I rise to support Lords amendments 73, 80 and 87, and to remind the House that they are very much in line with the recommendations made by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, when we looked at part 3 of the Bill and reached the conclusion that the restrictions on non-violent protest in the Bill were inconsistent with our rights.
Given the short amount of time, I am going to focus on the noise trigger, because I think that that is the most egregious part of this. A restriction on the right to protest that targets noise strikes at the very heart of why people gather together to protest—to have their voices heard about an issue that is important to them and which they want other people to treat with importance. We noted in the Committee that the larger and better supported a demonstration is, the louder it is likely to be, so restrictions on noise could disproportionately impact on the demonstrations that have the greatest public backing.
Much of the written and oral evidence we received emphasised the centrality of noise to effective protest. For example, Liberty and Big Brother Watch highlighted:
“Protests, by their very nature, are noisy. Noise is also a crucial means of expressing collective solidarity or grief and, quite literally, making voices heard by those in power.”
This was echoed in oral evidence by Zehrah Hasan, the director of Black Protest Legal Support, who said:
“Creating noise at a protest is quite literally a part of people making their voices heard.”
Another witness told us that
“this new trigger, which is noise, is an absolute affront to the right to protest. This noise trigger should not exist for the purposes of imposing any conditions on assemblies and processions. It is essentially an existential threat to the right to protest.”
That is just a flavour of the evidence we heard.
The Minister has referred to the European convention on human rights, but that is intended to provide rights that are “practical and effective”, not “theoretical and illusory”. If the police have discretion to shut down protests because they are noisy, the right to protest will become theoretical and illusory in England and Wales. Thankfully, these laws are not going to apply in Scotland, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) said, many Scots come to London to protest and they will be affected by these laws. I emphasise that, because it was made clear to the Joint Committee on Human Rights that neither the police, nor Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services, requested this noise trigger. They may have requested other changes, but they did not request that. As even Conservative Members have said, this measure is a fundamental threat to the right of freedom of speech and assembly in this country, and as the JCHR said in our report, it should not be in the Bill and it should go.
11.30 pm