I rise to speak in favour of Lords amendments 73 and 80.
Like many of my hon. Friends, I marched and protested in opposition to the Iraq war. They were some of the largest and most important protests that we have ever seen. Anyone who attended or saw them would agree they were big, they were noisy and, by their very nature, they caused some disruption. None the less, it was absolutely right that the people were allowed to protest against one of the biggest injustices of our time, even if it was in direct opposition to the policy of the Government. Let us be clear: if protests of this kind, or protests such as those against the poll tax, were to take place today under the measures in the Bill, there would be a real fear that they could be stopped by this Government.
As has been reiterated time and again in this Chamber, the right to peaceful protest, however disruptive it may be to Ministers and Members of Parliament, is one of the fundamental tenets of our democracy. Yet the restrictions that the Government want to impose in the Bill would allow the police to render protests inert, amounting to what is an effective ban. Of course, we have yet to be given any clarity about why the Government are giving themselves such draconian powers, especially when the Government and the police already have ample powers to prevent protests that threaten public order and to take action against those protests they deem disruptive.
It could not be clearer that the powers that the Government want to hand themselves are an extreme overreach, which should leave us all worried about their ability to stifle popular protests against their policies. The reality is that these measures are nothing more than a petty vengeance against protesters by Ministers who are too thin-skinned to accept any criticism. Frankly, they are measures that put the protection of ministerial egos and business interests before the protection of human rights, as part of an intentional journey towards the creation of a Big Brother state that stifles protest and dissent.
Let there be no doubt: this is an extraordinary ideological attack on our civil liberties, with draconian laws, from the undermining of our trade unions to the taking away of our British citizenship without notice, all passed by this Government to curb our freedoms and restrict our rights. That is why this Government must be challenged on every occasion to stop the further erosion of our civil liberties.