Preventing Crime and Delivering Justice

It seems only a matter of weeks since we were in this place fighting against the UK Government’s now-successful attempts to restrict some of our most precious and long-held fundamental rights. It seems only a matter of weeks because it is. In the previous Session, we battled against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which will strip people of their right to protest, among other terrifying measures; the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022, which has serious implications for access to justice and the accountability of public bodies; and, finally, the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, which is set to treat asylum seekers and refugees in ways that I can describe only as nightmarish. It is exhausting to stand here today facing an almost identical set of challenges in the new legislative programme. Rather than see the Queen’s Speech as a unique opportunity to help people to tackle the cost of living crisis and put some compassion back into the system, the UK Government are just adding to their attacks on people’s rights.

A constituent and friend of mine, Joanna, is a cleaner. On Monday, she said:

“So wages have gone up and my company added a wee bit extra, so not too bad. But today I got my wage slip and my national insurance contribution is now more than my income tax contribution, and it’s taken me back to exactly what I was earning before.”

What in the Queen’s Speech will tackle the issues that everyone out there is worrying about? Energy bills are spiralling out of control, the cost of the weekly shop is absolutely skyrocketing and the impending climate crisis is ever-present. There is nothing in the Queen’s Speech to tackle any of that. It is being left to the likes of my constituent Mandy Morgan, who dreamed up the Scottish Pantry Network and has opened nine shops in the past year. The network charges people a £2.50 membership fee for £15-worth of food, and that food is fresh fruit and vegetables and fresh meat and fish. The network is not just for poor people; it was set up for environmental reasons as well and tackles food waste. When people go into the network’s beautiful shops, they do not have to worry that somebody is going to know that they are on their uppers. I pay tribute to Mandy Morgan for everything she has done and to all the volunteers and staff who work for the network. There are, though, troubles ahead for them, because they are struggling to access the food that they need, and an increasing number of people need their help.

Instead of tackling such issues, the Government are attacking people’s rights. We know the old saying about divide and conquer: who do the Government want people out there to blame for all this? As usual, it is those who are already the least powerful and often completely voiceless. This Government thought it was perfectly acceptable to mention, alongside reference to those poor, desperate refugees who are forced to cross the channel in the most perilous of conditions, what they say are plans to help the police to make the streets safer—in the same paragraph of the Queen’s Speech. That is a consciously cynical ploy to conflate the two in people’s minds. It is a deliberate attack on asylum seekers and refugees.

This Tory Government’s shameless propaganda says that anyone who flees persecution and tries to get to safety on these islands is a criminal. And it is working: many people on these islands are doing everything they can to welcome and support refugees—I thank and pay tribute to them, and I thank God for them—but many people repeat the tropes that the Government have so cynically created. It is cynical, deliberate and strategic. We need only to listen back to some of the similarly worded interventions in the last debate on the Nationality and Borders Bill from Government Back Benchers who had never previously shown an interest.

Today, the attacks have moved to those of us who support refugees. I was disgusted to hear the Home Secretary refer to those of us on the Opposition Benches as defenders of “murderers” and “paedophiles”. I understand that it is apparently okay to do that in this place as long as it is not directed at an individual, so I will be writing to her and asking her whether she believes me to be a defender of murderers and paedophiles. I encourage everyone in here to do the same because we deserve an answer.

This Queen’s Speech was primed to reinvigorate the Brexit vote, but perpetuating the myth that Brexit is somehow reclaiming our sovereignty is just ridiculous. Doing it at the cost of trashing our rights is plain scary.

I wish to talk briefly on three of the many Bills that I feel most concerned about in this Queen’s Speech. The first is the Bill of Rights. It is no secret that the Justice Secretary has a long-held disdain for human rights, or, to put it another way, for people having rights. His book, “The Assault on Liberty: What Went Wrong with Rights” is illuminating if not wholly depressing. Let me give one quote from it:

“The spread of rights has become contagious”—

well we can’t have that—

“and, since the Human Rights Act, opened the door to vast new categories of claims, which can be judicially enforced against the government through the courts”.

