay tribute to the Clerks, who were
incredibly patient as we worked through the almost circular logic
of when intent comes into this offence, partly because it is not
a new offence; it is a kind of offence-plus, which is where some
of the challenges about the decision on intent could be.
With the Government’s support on Report, we could learn lessons
from other protections from harassment and other harassment
legislation about the reasonableness test and where it comes in.
I know that that would get support from the Opposition and the
Minister’s colleagues, and it could clarify the point at which a
defendant could claim reasonableness. That may be the way to do
it, in the same way that this offence-plus also brings in the
concept of discounting whether sexual gratification was part of
the process. There will clearly be a point at which somebody
decides whether it is a 4A or 4B offence, and that seems to be
the point at which we could be clearer about the intent and
whether somebody reasonable would know about it. We could put
that in the Bill to give directions to judges and magistrates
about how to interpret “reasonableness”, which is what I think we
are all looking to get to. I hope that that is a helpful
intervention to clarify where I think there is space to marry the
two different types of legislation together.
Miss Dines
The hon. Lady makes very interesting points, and I know she is
particularly interested in intent. It is right that we need to
prove intent as part of the offence. I would question how much of
a barrier this is in relation to the sorts of behaviour that the
Bill is intended to address. I remind right hon. and hon. Column
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Members that the explanatory notes suggest five examples of
behaviour that the Bill would cover, and I know the hon. Lady
will be very aware of them. They are:
“(a) following a person (for example, deliberately walking
closely behind someone as they walk home at night);
(b) making an obscene or aggressive comment towards a person;
(c) making an obscene or offensive gesture towards a person;
(d) obstructing a person making a journey; and
(e) driving or riding a vehicle slowly near to a person making a
journey.”
I ask right hon. and hon. Members whether it can be plausibly
claimed that a person carrying out that sort of behaviour does
not actually intend to cause harassment, alarm or distress. It is
not benign behaviour; it is almost as if that behaviour speaks
for itself.
I agree, and I am sure everybody in this room would say that. I
have sat in courtrooms and heard cases of people having been
burned with an iron, and it has been argued that it was
reasonable that that happened, so excuse us for trying to make
sure that the Bill is belt and braces! We have all sat through
people saying it is reasonable that a woman was strangled to
death while she was having sex. It seems fanciful to the
reasonable, of course, but it happens every day.
Miss Dines
I am grateful for that intervention. Of course, there are lots of
different types of offences, and the circumstances that are
explained are normally—I will not say “more serious”, because all
these offences are serious—higher-level punishment serious
offences. The Government have worked very hard in this area with
the non-death strangulation measures that have been brought
forward, and we seek the Labour party’s support for those sorts
of measures. To some extent I agree with the hon. Lady, and to
some extent I do not. For every matter that comes before the
courts, it depends on the circumstances of the case. But things
do evolve, and I accept that point.
Will the Minister give way?
Miss Dines
May I make a little progress? Things do evolve. Perhaps some
people in the 1970s would have thought that following somebody
closely in a car to pay them a compliment was acceptable. We now
know that it is totally unacceptable; things evolve. Quite
rightly, we know that such behaviour is certainly not benign. The
climate is thankfully very different now and there is much
greater awareness, but there is always more to do. If it can be
plausibly claimed that somebody who does that was doing it
without intent, we would have to get to the reasonableness
defence.
I accept entirely that things have evolved since the 1970s, but
they did not evolve on their own. It took a lot of work, like
that which we are trying to do today on reasonableness. If we
allow the opportunity to pass, people will look back and say,
“How did they let that slip through the net? Why did they not
address it? Why is it still reasonable for someone to be burned
with an iron, or strangled during sex, or accosted in the street?
Why is that still acceptable?” Evolution in this area does not
happen on its own. It takes a lot of work.
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Miss Dines
I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. My question is
whether it could be plausibly claimed that such behaviour is not
intended. I do not doubt that some defendants will try to claim
that they had no malign intent when they walked closely behind
someone at night, for example—defendants will try anything—but it
would not be plausible, and I do not believe it would
succeed.
There may be some other types of behaviour where intention to
harass is harder to prove. I am reluctant to say that they are
less serious, because all public sexual harassment behaviour is
serious, but we are talking about relative degrees of severity.
Perhaps an example is a wolf whistle in a crowded place in broad
daylight, at some distance from a victim. Let me stress
immediately that such behaviour is very far from okay. It is
demeaning and objectifying to the woman, and has no place in our
society, but it is perhaps the type of behaviour where
non-criminal responses are more appropriate. I remind hon.
