Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (Designated Area) Order 2005 

In view of the extremely thorough opening speech of the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, I can be relatively brief. We have two concerns about this order. It goes well beyond what we had in mind when the House agreed to the legislation; and in our view it infringes both Article 10 and Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In Committee in another place, the honourable Caroline Flint, the Home Office Minister as she then was, said that,"““the Government intend to lay an order with a precise area to be covered and we intend to consult the Metropolitan Police. It will cover the area where the demonstrations will disrupt the work of Parliament and hinder access to the House. Parliament could mean Millbank, 1 Parliament Street or the Norman Shaw buildings. We have to map out the buildings of Parliament that would be affected. Unfortunately, one kilometre may be excessive, but 100 or 250 metres might not incorporate some of those other buildings””.—[Official Report, Commons, 7/2/05; col. 1293.]" So, as I understand it, the aim of the law is to prevent disruption to the work of Parliament and access to the House. It is emphatically not to protect the executive offices of government; that is, Whitehall. That would go beyond the scope of the legislation. Of course, if the Government wish to provide special provisions to protect Whitehall, it is open to them to introduce legislation to do that. But it is not appropriate for the Government to use this order as an excuse to extend the scope of the legislation beyond that which was clearly intended in the primary Act. One should not be surprised to find that the Government are seeking to extend the order in this way. Throughout their time in office, they have constantly confused the Government with Parliament, the Executive with the legislature. Quite often, one could be forgiven for thinking that the Government believe that the Executive is effectively the Parliament, so large has been their majority. So surprise is not something that greets this legislation on my part, rather it is despair. The second point we raise concerns Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. I am not sure of the Government’s position here. Are they claiming that they have a derogation in relation to the human rights legislation with respect to Articles 10 and 11? If they are not, they must be in danger of being in breach of them. Interferences with rights to expression and assembly must, as the Government well know, be proportionate and in pursuit of a legitimate aim, such as the prevention of disorder. They must also be accompanied by reasonable safeguards to exclude arbitrariness of application. I would suggest to the Government that they are in real danger of breaching these two articles, given the scope of the order before us.