Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Of course we are not closing down protest. The right hon. Gentleman is right that people have a fundamental right to dissent, to protest and to make their views known in the public sphere as they do in the private sphere, but, as the House of Lords and the European Court of Human Rights have said, the right to protest is not unqualified, and I am afraid that, in the last couple of years, we have seen protestors using tactics that are massively disruptive to other people’s lives. People just wanting to go about their business have been so frustrated that they have been leaping out of their cars and taking things into their own hands. We have seen protestors running on to the fast lane of motorways, causing danger to themselves and motorists, and distracting police officers from stopping people from being stabbed or burgled in all our neighbourhoods. We have a duty to address that, and the role of the House and that of the police is to strike a balance between competing rights. That is what we do, and that is what we are trying to do with these modest measures.