Furore over HMG public order defeats should not distract from other important changes to #PCSCBill made by @UKHouseofLords last night: urgent review into spiking and injections,making misogyny an aggravating factor in sentencing many crimes (as a racial element already is) … /1
… imposing a statutory duty duty of candour on police, and scrapping the Vagrancy Act 1824 which makes it a crime to beg or sleep rough. /2
Those changes will go back to @HouseofCommons, which can accept them, amend them or play us at ping-pong (which they always win if they are sufficiently determined: we always defer in the end to the elected House). /3
But the newly-proposed public order powers, because they were never considered by @HouseofCommons, cannot go back there and will now fall. /4
That is the truly unusual feature of last night’s debate: the late introduction of public order clauses, with very little time to debate them, both fuelled resistance and has the effect that @UKHouseofLords veto of them is final. /5 ends
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