Kit Malthouse
MP for North West Hampshire · Conservative · United Kingdom
“We have heard time and time again that the situation that thousands of our constituents live with every single day is so horrific and appalling that even the best palliative care cannot alleviate their pain. I urge colleagues to consider what their vote may mean today.”
“I will not. Some of those Members had just a few months before been specifically rejected by the electorate and replaced in this House by others, and I am afraid that they cannot be trusted not to do the same thing again. I grant my right hon.”
“The Health and Social Care Committee of the House of Lords found that in territories that have assisted dying, palliative care generally improves, because people become less afraid of talking about death.”
“One of the most affecting people I have met over the last 11 years of campaigning on this issue is Warwick Jackson, who came to our party conference a couple of years ago. Warwick’s wife, Ann, was diagnosed with terminal peritoneal cancer. She basically knew that she was going to die a slow, suffocating death at the end.”
“I respect my right hon. and learned Friend’s expertise in this matter, but, as he has already heard on the Floor of the House, it is perfectly possible for this House to suggest amendments, negotiate them with the promoters of the Bill, place them against the legislation in the House of Lords and then have them come back to this House for…”
“As co-sponsor of the Bill once again, I am acutely conscious that there is more at stake today than merely the fate of those who are facing their end, because the conduct of the other place means that our democracy is also on trial today.”
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“Q Obviously, a significant amount of effort and capacity goes into this work. A final question from me: do you think the police would benefit from more pre-emptive powers to prevent some of these more dangerous protests and get ahead of them? As you know, the Bill allows the police to do that. Chris Noble: In short, yes, we would. You have already partly qualified that. For us, the more intrusive our tactics, the more they need to be focused on the harm being caused. In our approach, there has to be a constant test of what is proportionate, and that is subject to significant internal and external scrutiny. We can see greater risk of harm to communities and protesters if things are left to run. An example was the G7 operation.”
“I have four protesters in a tunnel at the moment and they have been there since 10 May, and that is costing the taxpayer a huge amount of money. The safety risk to them, not just to the people who are working on the surface to support them, is significant. As you say, up until the end of March, £126 million of taxpayers’ money has had to go into protester removal or the cost to HS2 of the delay that these illegal protesters are causing us.”
“I am sure that you will all remember what happened at Euston; there was a 25-tunnel network under Euston. When we went in there to remove the protesters, the protesters were using lock-on devices sub-surface. There was violence against staff in there. We have seen large-scale trespass. In Buckinghamshire, we did an operation to remove protesters from a site. We secured the venue, but they came back with about 100 people. They shone lasers in the eyes of staff members, they threw human waste around—I mean, it is the full panoply. What is different between what you see against HS2 as compared with other locations is that it is probably quite invisible to most of the public. Again, we have got an operation live at the moment.”
“Q Mr Groves, may I start with you? Could you just give us a picture of what you have had to put up with over the last few years? Obviously, in your written evidence you outline the cost—the very significant cost—there has been to HS2. However, I was very struck that in your evidence you alluded to some of the conduct that your staff and contractors have had to put up with. Could you give us some examples of the kind of treatment that they have had at the hands of these so-called protesters? John Groves: Absolutely. It is probably everything and anything. We have seen violence against both staff and against those who are building the railway—so it is not just security staff who engage with them. These are protests that are taking place not just on the ground, but in tunnels.”
“Q Just to be clear—obviously, we all understand this, but just to be clear—the birth of HS2 followed a democratic decision in this House, following significant public debate and indeed protest and all the rest of it, and a decision was made, I think on a cross-party basis. Is that right? John Groves: Indeed, yes.”
“Q Right. You do not quite say it in your written evidence, I do not think, but your view would be that these protesters are effectively trying to frustrate a democratic decision of this House. John Groves: Yes. I mean, if you consider the definition of “protest”, you have people protesting in Swynnerton, Staffordshire—they are not particularly visible to the public. Other than probably at Euston, that is what we have seen consistently right across the piece. I would say that nearly every day there is something—there is an incident, an unlawful act against HS2.”