Members of our Enough campaign, which doubtless they have seen.
An intention test can usefully differentiate behaviour where the
criminal justice path is the right one from behaviour where
societal interventions are more appropriate.
The Minister is being very generous in giving way. A few years
ago, when I left Parliament late at night and I walked up the
steps to go to the underground, a young man—I was probably old
enough to be his mother—walked up behind me, and slid his arms
around my neck and then slowly round my breasts. He was trying to
persuade me that I wanted to go to the Red Lion pub with him. I
was very clear that that was not acceptable and I was not going
to go. He followed me all the way down the street and I had to be
quite physical to get him off me.
In that instance, he believed his intent was to charm and seduce
me. He thought that that was an acceptable way to approach
somebody. The difficulty with this legislation as it is currently
constructed is that he could say in court, “My behaviour was
reasonable—I thought it was reasonable.” In other forms of
harassment legislation, that concept of reasonableness could be
tested by whether anybody else would think it reasonable, but
that would not come into play here, because of this difference in
how we define what harassment is in different pieces of
legislation. This is not about whether we could prove intent per
se; it is the gap between how we define harassment in other forms
of legislation as opposed to under public order offences, because
they are about the first time somebody has contact with
somebody.
I know the Minister said she and the officials will look at this.
I hope they will. I hope we can clarify that it is not about
whether something is serious and it is not about whether someone
has intent; it is specifically about this concept of who decides
whether behaviour is reasonable, so someone can mount a
reasonableness defence. I am sure that young man would argue
until he was blue in the face that I just could not take a
compliment. That was not a compliment. It was harassment. It was
intimidating and it was scary, and it is exactly the sort of
behaviour the Bill is designed to capture—but he would have that
defence unless we close the loophole. That is what we are getting
at.
Miss Dines
I respectfully suggest that that stark example supports my
position—that it would be so obvious what he was doing, and what
he intended, that Column 17is located here
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the defence would very easily be wiped away. But we need to keep
that defence for the one or two circumstances where it should be
reasonably argued.
10.15am
I thank the Minister for giving way again. I wish to follow up
the example of the hon. Member for Walthamstow with a very
different example, which I have used previously in the
Chamber.
A young woman came to speak to me. Her job was pushing trolleys
around a supermarket car park. She used to shelter by the
security guards for all of lunchtime. I said, “Why? Surely
lunchtime is the best part of the day?” She said, “No, because
that’s when the builders come.”
Now, I recognise that we are now castigating an entire category
of man, and I apologise for doing so, but they would turn up in
their vans and harass her while she was pushing her trolleys.
This was at the height of covid. She wore a beanie hat, a mask, a
thick puffer jacket, leggings and boots; and a man walked up to
her, put his hands either side of her face, and said, “You are
too beautiful to be doing a job like this.” Can we discuss what
the intent and the reasonableness is there? That is a clear case
of harassment on the grounds of sex, but it is not as stark as
the case that the hon. Member for Walthamstow shared.
Miss Dines
I thank my right hon. Friend for raising that example. I
personally think that it is just as stark, and that it is just as
easy to knock down the defence, because the intent is so
obviously there. Intent is not a fanciful legal device. It is
something that is pretty obviously stated, and a jury, judge or
magistrate—whoever it is—would very easily be able to knock the
defence away, but I do value the point that my right hon. Friend
makes. The Government have accepted that they will look at that
again, and I very much enjoy hearing these interventions.
The Government’s view is that even though these amendments would
have the desired effect, they would not be necessary to
criminalise the type of behaviour that concerns most of us here,
but I do take seriously the concerns that lie behind them and I
will give them further consideration. In the meantime, I suggest
that the hon. Member for Walthamstow, having probed with quite a
lot of debate, and made her point very forcefully, should perhaps
not press the amendments.
Moving on to substantive matters more generally—I know that I
have taken up a great amount of time—I speak in support of clause
1, which creates the new offence at the heart of the Bill by
inserting a new criminal offence within the Public Order Act 1986
as a new section 4B. The offence will be dependent on the
behaviour that falls within section 4A of the Act—namely, that of
intentionally causing harassment, alarm or distress—and will
provide that if someone committed behaviour under section 4A, and
did so because of the victim’s sex, they could receive a longer
sentence of up to two years, rather than the six months mentioned
in section 4A.
