That sums up the balancing exercise that the Government are drawing on the advice of the independent police inspectorate. The Bill does not stop the freedom to demonstrate; it balances it with the rights and liberties of others. The existing laws are 35 years old. We want to update them and also implement the recommendations of the independent Law Commission.
It will continue to be the case that the police attach conditions to only a small proportion of protests. To put that in context, in a three-month period earlier this year, the assessment of the National Police Chiefs’ Council was that of more than 2,500 protests, no more than a dozen had conditions attached to them: 12 out of 2,500.