My Lords, the government amendments in this group flow from the debates we have had in Committee about the consultation requirements attached to the making of a public spaces protection order and the preparation of the community remedy document. In responding to the points raised in Committee, particularly by my noble friend Lord Greaves, we have sought to strike a balance between the need to ensure that appropriate consultation takes place, while avoiding the imposition of unnecessary bureaucratic burdens on local authorities, the police or police and crime commissioners.
In relation to public spaces protection orders, the key amendment is Amendment 54, which brings together and augments the consultation and notification requirements already provided for in Chapter 2 of Part 4 of the Bill. The key additions are the requirement to consult with the owner or occupier of the relevant land, so far as it is reasonably practical to do so, and to notify any county council, parish council or community council. These requirements are in addition to the existing duties to publish the proposed text of an order before it is made or varied, and to consult the chief officer of police, the local policing body and any community representatives whom the local authority thinks it appropriate to consult.
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We have already debated, in an earlier group of amendments, the other new duty imposed on the local authority by Amendment 54—namely, to have particular regard to the rights of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly set out in Articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR, so I will not go over that ground again.
Amendments 48, 49 and 50 are consequential upon Amendment 54 and simply strip out the existing consultation requirements, which are now brought together in the new clause.
Amendments 81 and 83 similarly augment the consultation requirements in relation to the community remedy document. In Committee, I undertook to consider an amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Greaves which sought to provide that local authorities should be consulted in the drawing up of the community remedy document. While we would have expected local authorities to be consulted by the police and crime commissioner as part of their public consultation, we see merit in making this explicit in the Bill. As my noble friend pointed out, local authorities will often be directly involved in supervising the actions included as community remedies, so it is right for them to be consulted as a matter of course. These amendments accordingly place a statutory duty on the police and crime commissioner to consult the local authorities in the police force area on the actions that it would be suitable to include in the community remedy document.
I am grateful to my noble friend for drawing our attention to these matters and I commend this set of amendments to the House.