“Q On persistent offenders, obviously, you have got what sounds like a hardcore group who come back again and again and again. Do you believe that the powers in this Bill to place controls on them would have a significant impact on your ability to complete the project? John Groves: I hope so. I mean, it is about the deterrent. The overwhelming issue for us is tunnelling, because it is the thing that causes us the most significant cost and delay. We can, with the support of specialist contractors, move people off our land, but when there are tunnels involved, or high structures, which we also see quite regularly—they will build structures on the surface, at height, and underground. However, the tunnels are the most significant, for us, in terms of removal and, again, the safety risk is significant.”
“The thing is that I think a lot of people at the time thought that an injunction was the thing to go and do, but you must see it through; you must follow up with the committal proceedings, and it is that that then takes the time. We had to apply for a very urgent injunction, sometimes overnight, with things being prepared at pretty breakneck speed in order to try and protect what we were seeing. I am sure you are all aware of what we saw on the M25, with people either gluing themselves or sitting on the road. It is about the resource intensity that is needed to follow that up and follow that through. If I take the example of a day that they were protesting, on 8 October, by the time that got to court, that was at the end of November and by then Insulate Britain had called off its protests.”
“Q Thanks very much. Ms Bell, I just wanted to ask you a little bit more about the injunction process, because it strikes me that there is a bit of confusion about the civil route versus the criminal route and what is possible between the two, which is being alluded to. I am sure that you will recall that the Labour party called for a nationwide injunction to deal with those protesters at the time. However, it is the case, as you say, that those injunctions are very difficult to get and although they require a lower standard of proof, they are a much more elongated process than necessarily a criminal charge. Nicola Bell: Yes, absolutely.”
“Q Would it be fair to say that there is an asymmetry between what is available as a sentence under the injunction? I think it is up to two years. Nicola Bell : Yes, two years.”
“Q Two years with a judge and quite a significant fine, but at the discretion of the judge. However, it does not have a power of arrest. On the flip side, while there was a power of arrest on some of the offences that were committed, such as obstructing the highway, actually, the sentence that is available is low and nobody, I do not think, will be in prison under any of the charges that have been laid. Nicola Bell: No. I think you heard from the chief constable earlier that the arrests being made on the day were being made for low-level criminal offence—I think they were the words the chief constable used—for obstruction of the highway. It was literally going to the police station, getting processed and, the very next day, often the same person going out to another part of the M25 to do the very same thing again.”
“Q I think I am right in saying that obstruction of the highways carries a maximum level 3 fine, which is up to £1,000. Is that right? Nicola Bell: Yes. I am a civil engineer not a lawyer, but—sorry.”
“They did exactly the same on the opposite side of the carriageway and that footage clearly shows the police in danger, my traffic officers in danger and the protestors in danger as people are trying to swerve, brake and avoid them. What is included in the Bill, I hope, offers that deterrent. That is what I would like to see given that my job is about trying to keep the motorway network flowing as freely and as safely as possible. If something deters them in terms of the locking on or interfering with infrastructure—of course, we have talked a little bit about the serious disruption prevention orders that might be available—maybe that might mean that you do not have to apply for an injunction because, actually, those repeat offenders could be tackled through that means.”
“Q I thought you may have had to research it. So in your view, would it be a sensible move to combine the best of both? Effectively having a power of arrest for an offence that attracts a not dissimilar level of sentencing, which might act as a deterrent, that you would get under an injunction. Nicola Bell: I think the level of offence is a matter for the police. For me, it is the same as John has mentioned. It is about the deterrent and, for me, it is really about safety. Walking on to a 70-mph road is not wise. If you look on Insulate Britain’s website, you will see evidence of the day they blocked the M25 at junction 25, where four protestors came out and sat on the road.”