The approach of building on the section 4A offence reflects the
Government’s view that public sexual harassment behaviour is
already covered by existing criminal offences, most commonly that
section 4A offence. Had we instead Column 18is located here
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sought to create a wholly new offence, that would have entailed
overlap with existing ones, which would be not only unnecessary
but actively harmful, as it would create confusion about the
law—exactly the reverse of what we are trying to achieve
here.
(Staffordshire Moorlands)
(Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. The argument is frequently
put forward—as a former Home Office Minister, I have used it
myself—that there will be duplication, and that that will be too
much, but we need to find legislation that can be easily
understood by the judiciary and interpreted properly, with proper
training for police officers and others so that they can find the
evidence needed. Sometimes an additional offence is not that
harmful, because it will assist in getting the prosecutions that
we all so desperately need. May I urge the Minister to consider
that point in her deliberation about all the other points that we
have discussed?
Miss Dines
I understand that point.
Section 4A makes it an offence if someone
“uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or
disorderly behaviour, or…displays any writing, sign or other
visible representation which is threatening, abusive or
insulting”
if both the intention and the effect of the behaviour, or the
display, are to cause another person harassment, alarm or
distress. It provides that the offence
“may be committed in a public or a private place, except that no
offence is committed where the words or behaviour are used, or
the writing, sign or other visible representation is displayed,
by a person inside a dwelling and the person who is harassed,
alarmed or distressed is also inside that or another
dwelling.”
There are two specified defences to this: first, that the
defendant was inside a dwelling and had no reason to believe that
the words or behaviour used, or the writing, sign or other
visible representation displayed, would be heard or seen by a
person outside that or any other building; and secondly—this has
been the focus of some of the debate—that the defendant’s conduct
was reasonable.
The section 4B offence introduced by clause 1 of the Bill will
inherit and build on the provisions of section 4A. Subsections
(1) and (2) of proposed new section 4B provide that the new
offence will be engaged when a person commits an offence under
section 4A and does so because of the sex of the person towards
whom they are directing their conduct or because of the sex that
the defendant presumed the other person to be.
Subsection (3) of the new offence makes two clarifying
provisions. The first is that it does not matter whether there
are additional motivations behind the defendant’s behaviour as
well as the victim’s sex, as long as the victim’s sex was one of
the motivations. The second is that the defendant’s motivation
need not have been one of achieving sexual gratification; of
course it could have been, but there are many other reasons why a
person might decide to harass someone on account of their
sex.
Subsection (4) of the new offence provides that the maximum
sentence for a person found guilty of the offence would be, if
they were tried in the magistrates court, a term not exceeding
the general limit that the court can impose or a fine or both, or
if they were tried before the Crown court, a maximum of two
years’ imprisonment or a fine or both. That contrasts with the
section 4A offence, for which the maximum sentence is Column 19is
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six months. Since the maximum sentence for the new offence will
be two years, which is above what the magistrates court can
impose, the new offence will necessarily be capable of being
tried in either the magistrates or the Crown court—triable either
way, in the formal language—whereas the section 4A offence can be
tried only in a magistrates court, or summary only, in the formal
language.
Subsection (5) of the offence states that if a person is tried in
the Crown court for the new offence under subsection (1) and is
acquitted for that offence, the jury may still find them guilty
of the section 4A offence. I commend the clause to the Committee.
The new offence that it introduces will play a crucial role in
ensuring that everyone—women in particular—can feel safe on our
streets.
Clause 2 contains the standard provisions about the commencement,
extent and short title of the Bill. Subsection (1) provides that
the Act will extend to England and Wales. New subsection (1A)
introduced by amendment 3 would place a caveat on that, to the
effect that a provision introduced by the consequential
amendments in new clause 2 would have the same geographical
extent as the provision it amends. The practical meaning of this
is that the amendment to the Police Act 1997, which relates to
Scotland, would naturally extend to Scotland. The rest of the
clause confirms that the provisions of the Act will come into
force in line with the commencement regulations made by
Ministers, as confirmed in the Act’s short title. I commend the
clause to the Committee.
I thank Members for their contributions to the debate. These are
long-standing issues, and I am sure we will debate them again. My
Department will look very closely at whether this is the time for
a sea change in the message in relation to intent and
reasonableness.
I am grateful for the chance to respond to the debate. It has
been a relatively short debate, but it has successfully
highlighted, first, the strong support there is for making this
historic change to the law and, secondly, the desire and
intention on both sides of the Committee to ensure that we take
this opportunity to get it right. The contributions from my right
hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North and the
hon. Members for Walthamstow, for Edinburgh West and for
Birmingham, Yardley all point in that direction.
