I declare an interest as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. I return to a point that I made at Second Reading, which is that we are talking here about restrictions on Article 11 rights—the right to freedom of assembly. That is a right that I believe all parties are committed to.
The European Convention on Human Rights sets out the permissible purposes for which a restriction may be placed on the right. It is only those permissible purposes that count. They include, for example, the protection of public health, the protection of other liberty rights and the protection of privacy. But the idea that they include general protection of the public and consumer rights, as the noble Lord, Lord Flight, has suggested—not merely today but on earlier occasions—is mistaken. Consumer rights are extremely important, but they are the creature of statute; they are not fundamental rights. I do not believe—and from letters that the Minister has written, that she believes— that those would constitute a sufficient reason for restricting freedom of assembly.
Freedom of assembly is very precious not just for trade unions but for many other groups, including, as I suggested at Second Reading, churches and other faith groups. We must be extremely careful that, when we start thinking about what is proportionate, we remember that it has to be necessary and proportionate for a permitted purpose and not for any old purpose. As the Minister has already said, administrative convenience would not be a sufficient purpose. I suggest that consumer protection and some generic idea about the public are also not sufficient purposes.
4.30 pm