“The impact was 4 km of slow-moving and queuing traffic over the Dartford crossing, and it took until lunchtime for the effects of that to disappear. The day they protested down at the port of Dover, they sat on the road, but two protestors climbed up the side of an oil tanker and glued themselves to the top of the oil tanker while we got rid of the people on the road. By mid-morning, the effects of that around the roads in Dover were felt until about half-past 5 in the evening. The economic impact of that alone, given the importance of road freight to the UK and goods coming in and out of Dover, probably speaks for itself.”
“Q Finally, from my point of view those protests cause a significant impact on the road network, which would have had an immediate impact on those individuals, but presumably, somewhere in your department or the Department for Transport, there is an economic impact that these things have. Have you been able to cost the economic impact of those kinds of delays? Nicola Bell: I do not have the exact figure, but I will just give you a couple of examples. There is a day when they protested at Littlebrook interchange, just off junction 1A of the M25—maybe some of you will know it. Four protestors sat across our traffic signal control junction. You might have thought that was not going to cause too much impact because it is just a little bit off the M25.”
“Q I want to pursue that point a little further. Mr Groves, as you see it, the current level of fines is not proving to be a deterrent because they can be crowdfunded. As I understand it, your view is that if we were specific about the offences of locking on and tunnelling, and we added a term of imprisonment and a criminal charge against those, that would be a ramping up that might prove to be a significant deterrent—is that right? John Groves: Absolutely.”
“Three of the injunctions, particularly covering the south-east—the M25, M25 feeder roads, and the roads down to Dover—still exist and are still in place. Certainly, the public mood was something that was different as the protest happened. By the time we saw things through in court the protests were finished. Nobody was seeing them every day, whereas the first time we went it was fresher in people’s memories. People were mostly peaceful but then realised the impact that it could have on their lives—that was clear.”
“Q Ms Bell, obviously the impact of your injunctions on activity were delayed, but do you have a sense that, once protestors were going to prison under the injunctions, there was an element of deterrent there? Secondly, one of the things I know from my own experience is that when people realise that having a criminal record has implications, not least the fact that you cannot travel to the United States, that is in itself a deterrent as well. Did you get the sense that was having an impact? Nicola Bell: To your first point, once people saw that injunctions were being followed through, committal proceedings were happening and people were going to prison, that did have a deterrent effect, because we have not seen a protest on the strategic road network since 2 November.”
“Q I have a couple of questions. In response to Ms McLaughlin’s point about protest, presumably the most direct thing these protesters could do is not buy your products—not drive a car, not use gas in their cookers, not fly on holiday. That consumer behaviour would have an impact on the way you run your businesses. Steve Griffiths : That is clearly one obvious option, yes.”
“Q I want to ask a little bit about pre-emption. You talked, Mr Griffiths, about the breach of your fence. Do you think it would have been helpful for the police to have the powers to identify and stop somebody and possibly search them on approach to the airport to see if they were in possession of, say, bolt cutters, and remove them before they were able to reach the perimeter? Steve Griffiths: Yes, certainly. We work with the police on intelligence and they do a lot of scanning to try to look at risks that are presented at the airport, but certainly, having those facilities to stop people directly and search them would be helpful.”
“Q Presumably, in both circumstances, your members now are much more attuned to the notion of hostile reconnaissance and the notion that that needs to be detected on a pre-emptive basis to get ahead of some of these protests. Steve Griffiths: Yes, we have a very well-defined plan that is a joint plan between the airport, the airport police and Essex police. That is really around the seriousness with which we take breaches on the airport. We have to have a very clear escalation plan and very clear, constant monitoring in place, because the seriousness of the disruption it causes, and also the threat to safety, is significant to us as an operating airport.”
“Q Ms de Jong, is that the same now with petrol dumps? Elizabeth de Jong: Yes. Site security and risk assessment per se, given that we work in such a tightly regulated and potentially dangerous environment, are very much at the core of all operations throughout the downstream oil sector.”