I am grateful to the Minister for her clear statement that she
and her officials and colleagues in Government will reflect on
the points that have been made, with a view to responding to them
on Report and Third Reading. I am grateful to the hon. Member for
Walthamstow for indicating that this is a probing amendment, and
it has afforded us the ability to do just that.
Let us step back and reflect on where we are. Everyone agrees
that we need to make this change in the law, but the hon. Member
for Walthamstow and others have rightly focused on the question
of intent. It is clearly a matter of common consent that a man
who harasses a woman in public on the grounds of her sex should
not be able to escape conviction simply by asserting that he did
not intend to cause alarm or distress. That is not acceptable,
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On Second Reading the hon. Lady introduced the interesting and
quite powerful concept of foreseeable harassment. We are talking
about whether such conduct at the time is foreseeable. The
graphic examples that Members have given fall into the category
of behaviour that is clearly foreseeable as liable to cause
harassment, alarm or distress, so there could not be a risk that
that could be cited as a defence on the basis that the
perpetrator did not intend to cause that. There are various ways
of addressing that.
The hon. Lady helpfully referred to other legislation that the
House has passed and, in so doing, no doubt reflected on
precisely these issues. It is always beneficial to be able to
draw on debates that have concluded satisfactorily, with the
further advantage of maintaining consistency in the law. On the
suggestion that the hon. Lady made, I am grateful for the
Minister’s assurance that we will follow it up.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on getting the Bill to this
stage. It will be a fantastic Act of Parliament once it has
passed through its final stages.
My right hon. Friend talks about other offences. It must be worth
looking at how juries have interpreted other offences and whether
those offences have led to successful prosecutions. If this
language would help to get prosecutions—because it has been shown
that that has happened in the past and lay members of a jury
could understand the offence in a way that they perhaps would not
understand it without that wording—it must be worth considering
adding the wording to the offences.
My right hon. Friend, a former Home Office Minister, makes a
characteristically well-informed point about having the right
intentions to make this an Act of Parliament that will not just
sit on the statute book, but have a material effect on
prosecuting perpetrators. As I said on Second Reading, we want to
avoid the need for a large number of prosecutions by making it
crystal clear to everyone that such behaviour is unacceptable and
is a serious criminal offence. We should look at that and reflect
on it.
It is fair to point out, as the Minister did, that the guidance
in the explanatory notes to the Bill makes it clear that listing
behaviours that are in scope establishes, in effect, that such
behaviours would not be considered a justification that could
overcome the question of intent and unintentionality. I will not
go through the list that the Minister mentioned. One means would
be to refer to other legislation. Another might be to consider
the examples currently included in the explanatory notes and
whether there might be a way to give them greater prominence so
that prosecuting authorities, police forces and courts could take
them into account. I hope that she will consider that as
well.
In thinking about how to get this right, perhaps it would also be
helpful to clarify that other forms of harassment legislation
look for a course of conduct because they generally cover
experiences in which we think somebody might have had a number of
interactions with their victim. In this case, however, we are
talking about the first time that people interact with people.
The challenge is whether those ideas about “boys will be boys”
and the clumsy attempts at trying to get somebody’s attention
become even more part of the discussion about whether it was
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For the magistrates who deal with these cases, it is even more
important that we are clear that if somebody says, “I just
thought that if I slapped her bottom, she would notice me,” that
is not reasonable, because in today’s era slapping somebody’s
bottom is not the best way to get their attention or express
interest in them. Because we are dealing with that first form of
contact, we have to match in this legislation the way in which we
have talked about what is reasonable in other legislation.
Otherwise, the cultural barriers that we are trying to get
through will come into play even more, because they will fill the
vacuum that a course of conduct would otherwise fill.
10.30am
The hon. Lady makes an important point that underpins the sense
of consensus in this Committee. We need to be clear—so that the
courts are clear and there is no ambiguity—that intended
harassment will be punished.
(Newbury) (Con)
One point that is getting into a little bit of a muddle is that
any unwanted touching is already assault. We are talking about a
different offence. The harassment provisions under section 26(4)
of the Equality Act 2010 set out clearly the reasonableness test
and it is applied in that sense—that is, any unwanted conduct
that has the purpose or effect of violating a person’s dignity or
causing them humiliation or distress. Does my right hon. Friend
agree that in effect we are transplanting the civil test into the
criminal law?