Let us not forget the footage from the same year, 13 years ago, which saw him look into the camera and say:

“I don’t support the Human Rights Act and I don’t believe in economic and social rights.”

Well, I do, as does my party, which is why human rights are entrenched in Scots law. I thank my lucky stars that we have them, more so now than ever. They make sure that, to some extent, we can all stand shoulder to shoulder in society, that we share some of the same rights of access to justice, and that we can all call out the Government—whether it be this one, the Welsh Government, the Scottish Government, past Labour Governments, future Labour Governments or any public body—when they act in a way that undermines our rights. Who on earth would want to do away with that? These are not some legal concepts out of reach for most; they are entrenched in our modern psyche, and people know that they can rely on them to protect them at their most vulnerable moments, or when they need to face the might of the state. That is what the Tories do not like. They do not want people to know that they can be held to account in the courts, and they do not want to be scrutinised. I predict that, when they are out of office, they will perform a complete U-turn on this.

I do love the positive spin though—the Bill of Rights will defend our freedom of speech. Really? That is just as long as we are not outside this place with a megaphone, or stood at the gates of a fracking site. Our freedom of speech will end right there if Government Members get their way. It is nonsense to imply that the perfectly functioning Human Rights Act has somehow stifled our freedom of speech when it has in fact codified protections for freedom of both speech and assembly under articles 10 and 11 of the European convention on human rights. As with so much legislation forced through this place, there is little evidence to support much of what the Government claim in respect of reform of the Human Rights Act. There is an agenda; there are facts, and then there are Government Ministers determined to bend, manipulate and skew the evidence to fit.

Why should the Government be allowed to dictate who can access justice? That is completely at odds with the rule of law and our international obligations to anyone who seeks refuge on these islands. When will the Government realise that this is not what people want? People are lying under immigration control vans to stop deportations. People are physically running to gather together to protect others from Border Force officers. We all know about Kenmure Street in Pollokshields, but last week, on the day of the council elections, SNP council candidates Marianne Mwiki and now Councillor Simita Kumar, stopped campaigning for themselves and staged their own Kenmure Street protest, along with activists from Edinburgh SNP and hundreds of their fellow citizens from all parties and none, when Border Force vans came looking for someone. We just have to look at the number of emails that have come flooding into our inboxes on the Rwanda plan to know that this is not what our constituents want.

Of obvious concern to anyone in Scotland is the adverse effect that this Bill will have on the devolution settlement. The rights enshrined in the Human Rights Act are at the very core of the settlement and, as Scotland’s Equalities Minister Christina McKelvie MSP said this morning:

“Changes must not be made without the explicit consent of the Scottish Parliament.”

The Scottish Government want to enhance and extend rights protection, but the UK Government want the opposite. What could the solution possibly be? We will no doubt be debating this for many months and, although we may be exhausted with it, we are very much up for that debate. However, I do not understand why anyone would believe this measure will somehow cut our ties with the European courts; rather than our rights being brought home, we will be forced to go to Strasbourg to enforce them. Our human rights should not be embroiled in the Tory Brexit fantasy.

On the Public Order Bill, it is no surprise to see the eleventh-hour amendments to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 that were vehemently voted down by the House of Lords returning in the Queen’s Speech. Is this the way it is going to work now—democratically rejected clauses will be repackaged and grouped together to form next year’s legislation? If the Government can do that after just a few weeks of being told no, what on earth is their argument against Scotland’s right to go to the people and revisit the question on Scotland’s independence after nine long years? They are leaving themselves with no arguments for refusing a section 30 order; that will not stop them refusing of course, but they have no valid arguments. It is one rule for this Tory Government and another for everyone else. It is a brazen thing for the Home Secretary to do. These clauses did not go unnoticed by the public; they sparked outrage and protest during the passage of the policing Act, and rightly so. The Government are deluded if they think that the people who were willing to stand outside this place and risk arrest and imprisonment are going to lie down and accept this Public Order Bill. They are also deluded if they think that those Members on this side of the House and in the other place will roll over and accept defeat.