“Q Finally, for clarity, Ms de Jong, to confirm what I think you said a couple of times, during the Just Stop Oil protests, when they breached the perimeter of some of those places, there could quite easily have been a catastrophic and very large explosion. Elizabeth de Jong: Indeed.”
“By peaceful, I mean non-violent. Locking on to something is not a violent protest. It is disruptive and annoying for the people who are trying to do whatever they are going to do in the location the protester has locked on to, but it is a classic form of protest. It is something that has always been used. It is something that society generally tolerates. If we want lots more people like that to go to prison, this is the Bill to do it. However, if you want to stop people blocking roads, oil refineries or fracking sites—whatever the cause at the moment is—this is not the Bill to do that. I can tell you that, because I know these people; they will continue doing what they are doing. The difference is that they will end up in prisons all around the country, and I am not sure that is a good look for the country.”
“In circumstances where somebody is persistently committing those offences, whether or not they are subject to the order that you talked about, would you not expect them to get increasing sentences as they reoffended? Adam Wagner: The first thing I would say is that I have come here voluntarily. I did not come here to have someone be personally rude to me, and I really do not appreciate it. I do not understand the benefit of that to anyone. The second point is that I am not happy for any protester to go to prison. That is the criminal law as it is. The question this Committee is asking is: does the criminal law need to change to deal with the problems that the Bill is supposedly dealing with? I just do not think it does. If the aim of the Bill is to send a lot of peaceful protesters to prison, it will do that.”
“Q I think we are clear on your view of the Bill, and I gather that you were clear on your view of the Bill on social media before you appeared. Those sweet likes are so gratifying, are they not? I want to ask you a couple of questions. First, you seem to be quite happy for those who profess to be protesters to go to prison in certain circumstances. So, if someone glues themselves on to a fuel gantry, bringing themselves and others into danger, you are quite happy for those people to go to prison—the only question in your mind is for how long. I presume you accept that part of the role of sentencing is not just to punish, but to deter.”
“However, what the judges have not done is send to prison people who, like my clients, were protesting at the entrance of a fracking site in Blackburn at Preston New Road, or people protesting on the HS2 line. The courts have said very directly: “We tend not to send people to prison for that.” It is quite possible that the courts will not oblige. Who knows? The powers will be there.”
“The police will have to think really carefully about whether they want any of the aggravation of having to recommend for charging people who are not violent criminals, but are, in fact, peaceful protesters expressing their views. Secondly, you cannot guarantee at all that the judges will send people to prison. There has been a step change through Insulate Britain. I have acted in a lot of these contempt cases—where people breach injunctions. The big difference with Insulate Britain is that these people are being sent to prison, and the courts’ reasoning, as I said, is that the protest is not directed at the social evil that the protesters are protesting. They are blocking the highway, and not blocking anybody who is insulating or not insulating anything. That is why they are sending people to prison.”
“Q I was trying to be wry; my apologies. I do not know whether you are familiar with Scottish law, but I want to ask you about the comparison with that. In Scotland, we are seeing fuel protesters being charged under what is called malicious mischief, which is an offence that attracts an unlimited sentence—subject, obviously, to judicial oversight. Presumably, you think that if that is being used significantly against protesters in Scotland, prisons there will similarly fill. Adam Wagner: First, it depends on whether the police are charging under that. I have not really talked about the relationship between the police and the public.”
“Q This is the final question from me. We are seeing an increasing use of civil injunctions in these circumstances where protesters are going to prison. In your view, are there more protections for the individual through the criminal courts than through the civil courts? If you were acting for a protester, would you rather be subject to criminal or civil proceedings, from the point of view of civil liberties and protection of the individual?”
“Q I want to underline that point. Do you believe that the reason you were targeted was the political and social posture of your publications, and that those protesters were effectively trying to silence your point of view or the point of view of your publications? David Dinsmore: I do not know if we know for a fact that that is the case. However, certainly, in a lot of protests that we see—and believe you me, we see a lot of protests—an anti-Murdoch element always comes out. We are big, grown-up girls and boys, and we deal with most of that in our daily work, but on that occasion, the level of disruption caused was well beyond what would be acceptable.”
