Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 5:53 pm ar 19 Chwefror 2024.
I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his question. Ministers are very clear that where behaviour on marches crosses the criminal threshold—inciting racial hatred, causing fear of harassment, alarm and distress, terrorism offences or glorifying proscribed organisations—we expect the police to take robust action and to make arrests. They have made about 600 arrests so far. In fact, some brave police officers were injured in the course of trying to make an arrest in London on Saturday.
I echo and strongly endorse my right hon. and learned Friend’s point about Members of Parliament. No Member of Parliament, as a democratically elected representative of the people, should be subject to harassment or intimidation. As he said, some Labour MPs have been, which is completely unacceptable. We have seen the incident at the office of my hon. Friend Mike Freer, which was completely unacceptable—in that case, I believe arrests have been made. And, of course, my right hon. Friend Mr Ellwood suffered a terrible incident at his home address just a few days ago. All that is unacceptable and illegal, and I expect the police not only to protect MPs, but to identify and arrest the culprits afterwards.
In relation to the judge, the judiciary is of course independent. Matters of judicial conduct are subject to investigation by the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office. From the account of the incident that I have heard, and which my right hon. and learned Friend gave, that is the kind of thing that I would expect the JCIO to investigate.