On the issue of intent, about which we have had a lot of
discussion, surely there is not only the issue of mens rea, which
is one thing, but, as in other forms of law on things like
nuisance and antisocial behaviour, if the person is reckless as
to whether their conduct has a certain kind of purpose or effect,
that is also enough for intent. Any form of touching would
already be assault: we are not into a reasonableness test because
it is a different offence anyway. Putting an arm round somebody
or squeezing their bottom is a different crime. If someone says
something sexual to a person, it is sufficient to say that if the
court says they were reckless as to whether that would cause
offence, the harassment offence is going to be made out anyway.
It is in common with all equivalent offences of this nature.
My hon. Friend brings her extensive legal learning and experience
to bear on this issue and makes two important points. First, we
should consider, before Report, the interactions with other
aspects of the law. That is certainly important and one of the
key conclusions of this Committee. Secondly, we should reflect on
the fact that, even as drafted, the Bill significantly moves the
dial on the ability of prosecuting authorities to secure
convictions for behaviour that would constitute the proposed
specific offence of public sex-based harassment.
(Stroud) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
I am conscious that you have indulged me, Sir Gary, in giving me
a second chance to speak so that I can respond briefly to the
debate. I do not want to try your patience excessively, but I
will of course give way to my hon. Friend.
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My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury is right, but there is a
huge frustration that the laws we have in place are not resulting
in convictions. The examples we have been giving in relation to
touching should already be an offence, but it is important that,
when we interrogate this legislation with examples, we do not use
examples of touching to see where we will get to with it. It is
for the Home Office and all of us on the Committee to come up
with the examples we can interrogate. Otherwise, we will fall
foul of the ministerial team because we will always be referred
to the existing legislation, even though that is a frustration
for us all.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that wise and helpful steer
for the work that the Committee has clearly agreed to do, with
the Minister’s consent. I hope that those Members who have
contributed to the debate will work together to address the
points that have been made so that, when we come to Report and
Third Reading, we might find a way to address them.
I thank you, Sir Gary, for your chairmanship. I put on the record
my thanks to the Minister and her officials in the Home Office
and to the excellent Clerks team in the House for their guidance
through what is clearly an important but also very technical
change to the law we are proposing. We are very grateful for
that. I end by acknowledging the presence earlier of one
Committee member: the Mother of the House, the right hon. and
learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham, who is currently
chairing a Committee of her own but has indicated her strong
support. We are very grateful for her appearance.
On that basis, and with gratitude for the indication from the
hon. Member for Walthamstow that she will not press her amendment
on the basis that we can consider its implications, I commend to
the Committee my new clause and my amendments.
Amendment 1 agreed to.
The Chair
Stella, is it correct that you are not pressing amendment 5 to a
vote?
I am not going to press it this time, Sir Gary, but I do want to
be clear that there is an issue that needs resolution. I withdraw
on the basis that something will come back on Report—
The Chair
Order. I am afraid you cannot speak again. You have made that
point very firmly, and I know the Minister has heard it.
Clause 1, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 2
Extent, commencement and short title
Amendments made: 2, in clause 2, page 2, line 5, at end insert “,
subject to subsection (1A)”.
This amendment is consequential on NC2.
Amendment 3, in clause 2, page 2, line 5, at end insert—
“(1A) An amendment made by section (Consequential amendments) has
the same extent as the provision amended.”
This amendment is consequential on NC2.Column 23is located
here
[Toggle showing location of Column 23](#)
Amendment 4, in clause 2, page 2, line 6, leave out “Section 1
comes” and insert
“Sections 1 and (Consequential amendments) come”.—(.)
This amendment is consequential on NC2.
Clause 2, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
New Clause 2
Consequential amendments
“(1) In paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the Football Spectators Act
1989 (relevant offences for the purposes of Part 2), in each of
paragraphs (c), (k) and (q), after ‘4A’ insert ‘, 4B’.
(2) In Schedule 8B to the Police Act 1997 (offences which are to
be disclosed subject to rules), in paragraph 102, after paragraph
(e) insert—
‘(ea) section 4B (intentional harassment, alarm or distress on
account of sex);’. Column 24is located here
[Toggle showing location of Column 24](#)
(3) In Schedule 9 to the Elections Act 2022 (offences for the
purposes of Part 5), in paragraph 35, after paragraph (e)
insert—
‘(ea) section 4B (intentional harassment, alarm or distress on
account of sex);’.”—(.)
This new clause consequentially amends the Football Spectators
Act 1989, the Police Act 1997 and the Elections Act 2022 to
include a reference in those Acts to the offence in new section
4B of the Public Order Act 1986 (intentional harassment, alarm or
distress on account of sex).
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the
Bill.
Bill, as amended, to be reported.
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