“Q In that specific protest, was there no publicly declared reason for the protest? David Dinsmore: Apart from the fact that it was Extinction Rebellion, I would need to go back. I think there was a lot of assumption about what it was against—I think they did some tweeting at the time, but I will need to come back to you with the specifics around what was actually said and claimed at the time.”
“Q For precision, we should be clear that the measure that was previously considered, which you referred to, Ms Spurrier, was a protest banning order that was an absolute ban, which you rightly did not support. However, this measure is a conditional order, which may place restrictions or conditions on somebody’s ability to operate in a protest environment. For example, a Just Stop Oil person may be banned from coming within half a mile of an oil terminal, but could still attend a protest in central London outside this building about the same issue. That is the difference between the two, is it not? Martha Spurrier: Well, there is a potential difference in how it would be applied, but the serious disruption prevention orders have the capacity to be absolute bans in the same way as the protest banning orders.”
“Under judicial supervision. Martha Spurrier: Yes, under judicial supervision—but, as we have said, to a low standard of proof, based on no criminal conduct.”
“Q Would the same effect currently be achievable through an injunction against an individual through a civil route? Martha Spurrier: I don’t think so, because I do not think you could attach the same invasive conditions. I do not think you could have electronic monitoring, for example, if you had an injunction. That is my understanding.”
“Q But you could, through a civil injunction, stop somebody attending a particular place at a particular time, or associating with particular people or, for example, coming near an oil terminal. There are wide—basically unlimited—powers to impose conditions through an injunction. Martha Spurrier: I would not describe them as unlimited powers, but judges absolutely can impose injunctions. It goes to the broader point of whether these additional powers are needed, and I know that there have been people giving evidence that—”
“Q I do not mean to rush, but we are short of time. From a human rights point of view, if you were a protester subject to some kind of control or sanction for your activity, would you rather go through a civil procedure or a criminal procedure, based on the protections that would be available to you as an individual —access to a jury trial, supervision by a judge, the level of proof and all those kind of things? Martha Spurrier: I do not understand the question. A civil injunction and an SDPO are both civil procedures with criminal sanctions attached.”
“You may face those sanctions either directly from a breach of the criminal law or, if you are under a civil order that has criminal sanctions attached to it, from breaching that civil order. I cannot see an argument that any person is better off having an SDPO, as opposed to an injunction or any other offence. The fact of the matter is that an SDPO is a novel legal provision that, for all the reasons we have gone over, captures non-criminal conduct as well as criminal.”
“Q Sorry, I was not necessarily referring to SDPOs. I meant more widely. At the moment, we have a situation where we see people go to prison in this country for so-called protest activity through a civil route, because the criminal route is not deemed enough of a deterrent or is too slow. The contrast between the two is presumably that in the criminal system, there are quite strong protections, including the right to a jury trial and others, that do not apply in a civil situation. If the end result is that you are going to end up guilty of a particular offence, surely you would do it through the criminal route, rather than the civil route. Martha Spurrier: If you are going to face imprisonment, you will always have access to counsel—to legal aid.”
“Q But nevertheless, the impact or effect of the two is not dissimilar. Martha Spurrier: Well, the impact of an SDPO is much, much wider, because you could end up having a civil order attached to you that has invasive conditions, such as electronic monitoring, that could be renewed indefinitely, and if you breach them you could face almost a year in prison and an unlimited fine. I do not think they are comparable at all. We do not have anything like that currently, whereby, for non-criminal acts, you could face that kind of civil or criminal sanction.”
“Q I thought that for a breach of an injunction, you could face up to two years in prison. Martha Spurrier: You can. What I am saying is that you would not currently have an injunction based on non-criminal conduct—the kind of non-criminal conduct we are talking about with this Bill—that then has attached to it invasive conditions such as electronic monitoring. There is no comparison with what this Bill is doing.”
