My Lords, I suppose that I ought to say thank you. As my noble friend Lady Hamwee said, when amendments come back like this from the Government, you sometimes think that all the time and effort spent in Committee has produced something worth while. Therefore, I am very grateful to the Government: when I saw this particular amendment, I thought that it was a late Christmas present.
It is an odd amendment because it is an odd new clause, including two completely different things. However, both are very welcome. The reference to the rights of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly are extremely useful. With this Bill—and all the fuss this afternoon bemused me a little—I have always been of the view that the public spaces protection order provisions
had the potential to be a greater danger to freedom of speech and assembly and to the civil right to protest and so on than the injunctions for the prevention of nuisance and annoyance. The reason, as the Minister said when he introduced an earlier amendment, is that PSPOs are about territory and areas, and therefore, unless very specific provisions are made, they apply to everybody. Unlike IPNAs, which are injunctions against individual people or groups of people, as I understand it public spaces protection orders, which can last for up to five years and are renewable, would apply to everybody and stop normal activities such as handing out leaflets, parading with banners, making speeches and holding meetings. Therefore, this part of this new clause is extremely useful and valuable and the Government are to be congratulated. I am a little bemused as to why on earth they did not just produce a clause such as this and attach it to IPNAs, as that might have defused a great deal of the fuss earlier today. However, that is for the Government to think about, not me.
The publicity stuff is useful. A lot of this brings together what is already in different bits of the Bill and puts it in one place. The specific provisions are very useful. My amendment is just to query the difference in subsection (4) of the proposed new clause, under the definition of “necessary publicity”,
“in the case of a proposed order or variation, publishing the text of it”,
and,
“in the case of a proposed extension or discharge, publicising the proposal”.
I am not quite sure what the difference is there, and this is to probe that in a minor way. I am grateful for the inclusion of the county councils and parish councils under “the necessary notification”, which is common sense, but sometimes you put forward amendments on these matters and common sense does not always apply. On this occasion it has and again I am very grateful.
My final point is that one of the things that my friend Norman Baker sent to me was a draft of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 (Publication of Public Spaces Protection Orders) Regulations. This point is not exactly in this amendment but perhaps noble Lords will bear with me for two sentences. The regulations set out the instructions to local authorities that where a public spaces protection order has been made it has to be published on the council’s website and the council has to,
“cause to be erected on or adjacent to the land in relation to which the public spaces protection order has been made … such notice … as it considers sufficient to draw the attention of any member of the public using the land to the fact that a public spaces protection has been made and the effect of that order being made”.
It is the same for variations.
Again, this is very welcome. The fact that it will be in regulations is welcome, because councils will not be able to get out of it. If the notices fall into disrepair over time, they will have to replace them and keep the information before the public. I put these amendments forward in Committee, and I am grateful that the Government are taking them up and putting them into a statutory instrument regulations. I thank the Government for this amendment and those in relation
to the community remedy documents, where, as the Minister said, the Government have taken up my suggestions about consulting the local authority. That will be in the Bill. This is all excellent stuff. Thank you very much.