“They are involved in a number of policing and scrutiny panels, and they are actively involved in the human rights framework around public order policing. They were involved in a scrutiny panel for the COP protests, for example. These are discussions that our colleagues have with the Scottish Government all the time. I am not fully abreast of the details of those, but I can tell you that we have them. Where we are critical, we make that known.”
“Q Okay, thanks very much. Mr Sprague, I want to ask you about other jurisdictions—most notably, Scotland. My perception is that Scotland has more draconian sentencing powers in these circumstances. For example, we referred earlier to the offence of malicious mischief, which carries an unlimited prison sentence when presented in front of a judge. Just last month, the organiser of a protest in Glasgow was arrested on the grounds that the protest had not been authorised by the city council. Are you engaged with the Scottish Government over concerns about that situation, or do you think it is a very settled legal situation that has been there for some time, so that is an acceptable bar? Olly Sprague: I do not want to give a non-answer here. Obviously, policing is a devolved matter, so our offices in Scotland have an equivalent of me.”
“There are some aspects of the amendment that we agree with, and some that we think are too broad and could infringe the right to protest. I have to say that of all our concerns about this Bill, buffer zones around abortion clinics are not high on the list. There are much more egregious interferences with the right to protest in this Bill than those proposed in that amendment.”
“Q The hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton has been campaigning for some time on buffer zones around abortion clinics, which would obviously impact individuals’ rights to protest. As organisations, do you support the principle of buffer zones in such circumstances? Martha Spurrier : Liberty’s position on buffer zones is to support as limited a buffer zone as is possible to protect access to reproductive rights for the people who need to use the services of the clinic, while also protecting the right to protest. One of the amendments proposes a 150-metre buffer zone, and we think that that limit is acceptable, although it should be dependent on circumstances—if a narrower one is possible, that should be used.”
“They will have a chilling effect on the ability to protest, and they will not deter normal people who want to make their voices heard from trying to do so—instead, the Bill will just criminalise them. It will not deter the hard core, who have breaking the law as one of their tactics, because the provision just falls into what they already do.”
“But, at a certain point, it is going to become a problem and we are going to consider removing him.” If you create an offence of locking on—if you criminalise such specific protest tactics—the minute a man puts his padlock around that testing centre, he has committed a crime. There is no ability for the police to act in a dynamic way, to assess, and to do the balancing act of comparing competing rights. That is it: the tactic is criminalised and that man can be removed immediately, regardless of whether there is any impact on other people. Of course, any of us who work in this area are really adept at trying to manage competing rights, and that is what the police have to do all the time. But the proposals in the Bill are blunt instruments that will criminalise hitherto lawful activity.”
“I do not know whether we will have time to get on to the stop-and-search proposals or the offence of locking on. However, thinking about locking on as an example, just very briefly, those who are policing a protest are confronted with a dynamic situation. They are trying to work out at what point that crosses the line and might need to be shut down. If someone locks themselves to an animal testing centre—let us take it out of modern, current examples—the police have to work out at what point that person’s right to lock themselves to the testing centre becomes an infringement of other rights. It might be that the police think, “Actually, that guy can be there for two days and it doesn’t really matter. It’s a perfectly lawful and acceptable exercise of his protest rights.”
“Again, Liberty has done lots of work to make sure that both protest groups, acting within the law, are protected with their article 10 rights upheld, in so far as that can be done, compatibly with each other. I absolutely refute the idea that this is subject-specific. The abortion buffer zones case is a really good example. As with many other cases, it is a fact that we have public order laws in this country and we accept that things such as preventing violence and preventing incitement to violence, for example, are an important infringement on protest. Many of those considerations are in play when you think about abortion buffer zones. It is when you are dealing with rights that butt up against other rights that you have to make difficult calls, for sure, but we are saying that the Bill fundamentally gets the balance wrong.”